THIETMAR (DIETMAR or DITHMAR) OF

See also:

• MERSEBURG

MERSEBURG (975-1018)  , German chronicler, was a son of Siegfried, count of Walbeck, and was related to the family of the emperor Otto the Great . Born on the 25th of July 975 he was educated at Quedlinburg and at Magdeburg and became provost of Walbeck in 1002 and bishop of Merseburg seven years later . He took some part in the political events of the time; in 994 he was a hostage in the hands of the Northmen, and he was not unfamiliar with the actualities of war . He died on the 1st of December 1or8 . Thietmar wrote a Chronicon in eight books, which deals with the period between 908 and Ioi8 . For the earlier part he used Widukind's Res gestae Saxonicae, the Annales Quedlinburgenses and other sources; the latter part is the result of personal know-ledge . It is rough in form and the author shows no power of discriminating between important and unimportant events; yet the chronicle is an excellent authority for the history of Saxony during the reigns of the emperors Otto III. and Henry II . No kind of information is excluded, but the fullest details refer to the bishopric of Merseburg and to the wars against the Wends and the Poles . The original manuscript of the work is preserved at Dresden and has been published in facsimile by L . Schmidt (Dresden, 1905) . It has been edited by J . M .

Lappenberg in Band III. of the Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores; and by F . Kurze (Han-over, 1889) ; and has been translated into German by J . Laurent (new ed. revised by W . Wattenbach, Leipzig, 1892) . See F . Kurze, Bischof Thietmar von Merseburg and seine Chronik (Halle, 1890) ; and W . Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsguellen, Band II . (Berlin, 1904) .