Blessed Notker ‘the Stammerer,’ Pray For Us

Blessed Notker “the Stammerer” was a ninth-century author, musician and poet of the Abbey of St. Gall

Blessed Notker the Stammerer
Blessed Notker the Stammerer (photo: Register Files / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain)

“God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.” (1 Corinthians 1:28)

A Christian is supposed to intimately and intuitively understand that no human being is worthless ― no one should be thrown away. To use a modern turn of phrase, the Church is a “big tent.” That is, it takes all sorts to make God’s Heavenly Kingdom. 

Blessed Notker “the Stammerer” (c. 840-April 6, 912) was an author, musician and poet of St. Gall Abbey ― a famous center of learning and culture in medieval Switzerland. He was said to have been afflicted with several speech impediments including stuttering. Thus, he serves as an inspiration to us all ― whether clearly-spoken, tongue-tied, periodically feeling stymied, censored or otherwise simply ignored.

Perhaps I just like the pre-"Age of Political Correctness" moniker this saint has been given. Blessed Notker stammered, thus, he's known to us as Blessed Notker "the Stammerer," which is translated directly from the Latin: Notcerus Balbulus.

Ekkehard IV, a biographer of several of the monks of Saint Gall monastery, wrote that Blessed Notker was “delicate of body but not of mind, stuttering of tongue but not of intellect, pushing boldly forward in things Divine, a vessel of the Holy Spirit without equal in his time.”

In his iconography, he's often depicted as holding a broken rod which he uses to strike at the Devil. He is the patron saint of musicians and those afflicted with speech impediments …which only makes sense.

Notker was born to a distinguished family in Jonschwil on the River Thur, south of Wil, in the modern canton of St. Gall in Switzerland. He studied with Tuotilo at St. Gall's monastic school and was taught by Iso of St. Gallen, the Irish monk Moengall and Grimald von Weissenburg, the Abbot of St. Gall from 841 to 872.

He became a monk and initially served as the abbey's librarian (890) and later as its guestmaster (892–894). Blessed Notker was a pupil of Alcuin and, soon afterwards, served his community as a professor. It was during this period that Blessed Notker developed his writing skills and became an accomplished poet, author, researcher and organist. He's best known for the liturgical music he created for the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.

Blessed Notker wrote De Carolo Magno, a two-volume set of anecdotes and accolades about the Emperor Charlemagne, as a present for Charles the Fat, the monarch's great-grandson, during a visit to the Abbey of St. Gall in 883. Though the book isn't considered sufficiently fact-checked by modern scholars, Blessed Notiker does reference the tale of the nine rings of the Avar (i.e., Hungarian) stronghold which inspired ultimately J.R.R. Tolkien to write his Lord of the Rings legendarium.

He also compiled an important martyrology, a listing of saints and their holy deeds and characters. He helped modern researchers disprove a prophetic utterance said to have come from the Irish monk St. Columba. Apparently, he prophesized, or perhaps was only said to have prophesized, the destruction of an Italian port city. Unfortunately, or should I say, fortunately, there is no record of such a conflagration. Thus, we modern Christians are indebted to Blessed Notker for his due diligence.

Blessed Notker wrote his Liber Hymnorum sometime between 881 and 887. It's considered his magnum opus. It's a collection of musical sequences ― mnemonic poems meant to remind a monastic choir of the series of pitches sung during a melisma in plainchant, especially in the Alleluia ― which the author called "hymns." They were used during Mass and choir recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours. Blessed Notker personally contributed more than 50 sequences to the collection.

Dr. Caroline Bowen, an Australian speech-language pathologist, has written about Blessed Notker. She explains that the musical sequences were derived from the monastic singing tradition of prolonging the last syllable in the Alleluia (i.e., Allelu-iaaaaaaa) of the Gradual ― the short prayer at the Mass between the Epistle and the Gospel.) This long, variegated stretching out of the final sound is called a jubilus, meaning "joyousness." It might have been originally a means of setting a tempo or even timing the Mass itself. Though Blessed Notker didn't invent the sequence, he was successful in introducing it throughout German-speaking monasteries and churches. (Next time your celebrant or choirmaster sings out this complex, multisyllabic Alleluia just before the Gospel, or the last line of the Salve Regina, pause to thank Blessed Notker.)

Bowen has suggested in her writings that Blessed Notker created these sequences as a form of early medieval speech therapy which is a tantalizing idea as the drawing out of sounds is an essential part of modern speech therapy. The Church has always been on the forefront in terms of scientific and pedagogic research. Louis Braille, the inventor of the Braille writing system and Valentin Haüy, an early advocate for the blind, were both devout Catholics. Haüy, in fact, was a Premonstratensian seminarian but chose to leave before being ordained. So it's not inconceivable that Bowen is correct. 

There are dozens of saints and beati who are excellent patrons for those who feel religious voices in our nation are being trounced, but none as poignant and clear as Blessed Notker "the Stammerer." He had incredible intellectual and artistic gifts that, despite his physical limitations, were brought to its fullest flower by the Church. 

Blessed Notker “the Stammerer,” ora pro nobis. Allelu-iaaaaaaa! Allelu-iaaaaaaa! Alle―lu―iaaaaaaa!