John Canaparius
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John Canaparius (Jan Kanaperiusz) was a Benedictine monk at Aventine monastery in Rome. It had long been assumed that in the year 999 he wrote the first 'Vita Saint Adalberti', or 'Life of St. Adalbert of Prague' just two years after Adalbert's death.
Adalbert was sent by the pope to convert pogan Prussians to Christianity and had come to Prussia apparently taking the route along the Vistula river to reach the Baltic Sea at the later city of Gdańsk. A small trading and fishing settlement, recorded by Canaparius as "urb-Gyddanyzc".
It is however now assumed by Johannes Fried, that the 'Vita' was not written by Canaparius, but was written down in Liège, with the oldest traceable version having been at the imperial Adalbert shrine at Aachen. Bishop Notger of Liège, a hagiographer himself, apparently had knowledge of the earlier handwritten Vita from Aachen. The imperial court at Aachen had in 997 assembled immediately upon receiving word of Adalbert's death and had thereupon planning the upcoming events.