Abbo, Cernuus

, a monk of St. Germain-des-Pres, was the author of a poetical relation of the siege of Paris by the Normans and Danes towards the end of the 9th century. He was himself of Normandy, and an eye-witness; and if not eminent as a poet, is at least a faithful and minute historian. His poem consists of twelve hundred verses, in two books, and has been admitted into Pithou’s and Duchesne’s collections; but a more correct edition, with notes, and a French translation, may be seen in the “Nouvelles Annales de Paris,” published by D. Toussaint Duplessis, a Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, 1753, 4to. There are also “Five select Sermons” under his name in vol. IX. of D’Acheri’s Spicilegium; and in vol. V. Bibl. P. P. Colon. 1618, is “Abbonis Epistola ad Desiderium episc.” There was originally a third book to his History of the siege, addressed “to the Clergy,” which his editors omitted as having no connexion with the history.³