EINSIEDELN
367
EINSIEDELN
Einhard charge of his great pubUc buildings, e. g. the
construction of the Aachen cathedral and the palaces
of Aachen and Ingelheim, for which reason he was
known in court circles as Beseleel, after the builder of
the tabernacle (Ex., xxi). Charlemagne also availed
himself of Einhard's tact and prudence to send him on
various diplomatic missions. Thus, in 802 he placed in
his hands the negotiations for the exchange of distin-
guished Saxon hostages, and in 806 he was dispatched
to Rome to obtain papal approbation for the partition
of the empire, which the emperor had just decided
upon.
During the reign of Louis the Pious he retained his position of trust, and proved a faithful counsellor to Louis's son, Lothair. Unsuccessful, however, in his attempts to settle the contests for the crown which had been stirred up by Empress Judith, and unable to bring about a lasting reconciliation between Louis and his sons, Einhard, in 830, withdrew to Miihlheim (Mulinheim) on the Main, which he had been granted as early as 815, together with other estates, as a mark of imperial favour. He transferred thither the relics of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter, and called the place Seligenstadt. Moreover, between 831 and 834 he established here a Benedictine abbey, where, after the death of his wife, Emma (or Imma), sister of Bishop Bernhar of Worms (not daughter of Charlemagne), he spent the rest of his life as abbot. It is not certain whether he was ordained priest. His epitaph was written by Rabanus Maurus.
The most important of Einhard's works is the "Vita Caroli Magni" (in " Mon. Germ. Hist.: Script.", II; printed separately, 4th ed., Hanover, 1880; also in Jaff6, "Bibliotheca rerum germanicarum", IV; Germ. tr. by Abel, 3rd ed., BerUn, 1S93, in " Geschichts- schreiber der deutschen \'orzeit"). This, the best biography of the whole period of the Middle Ages, written in close imitation of Suetonius, particularly his "Vita Augusti", shows the emperor from the standpoint of the most intimate personal acquaintance with all sides of his character, and with a genuine attempt at truth of portrayal. The diction is in general elegant, though not polished. The annals of the Carlovingian Empire, which have been handed down as Einhard's (ed. Kurze, 1895), are, in their present form, older materials worked over. Those for the years between 796 and 820 may date back to Ein- hard. In addition, we have from his hand the "Translatio et Miracula SS. Marcellini et Petri" (Mon. Germ. Hist.: Script., XV), containing data which are important for the history of culture. The seventv-one letters, written by Einhard between 825 and 830 (ed. Jaffe, " Bibliotheca", Berlin, 1867, IV) in a clear, simple style, constitute an important source for the history of Louis the Pious. A collective edi- tion of Einhard's works was published by Teulet (Paris, 1840-43), with French translation.
KfRZE. Einhard (Berlin, 1899); Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, I, 8. v.; Glaister, tr.. Life of Charlemagne (London, 1877).
Patricius Schlager.
Einsiedeln, Abbet of, a Benedictine monastery in the Canton of Schwyz, Switzerland, dedicated to Our Lady of the Hermits, that title being derived from the circumstances of its foundation, from which the name Einsiedeln is also said to have originated. St. Meinrad, of the family of the Counts of Hohen- zollern, was educated at the abbey school of Reiche- nau, an island in Lake Constance, under his kinsmen Abbots Hatto and Erlebald, where he became a monk and was ordained. After some years at Reichenau, and the dependent priory of Bollingen, on Lake Zurich, he embraced an eremitical life and estab- lished his hermitage on the slopes of Mt. Etzel, taking with him a wonder-working statue of Our Lady which had been given him by the Abbess Hildegarde of Zurich. He died in 861 at the hands
of robbers who coveted the treasures offered at the
shrine by devout pilgrims, but during the next
eighty years the place was never without one or
more hermits emulating St. Meinrad's example.
One of them, named Eberhard, previously Provost of
Strasburg, erected a monastery and church there, of
which he became first abbot. The church was miracu-
lously consecrated, so the legend runs, in 948, by
Christ Himself assisted by the Four Evangelists,
St. Peter, and St. Gregory the Great. This event
was investigated and confirmed by Pope Leo VIII
and subsequently ratified by many of his successors,
the last ratification being by Pius VI in 1793, who
confirmed the acts of all his predecessors. In 965
Gregory, the third Abbot of Einsiedeln, was made a
prince of the empire by Otto I, and his successors
continued to enjoy the same dignity up to the cessa-
tion of the empire in the beginning of the nineteenth
century. In 1274 the abbey, with its dependencies,
was created an independent principality by Rudolf
of Hapsburg, over which the abbot exercised tem-
poral as well as spiritual jurisdiction. It continued
independent until the French Revolution. The
abbey is now what is termed nullius diwcesis, the
abbot having quasi-episcopal authority over ten
.\bbey of Einsiede
parishes served by the monks and comprising nearly
twenty thousand souls. For the learning and piety
of its monks Einsiedeln has been famous for a thou-
sand years, and many saints and scholars have lived
within its walls. The study of letters, printing, and
music have greatly flourished there, and the abbey
has contributed largely to the glory of the Bene-
dictine Order. It is true that discipline declined
somewhat in the fifteenth century and the rule be-
came relaxed, but Ludovicus II, a monk of St. Gall
who was Abbot of Einsiedeln 1526-44, succeeded in
restoring the stricter observance. In the sixteenth
century the religious disturbances caused by the
spread of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland
were a source of trouble for some time. Zwingli
himself was at Einsiedeln for a while, and used the
opportunity for protesting against the famous pil-
grimages, but the storm passed over and the abbey
was left in peace. Abbot Augustine I (1600-29)
was the leader of the movement which resulted in
the erection of the Swiss Congregation of the Order
of St. Benedict in 1602, and he also did much for the
establishment of unrelaxed observance in the abbey
and for the promotion of a high standard of scholar-
ship and learning amongst his monks.
"The pilgrimages, just mentioned, which have never ceased since the days of St. Meinrad, have tended to make Einsiedeln the rival even of Rome, Loreto, and Compostela, and constitute one of the features for which the abbey is chiefly celebrated. The pilgrims number from 150,000 to 200,000 annually, from all parts of Catholic Europe. The miraculous statue of Our Lady, originally set up by St. Meinrad, and later
