EBERARDO I, saint. – Born ca. 1085 of the noble lineage of Biburg and Hilpoltatein; died at Salzburg on 22 June 1164. A Benedictine monk at Prüfening near Regensburg, from 1133 he was abbot of the monastery of Biburg founded by his brothers; on 11 May 1147 he became archbishop of Salzburg.
In the great struggle between Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Pope Alexander III, E. was the most tireless defender of papal authority in Germany and an open adversary of the antipope Victor IV. He strongly supported the reforms of his friend Geroch of Reichersberg. He was venerated as a saint by the people (his feast is on 22 June), but the process of his canonization, initiated in 1469, has not yet been concluded.
BIBL.: La Vita più antica (ca. 1180) in MGH, Scriptores, XI, pp. 77–84; Miracula (ca. 1280), ibid., pp. 97–103; also in Anal. Bull., 20 (1902), pp. 177–80; Acta SS. Iunii, IV, Venice 1743, pp. 260–69. For the German literature cf. Ch. Greinz, s.V. in LThK, III, col. 311. Lucchesio Späthig