Helmold

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Helmold (ca. 1125 - after 1177), a historian of the 12th century, was a priest at Bosau near Plön. He was a friend of the two bishops of Oldenburg in Holstein, Vicelinus (d. 1154) and Gerold (d. 1163), who did much to Christianize the Slavs.

At Bishop Gerold's instigation Helmold wrote his Chronica Slavorum, a history of the conquest and conversion of the Elbe Slavonic countries from the time of Charlemagne. The Duke of Saxony, Henry the Lion, was Helmold's patron. The chronicle was continued down to 1209 by Abbot Arnold of Lübeck.

[edit] References

• The Chronica were first edited by Siegmund Schorkel (Frankfort am Main, 1556). The best edition is by JM Lappenberg in Monumenta Germaniae hist. scriptores, xxi. (1869).
• For critical works on the Chronica see August Potthast, Bibliotheca hist. medaevius. Helmoldus.
• Helmold. Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved on February 18, 2007.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.