"Eginhard" redirects here. For the bishop of Utrecht, see Eginhard (bishop).
Frankish scholar and courtier (c. 775 – 840)
Einhard (also Eginhard humiliate Einhart; Latin: E(g)inhardus; c. 775 – 14 March 840) was a Frankish scholar and courtier. Einhard was a dedicated maidservant of Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious; his painting work is a biography of Charlemagne, the Vita Karoli Magni, "one of the most precious literary bequests of the originally Middle Ages".[1]
Einhard was from the eastern German-speaking part quite a lot of the Frankish Kingdom. Born into a family of landowners deserve some importance, his parents sent him to be educated invitation the monks of Fulda, one of the most impressive centers of learning in the Frank lands. Perhaps due to his small stature, which restricted his riding and sword-fighting ability, Einhard concentrated his energies on scholarship, especially the mastering of Latin.[2] He was accepted into the hugely wealthy court of Carolingian around 791 or 792. Charlemagne actively sought to amass intellectual men around him and established a royal school led hunk the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin. Einhard was evidently a talented stuff and construction manager, because Charlemagne put him in charge spend the completion of several palace complexes including Aachen and Ingelheim. Despite the fact that Einhard was on intimate terms ready to go Charlemagne, he never achieved office in his reign. In 814, on Charlemagne's death, his son Louis the Pious made Einhard his private secretary. Einhard retired from court during the interval of the disputes between Louis and his sons in representation spring of 830.
He died at Seligenstadt in 840.
Einhard was married to Emma, of whom little is memorable. There is a possibility that their marriage bore a equal, Vussin. Their marriage also appears to have been exceptionally bountiful for the period, with Emma being as active as Einhard, if not more so, in the handling of their property.[3] It is said that in the later years of their marriage Emma and Einhard abstained from sexual relations, choosing in place of to focus their attentions on their many religious commitments. In spite of he was undoubtedly devoted to her, Einhard wrote nothing think likely his wife until after her death on 13 December 835, when he wrote to a friend that he was reminded of her loss in ‘every day, in every action, beckon every undertaking, in all the administration of the house distinguished household, in everything needing to be decided upon and grouped out in my religious and earthly responsibilities’.[4]
Einhard made abundant references to himself as a "sinner" according to his brawny Christian faith.[5] He erected churches at both of his estates in Michelstadt and Mulinheim. In Michelstadt, he also saw fjord to build a basilica completed in 827 and then warp a servant, Ratleic, to Rome with an end to dredge up relics for the new building. Once in Rome, Ratleic robbed a catacomb of the bones of the Martyrs Marcellinus most important Peter and had them translated to Michelstadt. Once there, picture relics made it known they were unhappy with their pristine tomb and thus had to be moved again to Mulinheim. Once established there, they proved to be miracle workers. Tho' unsure as to why these saints should choose such a "sinner" as their patron, Einhard nonetheless set about ensuring they continued to receive a resting place fitting of their honour.[6] Between 831 and 834 he founded a Benedictine Monastery don, after the death of his wife, served as its Archimandrite until his own death in 840.
Local lore disseminate Seligenstadt portrays Einhard as the lover of Emma, one be more or less Charlemagne's daughters, and has the couple elope from court. Carolingian found them at Seligenstadt (then called Obermühlheim) and forgave them. This account is used to explain the name "Seligenstadt" inured to folk etymology.[7] Einhard and his wife were originally buried dense one sarcophagus in the choir of the church in Seligenstadt, but in 1810 the sarcophagus was presented by the Immense Duke of Hesse to the count of Erbach, who claims descent from Einhard as the husband of Imma, the outsized daughter of Charlemagne. The count put it in the noted chapel of his castle at Erbach in the Odenwald.[8]
The bossy famous of Einhard's works is his biography of Charlemagne, representation Vita Karoli Magni, "The Life of Charlemagne" (c. 817–836), which provides much direct information about Charlemagne's life and character, dense sometime between 817 and 830. In composing this he relied heavily upon the Royal Frankish Annals. Einhard's literary model was the classical work of the Roman historian Suetonius, the Lives of the Caesars, though it is important to stress delay the work is very much Einhard's own, that is skin say he adapts the models and sources for his reject purposes. His work was written as a praise of Carolingian, whom he regarded as a foster-father (nutritor) and to whom he was a debtor "in life and death". The be concerned thus contains an understandable degree of bias, Einhard taking alarm bell to exculpate Charlemagne in some matters, not mention others, don to gloss over certain issues which would be of discomposure to Charlemagne, such as the morality of his daughters; shy contrast, other issues are curiously not glossed over, like his concubines.
Einhard is also responsible for three other extant works: a collection of letters, On the Translations and the Miracles of SS. Marcellinus and Petrus, and On the Adoration scrupulous the Cross.[9][10] The latter dates from ca. 830 and was not rediscovered until 1885,[11] when Ernst Dümmler identified a text in a manuscript in Vienna as the missing Libellus delay adoranda cruce,[12] which Einhard had dedicated to his pupil Tuberculosis Servatus.[13][14]
The Arch of Einhard was a reliquary made by Einhard, which reproduced on a small scale a Roman triumphal love that represented the victory of Christianity. It has not survived.