has now been proved to have originated elsewhere about the same time and to have been the work of unknown writers belonging to the same intellectual milieu. This work is celebrated chiefly for an essay on a new form of notation described today as Daseian notation and its readable transmission of the first record of Western polyphonic music. Compositions A few sacred compositions can be somewhat securely attributed to Hucbald, some are found in the Winchester Troper and Sarum antiphoner. Literary sources suggest that he wrote many other now lost works. Other works In addition to his musical works, Hucbald also wrote literary poetry intended to be read rather than sung. Two poems in classical Latin hexameters survive. One is the remarkable Ecloga de calvis, a poem of 146 lines in praise of baldness, in which every word begins with the letter C (the first letter in the word calvus, "bald"). The catalogue of illustrious bald men includes kings, generals, poets, doctors, and even the apostle Paul. Although the poem was probably written during the reign of Charles the Bald, there is no evidence to support the common assumption that it was dedicated to him, and a separate 54-line prefatory poem that precedes the work in the manuscripts explicitly dedicates it to Hatto, the archbishop of Mainz. The Ecloga de calvis circulated widely during the Renaissance: at least six printed editions are known from the first half of the 16th century, and Erasmus in one of his dialogues recommends recitation of its alliterative lines as a cure for stuttering. The other hexameter work, De diebus Aegyptiacis, is a short astrological poem listing the days of ill omen in each month of the year. Hucbald also wrote a number of prose saint's lives. References Sources (In the series Monumenta Germaniae Historica.) Further reading External links musicologie.org. List of manuscripts, editions, and bibliography. Documenta Catholica Omnia. PDFs of Latin texts of Hucbald's works from Migne, Patrologia latina vol. 132. MGH Poetae 4,1. Digital version of P. von Winterfeld, Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini IV.1 from the DigitalMGH project. Latin texts of the hexameter poems De calvis and De diebus Aegyptiacis, together with two hymns in honor of St Theoderic. Codex 169(468) from the Abbey library of Saint Gall, including Hucbald's Musica 9th-century births 930 deaths Year of birth unknown Frankish Benedictines Christian hagiographers Dutch music theorists Tonaries Writers from the Carolingian Empire Carolingian