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Erchempert

monk, historian, and Latin poet, form Langobardia Minor

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 21, 2025
Entity authorityQ749487
Source-derived summary

Erchempert (Latin: Erchempertus; fl. 888–889) was a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of Monte Cassino in Italy in the final quarter of the ninth century. He chronicled a history of the Lombard Principality of Benevento, in the Langobardia Minor, giving an especially vivid account of the violence in southern Langobardia. Beginning with Duke Arechis II (758–787) and the Carolingian conquest of Benevento, his history, titled the Historia Langobardorum Beneventanorum degentium (The History of the Lombards living in Benevento), stops abruptly in the winter of 888–889. Just one medieval manuscript of this text survives, from the early fourteenth century.

Editions

Erchempertus. Georg Waitz, ed. (1878). Historia Langobardorum Beneventanorum (in Latin). In Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Erchempert” as monk, historian, and Latin poet, form Langobardia Minor. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1878—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 0900-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Erchempert, monk and historian can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as monk, historian, and Latin poet, form Langobardia Minor. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 21, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q749487. VIAF identifies the subject as 220069970. The Library of Congress control number is nr92014931. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1878.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Erchempert”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Erchempert primary sources, Erchempert archive and Erchempert research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Erchempert”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Erchempert” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.