Commonitorium (Orientius)

The Commonitorium (Classical Latin: [kɔmmɔnɪˈtoːrɪ.ũː], Ecclesiastical Latin: [kommoniˈtori.um])^{[nb 1]} is a Latin poem composed by the Christian bishop Orientius around AD 430. Written in elegiac couplets, the Commonitorium is made up of 1036 verses and has traditionally been divided into two books (although there is reason to believe that the division is arbitrary). The poem is hortatory and didactic in nature, describing the way for the reader to attain salvation, with warnings about the evils of sin.

The Commonitorium was rediscovered near the turn of the seventeenth century at Anchin Abbey, and the editio princeps of the poem was published in 1600 by Martin Delrio. This version, however, lacked the second book, which was only discovered in 1791; the first complete edition of the poem was then published in 1700 by Edmond Martène. The poem has received qualified praise, with Mildred Dolores Tobin—who wrote a commentary on the poem in 1945—arguing that while it was not of the same quality as the poems of the Golden Age writers, it is a better work than other contemporary poems.

Cite error: There are <ref group=nb> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=nb}} template (see the help page).