Another of the Fulda scholars contemporary with those named above, was Otfried, a monk of Weissemburg, who entered with singular ardour into the study of the Tudesque dialect. Rabanus himself devoted much attention to this subject, and composed a Latin and German glossary on the books of Scripture, together with some other etymological works, among which is a curious treatise on the origin of languages. Otfried took up his master’s favourite pursuits with great warmth, and the completion of Charlemagne’s German grammar is thought to be in reality his work, though generally assigned to Rabanus. On retiring to his own monastery, where he was charged with the direction of the school, he continued to make the improvement of his native language the chief object of his study. A noble zeal prompted him to produce something in the vernacular idiom which should take the place of those profane songs, often of heathen origin, which had hitherto been the only production of the German muse. Encouraged by a certain noble lady named Judith, to whom he confided his ideas, he conceived the plan of rendering into Tudesque verse the most remarkable passages from the Life of Our Lord, which he chose so happily, and wove together with so skilful a hand, that his work may be regarded as a Harmony of the Gospel narrative. It was accompanied with four dedicatory epistles, in one of which, addressed to Luitbert, Archbishop of Mentz, he complains of the neglect with which the Franks have hitherto treated their own language. Prudentius, Juvencus, and other Latin writers had written the Acts of the Lord in Latin verse, wherefore he now desired to attempt the same in his mother tongue. “I wish,” he says, “to write the Gospels, the history of our salvation, in the Frankish tongue. Now, therefore, let all men of good-will rejoice, and let those of the Frankish tongue also rejoice, and be glad, since we have lived to celebrate the praises of Christ in the language of our fathers.” The other epistles were addressed to the Emperor Louis, and to some of the monks of St. Gall, who were celebrated for the labour which they bestowed on the cultivation of the Tudesque dialect, and could therefore appreciate Otfried’s work at its full value. It had the effect which he anticipated; his verses became familiar in the mouths of those who had hitherto been acquainted only with the rude songs of their pagan ancestors, and dispelled much of the prejudice which existed against the use of the barbarous dialects for the purpose of religious instruction. And in 847, three months after Rabanus was raised to the see of Mentz, a decree was published by the provincial council, requiring every bishop to provide himself with homilies for the instruction of the people, translated out of Latin into Tudesque or Romanesque (as the Rustic Latin was sometimes called), that they might be understood by rude and ignorant persons.