Eckebert

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Eckebert (Ekbert, Egbert) (born in the early part of the twelfth century of a distinguished family along the Middle Rhine; died 28 March 1184) was Benedictine Abbot of the Abbey of Schönau, and a writer.

He was for a time canon in the collegiate church of Sts. Cassius and Florentius at Bonn. In 1155 he became a Benedictine at Schönau in the Diocese of Trier, and in 1166, after the death of the first abbot, Hildelin, he was placed at the head of the monastery.

He preached and wrote much for the salvation of souls and the conversion of heretics. The Cathari, then numerous in the Rhineland, gave him especial concern. While a canon at Bonn he often had occasion to debate with heretics, and after his monastic profession, was invited by Archbishop Rainald of Cologne to debate publicly with the leaders of the sect in Cologne itself.

[edit] Works

His chief works are:

• "Sermones contra Catharos" with extracts on the Manichæans, from St. Augustine (Patrologia Latina, CXCV)
• "De Laube Crucis" (ibid.)
• "Soliloquium seu Meditationes" (ibid.)
• "Ad Beatam Virginem Deiparam sermo Panegyricus" (ibid., CLXXXIV)
• "De sanctâ Elizabethâ virgine", a biography of his sister Elizabeth of Schönau, a Benedictine nun and famous visionary and mystic, a portion of which is in Patrologia Latina, CXCV, also in Acta Sanctorum, June, IV, 501 sqq. (ed. Palmé, 1867).
• Complete edition of his works in Roth, "Die Visionen der hl. Elisabeth und die Schriften der Aebte Ekbert und Emecho von Schönau" (Brünn, 1884).

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.