Embrico of Mainz (Embricho Moguntinus) is the author of the Vita Mahumeti, a Latin biography of Muhammad. The text is in rhyming leonine hexameters, extending to 1,148 lines. It was modelled on the verse hagiography of contemporaries such as Hildebert of Le Mans. It was most likely written between 1072 and 1090. The author of the Vita has been identified with the future provost of Mainz Cathedral, Embricho II. [1]
Embrico's text is roughly contemporary with the Dei gesta per Francos by Guibert of Nogent. Both texts are in the tradition of the Chronographia of Theophanes the Confessor, including the account of Muhammad's epilepsy and his body being eaten by pigs after his death. [2]
Boniface, OSB was an English Benedictine monk and leading figure in the Anglo-Saxon mission to the Germanic parts of Francia during the eighth century. He organised significant foundations of the church in Germany and was made bishop of Mainz by Pope Gregory III. He was martyred in Frisia in 754, along with 52 others, and his remains were returned to Fulda, where they rest in a sarcophagus which remains a site of Christian pilgrimage.
Stephen of Ripon was the author of the eighth-century hagiographic text Vita Sancti Wilfrithi. Other names once traditionally attributed to him are Eddius Stephanus or Æddi Stephanus, but these names are no longer preferred or accepted by historians today; modern usage tends to favour "Stephen".
A hagiography is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might consist of a biography or vita, a description of the saint's deeds or miracles, an account of the saint's martyrdom, or be a combination of these.
Porphyrius was bishop of Gaza from 395 to 420, known, from the account in his Life, for Christianizing the recalcitrant pagan city of Gaza, and demolishing its temples.
Lambert of Hersfeld was a medieval chronicler. His work represents a major source for the history of the German kingdom of Henry IV and the incipient Investiture Controversy in the eleventh century.
Adso of Montier-en-Der was abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Montier-en-Der in France, and died on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Biographical information on Adso comes mainly from one single source and has come under question, but the traditional biography depicts him as an abbot who enacted important monastic reform, as a scholar, and as a writer of five hagiographies. His best-known work was a biography of Antichrist, titled "De ortu et tempore Antichristi", which combined exegetical and Sibylline lore. This letter became one of the best-known medieval descriptions of Antichrist, copied many times and of great influence on all later apocalyptic tradition, in part because, rather than as an exegesis of apocalyptic texts, he chose to describe Antichrist in the style of a hagiography.
Wulfstan the Cantor, also known as Wulfstan of Winchester, was an Anglo-Saxon monk of the Old Minster, Winchester. He was also a writer, musician, composer and scribe. Wulfstan is most famous for his hagiographic work Vita S. Aethelwoldi.
A number of biographies of Muhammad were written in Latin during the 9th to 13th centuries.
Thomas of Cantimpré was a Flemish Catholic medieval writer, preacher, theologian and a friar belonging to the Dominican Order. He is best known for his encyclopedic work on nature De natura rerum, for the moral text Bonum universale de Apibus and for his hagiographical writings.
Ludolph of Saxony, also known as Ludolphus de Saxonia and Ludolph the Carthusian, was a German Roman Catholic theologian of the fourteenth century.
Rudolf of Fulda was a Benedictine monk during the Carolingian period in the 9th century. Rudolf was active at Fulda Abbey in the present-day German state of Hesse. He was one of the most distinguished scholars of his time. Many of his works have been lost. However, his Annals of Fulda and Life of St. Leoba survive.
Victor Vitensis was an African bishop of the Province of Byzacena. His importance rests on his Historia persecutionis Africanae Provinciae, temporibus Genserici et Hunirici regum Wandalorum.
Goscelin of Saint-Bertin was a Benedictine hagiographical writer. He was a Fleming or Brabantian by birth and became a monk of St Bertin's at Saint-Omer before travelling to England to take up a position in the household of Herman, Bishop of Ramsbury in Wiltshire (1058–78). During his time in England, he stayed at many monasteries and wherever he went collected materials for his numerous hagiographies of English saints.
Giorgi Merchule was a 10th-century Georgian monk, calligrapher and writer who authored "The Vita of Grigol Khandzteli", a hagiographic novel dealing with the life of the prominent Georgian churchman St. Grigol Khandzteli (759-861).
The Vita Ædwardi Regis qui apud Westmonasterium Requiescit or simply Vita Ædwardi Regis is a Latin biography of King Edward the Confessor completed by an anonymous author c. 1067 and suspected of having been commissioned by Queen Edith, Edward's wife. Due to insecure dating and authorship, the reference to a "queen" in the prologue, however, may just as well refer to Queen Matilda. It survives in one manuscript, dated c. 1100, now in the British Library. The author is unknown, but was a servant of the queen and probably a Fleming. The most likely candidates are Goscelin and Folcard, monks of St Bertin Abbey in St Omer.
Bilihildis was a Frankish noblewoman, remembered as the founder and abbess of the monastery of Altmünster near Mainz, and venerated locally as a saint, on Nov. 27.
The County of Diez was a county of the Holy Roman Empire, centred on the Grafenschloss at Diez in Lahngau. The county is first attested in 1073 and seems to have been created from the territory of the Conradine dynasty after they relocated to Swabia. The Counts rose to prominence in the second half of the twelfth century as close partisans of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. During this period, it was known as the "Golden County".
The Vita Machometi is a Latin biography of Muḥammad written by a certain Adelphus in the early to mid-12th century. Nothing is known of the author but what he reveals about himself in the Vita. This includes that he had heard the Muslim call to prayer and had conversed with a Greek about Islam while staying in Antioch on a return trip from Jerusalem. Taken together, these facts suggest that he may have been a participant in the First Crusade. He seems to have had a biblical and classical education. He may have been a Benedictine abbot.
The Vita Mahometi is a short Latin biography of Muḥammad composed in 1221–1222. It is preserved in a single manuscript, now códice 10 in the church of Santa María la Mayor in Uncastillo. It was probably composed in the same area in the north of Aragon. Its author is not named in the manuscript, but it may have been written by the same author as the work that precedes it, the Tractatus contra Iudaeos. He introduces himself as a Jewish convert to Christianity who took the name Peter.
Where Wicked Muhammad Came From is an anonymous Latin biography of Muhammad from the late 13th century. Although it contains some authentic Islamic elements, it consists mostly of legendary material or reworkings intended to ridicule and denounce Islam and its founder.