ABSTRACT
Despite his great significance as a chronicler of the Archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen as well as an essential, if not always fully reliable, source of information with regard to the northern fringes of the European continent, Adam of Bremen remains a rather shadowy figure, lurking somewhere on the margins of his Gesta. One of the very few hints given in his work is the enigmatic phrase proselytus et advena, an evident borrowing from Saint Jerome’s translation of the Books of Tobit (1:7) and/or Ezekiel (14:7). On the one hand, it may be treated as a semi-formulaic expression through which the chronicler wishes to emphasise his not being a native of Bremen. On the other, though, the biblical significance of these two words being somewhat broader (in isolation as well as in combination), it cannot be ruled out that Adam of Bremen actually alludes to some private experience of his, spiritual, political, or other.
