Thangmar

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Thangmar" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Thangmar" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (July 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (June 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Thangmar (or Thankmar) (c.950- c.1003) was a German historian.^[1]

His first appearance in history is as the head of the cathedral school at Hildesheim; at a later date he became dean of the Hildesheim Cathedral, and being at the same time notary and librarian his position was a very important one.^[1] Thangmar was distinguished both as a scholar and a statesman; he taught several bishops including Bernward of Hildesheim, Meinwerk of Paderborn, and Benno of Meissen, as well as the Emperor Henry II. ^[1] He exercised great influence over Bernward of Hildesheim, and a large part of the affairs under episcopal control were directed by him.

In 1000 he accompanied Bernward to Rome, and was sent several times to the imperial court as the representative of the bishop to settle important matters, being highly esteemed by Emperor Otto III.

After the death of Bernward in 1022 he wrote an account of the active and varied life of the bishop, a biography for which he had already gathered the material and of which he had probably written the first ten chapters during the years 1008–13. He had been an eye-witness of many of the events he relates and had taken as active part in all important measures. As he says himself, Bernward trusted him as a child does its father. Consequently, his Vita Bernwardi is one of the finest biographical productions of the Middle Ages, and is also one of the most valuable authorities for an important period of German history.

He displays much affection for the dead bishop, and has written a plain and simple narrative, unrhetorical and truthful. It is only in the account of the dispute between the Archbishops of Hildesheim and Mainz as to the right of jurisdiction over Gandesheim that Thangmar appears at times to be a partisan of Bernward. Editions:

• Mon. Germ. Hist.: Scriptores, IV, 757-782;
• Migne, Patrologia Latina, CXL, 393–436.

The life has been edited in German by Hüffer (Berlin, 1857), and by Wattenbach (Leipzig, 1892).

• Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, I (Berlin, 1893), 346–349;
• Christoph Beelte, Thangmar, sein Leben u. Beurteilung seiner Vita Bernwardi (Hildesheim, 1891)

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Thangmar". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.