In Fulda dogma sacrum didici: Hrabanus Maurus, and the Anglo-Saxon Exegetical Tradition

Founded in the mid-eighth century by the Anglo-Saxon missionary and grammarian Boniface, the school of Fulda emerged – under the leadership of Hrabanus Maurus, first as headmaster and later as abbot – as one of the foremost intellectual centres of the Carolingian era. Building on the legacy of both Boniface and Alcuin, Fulda distinguished itself through the sustained cultivation of the Anglo-Saxon exegetical tradition. The pedagogical treatises of Hrabanus, and especially his extensive corpus of biblical commentaries offer a privileged window into the distinctive exegetical perspective developed at the monastery. This article seeks, first, to reconstruct the origins and early evolution of the school of Fulda through contemporary documentary sources that attest to its Anglo-Saxon character; and second, to identify the key features of Hrabanus Maurus’s exegetical method and theological perspective, particularly in comparison with those of other Carolingian authors.