Ekkehard I (Latin: Eccehardus; died 14 January 973), called Major or Senex (the Elder), was a monk of the Abbey of Saint Gall. He was of noble birth, of the Jonschwyl family in Toggenburg, and was educated in the monastery of St. Gall; after joining the Benedictine Order, he was appointed director of the inner school there. Later, under Abbot Kralo, who trusted him implicitly, he was elected dean of the monastery, and for a while directed all the affairs of the abbey.
Ekkehard made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he was retained for a time by Pope John XII, who presented him with various relics of St. John the Baptist. After Kralo's death Ekkehard refused the abbatial succession, because of lameness resulting from a fractured leg. However, he directed the choice of Burkard, son of Count Ulrich of Buchhorn, who governed St. Gall with the advice and co-operation of Ekkehard. The latter erected a hospice in front of the monastery for the sick and strangers, and was in many other ways a model of charity.
He was also distinguished as a poet, and wrote a Latin epic "Waltharius", basing his version on an original German text. He dedicated this poem to Bishop Erkanbald of Strasburg (965-991). It describes the elopement of Walter of Aquitaine with the Burgundian princess Hildegunde, from the land of the Huns, followed by the battle of Wasgenstein between Walter and the followers of Gunther and Hagen (ed. Peiper, Berlin, 1873).
He also composed various ecclesiastical hymns and sequences, e. g. in honour of the Blessed Trinity, St. John the Baptist, St. Benedict, St. Columbanus and St. Stephen (Meyer, "Philologische Bemerkungen zum Waltharius" in "Abhandl. der bayr. Akad. d. Wissenschaften", Munich, 1873; Streeker, "Ekkehard und Virgil" in "Zeitschrift f. deutsches Altertum", 1898, XLII, 338-366).
The Abbey of Saint Gall is a dissolved abbey (747–1805) in a Catholic religious complex in the city of St. Gallen in Switzerland. The Carolingian-era monastery existed from 719, founded by Saint Othmar on the spot where Saint Gall had erected his hermitage. It became an independent principality between 9th and 13th centuries, and was for many centuries one of the chief Benedictine abbeys in Europe. The library of the Abbey is one of the oldest monastic libraries in the world.
Gall according to hagiographic tradition was a disciple and one of the traditional twelve companions of Columbanus on his mission from Ireland to the continent. However, he may have originally come from the border region between Lorraine and Alemannia and only met Columbanus at the monastery of Luxeuil in the Vosges. Gall is known as a representative of the Irish monastic tradition. The Abbey of Saint Gall in the city of Saint Gallen, Switzerland was built upon his original hermitage. Deicolus was the elder brother of Gall.
A cloister is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a warm southern flank, usually indicates that it is part of a monastic foundation, "forming a continuous and solid architectural barrier... that effectively separates the world of the monks from that of the serfs and workmen, whose lives and works went forward outside and around the cloister."
Notker the Stammerer, Notker Balbulus, or simply Notker, was a Benedictine monk at the Abbey of Saint Gall active as a composer, poet and scholar. Described as "a significant figure in the Western Church", Notker made substantial contributions to both the music and literature of his time. He is usually credited with two major works of the Carolingian period: the Liber Hymnorum, which includes an important collection of early musical sequences, and an early biography of Charlemagne, the Gesta Karoli Magni. His other works include a biography of Saint Gall known as the Vita Sancti Galli and a martyrology, among others.
Ekkehard of Aura was the first Abbot of Aura from 1108. It is thought that Ekkehard was a member of the Bavarian aristocracy.
Waltharius is a Latin epic poem founded on German popular tradition relating the exploits of the Visigothic hero Walter of Aquitaine. While its subject matter is taken from early medieval Germanic legend, the epic stands firmly in the Latin literary tradition in terms of its form and the stylistic devices used. Thus, its 1456 verses are written in dactylic hexameter and the poem includes copious references to various Latin epics of antiquity, especially Vergil's Aeneid.
The Plan of Saint Gall is a medieval architectural drawing of a monastic compound dating from 820–830 AD. It depicts an entire Benedictine monastic compound, including church, houses, stables, kitchens, workshops, brewery, infirmary, and a special building for bloodletting. According to calculations based on the manuscript's tituli the complex was meant to house about 110 monks, 115 lay visitors, and 150 craftmen and agricultural workers.
The Hiberno-Scottish mission was a series of expeditions in the 6th and 7th centuries by Gaelic missionaries originating from Ireland that spread Celtic Christianity in Scotland, Wales, England and Merovingian France. Catholic Christianity spread first within Ireland. Since the 8th and 9th centuries, these early missions were called 'Celtic Christianity'.
Notker Labeo, also known as Notker the German or Notker III, was a Benedictine monk active as a scholar and teacher. He was the first commentator on Aristotle active in the Middle Ages and translated the works of earlier Latin writers such as Boethius and Martianus Capella. Notker is also attributed the authorship of five short essays on music.
Prior is an ecclesiastical title for a superior in some religious orders. The word is derived from the Latin for "earlier" or "first". Its earlier generic usage referred to any monastic superior. In abbeys, a prior would be lower in rank than the abbey's abbot or abbess.
Walter or Walther of Aquitaine is a king of the Visigoths in Germanic heroic legend.
"Waldere" or "Waldhere" is the conventional title given to two Old English fragments, of around 32 and 31 lines, from a lost epic poem, discovered in 1860 by E. C. Werlauff, Librarian, in the Danish Royal Library at Copenhagen, where it is still preserved. The parchment pages had been reused as stiffening in the binding of an Elizabethan prayer book, which had presumably come to Europe following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England in the 16th century.
Finchale Priory, sometimes referred to as Finchale Abbey, was a 13th-century Benedictine priory. The remains are sited by the River Wear, four miles from Durham, England. It is a Grade I listed building.
Ekkehard IV was a monk of the Abbey of Saint Gall and the author of the Casus sancti Galli and Liber Benedictionum.
Notker Physicus was a monk at the Abbey of Saint Gall, active as a physician, painter, composer and poet. He is best known for his medical prowess, and may have been physician to the Holy Roman Emperors Otto I and Otto II. His paintings, now lost, were well regarded in his time, and two of his compositions survive, a office and hymn.
Tuotilo was a Frankish monk at the Abbey of Saint Gall. He was a composer, and according to Ekkehard IV a century later, also a poet, musician, painter and sculptor. Various trope melodies can be assigned to Tuotilo, but works of other mediums are attributed with less certainty. He was a student of Iso of St. Gallen and friends with the fellow monk Notker the Stammerer.
Ekkehard II, called Palatinus, was a monk of the Abbey of Saint Gall who became known for his sequence poetry.
Ekkehard III was a monk of the Abbey of Saint Gall and a nephew of Ekkehard I and a cousin of Ekkehard II. He shared the educational advantages of his cousin and, at his invitation, accompanied him to Hohentwiel to superintend and direct the studies of the local clergy. On his return to St. Gall he was made dean of the abbey, and is reported to have filled this office for thirty years. He died early in the eleventh century.
Peter Thumb was an Austrian architect and master builder whose family came from Bezau, Vorarlberg, in the westernmost part of Austria. He was active in Baden, the Black Forest, Alsace, Upper Swabia, on and around Lake Constance, and in Switzerland. He is best known for his Rococo architecture, mainly in Southern Germany. Outstanding examples of his work include the pilgrimage church at Birnau on Lake Constance and the monastery library at the Abbey of Saint Gall, Saint Gallen, Switzerland.
Craloh was abbot of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Gall from 942 to 958. During his time in office, the first anti-abbot was elected.
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