EBERBACH, ABBEY OF

Near Wiesbaden, Germany. It was founded by Abp. Adalbert of Mainz in 1116 for Augustinian canons, and was taken over by Cistercians of clairvaux in 1135. It is certain that the Romanesque church (after Clairvaux II) was built by Achard. Ribbed vaults mark the second phase of building, from 1170 to the consecration in 1186. A Gothic aisle for chapels was added on the south side under Abbot William (l310–46). Almost all the medieval buildings remain: the laybrothers' refectory and the monks' dormitory (13th century); the chapter room (12th–14th); the infirmary (12th); since 1617 the winery with a winepress dating from c. 1200. The monastery flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries, with four daughterhouses (1142–74) and an extensive wine trade. In 1206 the monk Conrad, who became abbot in 1221, completed at Eberbach the Exordium magnum Cisterciense (ed. B. Griesser, Rome 1961). The Swedes and Hessians plundered the abbey in the Thirty Years' War, carrying off its rich library. Of the productive scriptorium at Eberbach, 62 MSS (Codices Laudiani ) are in the Bodleian Library and ten MSS (Arundel) are in the British Museum, some with magnificent illuminations. The abbey, secularized in 1803, has been a prison, an insane asylum, and a sanatorium; today it is a state winery and museum.

Bibliography: h. hahn, Die frühe Kirchenbaukunst der Zisterzienser (Berlin 1957). a. brÜck, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 3:627. a. schneider, "Deutsche und französische Cistercienser-Handschriften in englischen Bibliotheken," Cistercienser-Chronik 69 (1962) 43–54.

[a. schneider]