EGINHARD (Einhardus, Einardus, Agenardus). — Biographer of Charlemagne, born in Eginardo (Eginfilt) in the Maingau between 758 and 770, died in the abbey of Seligenstadt on 14 March 840. He studied successfully at Fulda, where he appears as a scribe of Abbot Baufillo A. and drafted documents from 788–91, and in the *scola palatii* under the direction of Alcuino, emerging as a perfect humanist. His academic name was Beseleel. He served in the court of Charlemagne (792–94 until 814), first as *nutritius* and then as *exactor operum regalium in Aquisgrani palatio* (Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium, 17: MGH, Scriptores, II, p. 293), charged with overseeing the construction of the imperial monumental complex at Aachen. In 806, he carried to Rome on behalf of the Emperor the act of Thionville concerning the division of the Empire. Louis the Pious granted E. and his wife Imma (a legend in the 12th century would later claim their youthful idyll) the localities of Michelstadt in the Odenwald and of Ober- and Nieder-Mühlheim on the Main (11 January 815), and further assigned to E. the great abbeys of Saint Peter at Blandinberg, Saint Bavo (Ghent), Fontenelle, Saint Servatius near Maastricht, and other benefices. Thus E. became one of the most powerful lay abbots of the age. From about 817 he was secretary to Louis the Pious, tutor to Lothar, and took an active part in the tutelage of the court until 829, distinguished “non solum pro scientia, verum etiam pro universa morum honeste” (Walafrid Strabo in the prologue added to the *Vita Karoli*). In 830 he obtained permission to retire to Ober-Mühlheim, where he founded the abbey called Seligenstadt and erected a basilica in the style of Santa Prassede in honor of the martyrs SS Marcellinus and Peter, whose bodies he obtained in 827 through the intervention of the notorious distributor of false relics, the deacon Deus-dona. As lay abbot, he governed the new abbey with wisdom and made it an active center of culture. In 836 he suffered the greatest sorrow in losing his wife (cf. the correspondence of Lupus of Ferrières, ed. E. Dümmer in MGH, Ep. aevi Kar., IV, Berlin 1925, pp. 9–17). E. was buried in the aforementioned basilica, and Rabanus Maurus composed his epitaph (ed. E. Dümmer, in MGH, Poetae latini aevi Karolini, II, pp. 237–38). E. is regarded as the prototype of the lay intellectuals of the age, elevated, literate, artist, historian, and theologian.
Works: the principal work is the *Vita Karoli Magni* (critical ed. O. Holder-Egger, in MGH, Scriptores rerum Germaniae, in usum scholarum [1911]; BHL, 1580, Supplement, p. 66), written between 817 and 822, a source of primary importance for the history of Charlemagne, despite real defects that should not be exaggerated, such as faulty chronology and the exaltation of the hero; the author demonstrates authentic gifts as both historian and man of letters. Besides a certain number of letters (ed. K. Hampe, in MGH, Epistolae aevi Karolini, III [1899], pp. 105–45), two short works by E. survive that relate to the iconoclastic controversy stirred by Claudius of Turin (v.): the *Translatio et miracula ss. Marcellini et Petri* (ed. G. Waitz, in MGH, Scriptores, XV, I [1887], pp. 238–64; BHL, 5233) in a prologue and four books, written between 830 and 834, in which the author demonstrates how justified is the faithful’s trust in the relics of the holy martyrs; and the *Quaestio de adoranda cruce* (ed. K. Hampe, op. cit., pp. 145–49), written for Lupus of Ferrières (c. 836), a small gem of literature and precision; after a subtle distinction between *oratio* and *adoratio*, he concludes in favor of the adoration, that is, veneration, of the Cross. A rhythmic composition, the *Passio Christi Martyrum Marcellini et Petri* (ed. E. Dümmer, in MGH, Poetae latini aevi Karolini, II, pp. 125–35; BHL, 5232), is also attributed to him. The annals, sometimes called *Annales Einhardi*, do not belong to him.