Sedulius Scottus

Sedulius Scottus (flourished ad 848—disappeared 860/874?) was a poet and scholar who was part of a group of Irish savants at Liège. His poems, mostly in classical Latin metres, often praised his protector, Bishop Hartgar of Liège. His ingenious elegy on the death of Hartgar’s ram culminates in a bold comparison of the “martyred” ram with the Lamb of God. Some of his verse foreshadows the later songs of the goliards (wandering students and clerics). More abstract poetry, alternating with prose, appears in the treatise De rectoribus Christianis (“On Christian Rulers”), one of the earliest of the medieval texts written as “mirrors for princes,” or instructions on governing. In this treatise, Sedulius argues that the king, as vicar of God, should exercise absolute authority over prelates as well as subjects. Sedulius was interested in the Greek text of the Bible and wrote several biblical commentaries.