HEIMO OF MICHELSBERG

Ecclesiastical chronicler; d. Abbey of Michelsberg, Bamberg, Germany, July 3, 1138. He was an augustinian canon of the church of St. Jakob in Bamberg from 1108 and is to be associated with the historical and chronological studies at Michelsberg during the first half of the 12th century. Among his teachers at Michelsberg he named frutolf, Dudo, and the priest Burchard, to whom he dedicated his De decursu temporum ab origine mundi (c. 1135). Ebo related in his Vita Ottonis, written between 1151 and 1159, that Heimo attributed his extraordinary knowledge of chronology and his skill in reckoning the Church calendar and determining the dates of Easter to another teacher, the Spanish Bishop Bernard, who resided at Michelsberg from 1122 to 1155. Heimo classified the contents of De decursu temporum into seven divisions: (1–4) history of the world from Creation to his own day; (5) coordination of the years of the popes and the leaders of the Romans; (6) man's slavery since Adam and Eve's disobedience; (7) proposal of a testament for Christian liberty and the brotherhood of man, to be entered into by virtue of the Precious Blood and confirmed by the glorious Resurrection of Christ. Furthermore Heimo added to the work a table of the Paschal cycles up to 1595. The De decursu temporum may not possess real historical merit, but its contents present much material for the researcher in Church history.

Bibliography: p. jaffÉ, ed., Bibliotheca rerum Germanicarum, 6 v. (Berlin 1864–73), v.5 Monumenta Bambergensia, ed. e. duemmler, 537–552, 619–620. Patrologia Latina, ed. j. p. migne, 217 v., indexes 4 v. (Paris 1878–90) 173:1363–68. Monumenta Germaniae Historica : Scriptores (Berlin 1826–) 10:1–4. r. ceillier, Histoire générale des auteurs sacrés et ecclésiastiques, 24 v. (Paris 1729–83) 14.1:182. a. potthast, Bibliotheca hitorica medii aevi (2d ed. 1896; repr. Graz 1954) 2:574. m. manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, 3 v. (Munich 1911–31) 3:361–363, 320, 351, 354, 598. w. wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter. Deutsche Kaiserzeit, ed. r. holtzmann (3d ed. Tübingen 1948; repr. of 2d ed. 1938–43) 1.3:485, 495.

[m. j. kishpaugh]