The allegorical Latin Bible Poem (circa 1095) of Eupolemius deserves more attention than it has been given, and it merits a place in German cultural and literary history. For the entire Carolingian and Ottonian periods in Germany, down to the first decades of the twelfth century, the dominant written and literary language was Latin, with German only gradually making its presence felt as a means of literary expression. Otfried von Weißenburg's Evangelienbuch (Gospel Book, between 863 and 871) is a self-conscious effort, and Notker III of Saint Gall (Notker Labeo) is defensive about his use of German when he writes to Hugo of Sion on the subject of his own work. For a long time German literary histories of the early period included every scrap of material in the vernacular, even virtually incomprehensible fragments; material in Latin was included only when it was supposed that a German original lay...