WIDUKIND, Saxon historian, was the author of Res gestae Saxonicae. He was a monk at the Benedictine abbey of Corvey, and he died about 1004. His Res gestae Saxonicae, dedicated to Matilda, abbess of Quedlinburg, who was a daughter of Otto the Great, is divided into three books, and the greater part of it was undoubtedly written during the lifetime of the emperor, probably about 968. Starting with the origin of the Saxons, the history comes down to the death of Otto in 997. Many quotations from the Vulgate are found in his writings, and there are traces of a knowledge of Virgil, Ovid and other Roman poets. The earlier part of his work is taken from tradition, but he wrote on contem porary events as one familiar with court life and the events of the day.
The best edition of the Res gestae is that edited by G. Waitz in the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores, Band iii. (Hanover and Berlin, 1826). A good edition published at Hanover and Leipzig in 1904 contains an introduction by K. A. Kehr.