Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/319

ALDEGUNDIS in the name of the King, the decrees of the Council, favours the assumption that Alcuin had at least no direct part in the composition of the work.

III. .—Besides his justly merited fame as an educator and a theologian, Alcuin has the honour of having been the principal agent in the great work of liturgical reform accomplished by the authority of Charlemagne. At the accession of Charles the Gallican rite prevailed in France, but it was so modified by local customs and traditions as to constitute a serious obstacle to complete ecclesiastical unity. It was the purpose of the King to substitute the Roman rite in place of the Gallican, or at least to bring about such a revision of the latter as to make it substantially one with the Roman. The strong leaning of Alcuin towards the traditions of the Roman Church, combined with his conservative character and the universal authority of his name, qualified him for the accomplishment of a change which the royal authority in itself was powerless to effect. The first of Alcuin's liturgical works appears to have been a Homiliary, or collection of sermons in Latin for the use of priests. The Homiliary which was printed under his name in the fifteenth century was by a different hand, although it is probable, its Dom Morin contends, that a recently discovered manuscript of the twelfth century contains the genuine Alcuinian sermons. Another liturgical work of Alcuin consists of a collection of the Epistles to be read on Sundays and holy-days throughout the year, and bears the name, "Comes ab Albino ex Caroli imp. præcepto emendatus". As, previous to his time, the portions of Scripture to be read at Mass were often merely indicated on the margins of the Bibles used, the "Comes" commended itself by its convenience, and as he followed Roman usage here also, the result was another advance in the way of conformity to the Roman liturgy. The work of Alcuin which had the greatest and most lasting influence in this direction, however, was the Sacramentary, or Missal which he compiled, using the Gregorian Sacramentary as a basis, and to this adding a supplement of other liturgical sources. Prescribed as the official Mass-book for the Frankish Church, Alcuin's Missal soon came to be commonly used throughout Europe and was largely instrumental in bringing about uniformity in respect to the liturgy of the Mass in the whole Western Church. Other liturgical productions of Alcuin were a collection of votive Masses, drawn up for the monks of Fulda, a treatise called "De psalmorum usu", a breviary for laymen, and a brief explanation of the ceremonies of Baptism.

A complete edition of Alcuin's works, with the exception of some of his Epistles, is to be found in Migne, comprising volumes 100–101 of the "Patrologia Latina". The text of the Migne edition was first published by Froben, Abbot of St. Emmeran, at Ratisbon, in 1777, a previous and and less complete edition having been published by Duchesne at Paris, in 1617. A critically accurate edition of the "Epistles" of Alcuin, together with his poem, "On the Saints of the Church at York", his "Life of St. Willibrord" and the "Life of Alcuin", composed about 829, is found in the fourth volume of the "Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum", under the title "Monumenta Alcuiniana" edited by Jaffé, Wattenbach, and Duemmler (Berlin, 1873). This edition contains 293 of Alcuin's Epistles, against the 230 in Migne.

2em

Aldegundis. virgin and abbess (c. 639–684), variously written Adelgundis, Aldegonde, etc. She was nearly related to the Merovingian royal family. Her father and mother, afterwards honoured as St. Walbert and St. Bertilia, lived in Flanders in the province of Hainault. Aldegundis was urged to marry, but she chose a life of virginity and, leaving her home, received the veil from Amandus, Bishop of Maastricht. Then she walked dry-shod over the Sambre, and built on its banks a small nunnery at a desert placed called Malbode. This foundation afterwards, under the name Maubeuge, became a famous abbey of Benedictine nuns, though at a later date these were replaced by canonesses. St. Aldegundis' feast is kept on 30 January. There are several early Lives, but none by contemporaries. Several of these, including the tenth-century biography by Hucbald, are printed by the Bollandists (Acta SS., Jan., 11, 1034–35).

2em

Aldersbach, a former Cistercian Abbey in the valley of the Vils in Lower Bavaria. It was founded in 1127 by St. Otto, Bishop of Bamberg, and the first community was composed of canons regular. The site chosen was near a church consecrated in 880 by Englmar, Bishop of Passau, in honour of St. Peter. In 1146 Egilbert, the successor of Otto, gave the foundation and a new church of Our Lady to the Cistercians, and after the departure of the canons, Abbot Sefried, with monks from Ebrach, took possession. Under Cistercian rule Aldersbach flourished for more than six centuries. It was famous for the rigour of its religious discipline and exerted a wide influence. From its cloisters came the first communities established at Fürstenfeld (1263), Fürstenzell (1274), and Gotteszell (1285). The monks cultivated the soil and devoted themselves to the works of the ministry in their own and in the neighbouring churches dependent upon the abbey. Nor was the pursuit of learning neglected. The first abbot, Sefried, formed the nucleus of the library to which valuable additions were made by his successors. Abbots and monks carried on their studies not only in the cloister, but also at the great universities of Paris, Vienna, Padua, Heidelberg, and Ingolstadt. Aldersbach suffered from time to time from the ravages of war. During the Thirty Years War which followed the Reformation, it was pillaged and almost entirely abandoned. The library, however, escaped destruction, and under the abbots Matthew and Gebhard Horger the old régime was restored. Abbot Theobald II repaired the injuries sustained during the wars of the Spanish and Austrian Successions. When the Abbey was suppressed, 1 April, 1803, the monks numbered forty. The buildings were sold, and the Abbey church was converted into a parish church, while the monks engaged in parish work or teaching. The library became a part of the National Library at Munich. Aldersbach was fortunate in the abbots who were chosen to rule its destinies. They maintained monastic discipline, furthered the interests of the abbey, and encouraged the pursuit of learning. Among the more prominent, besides those already mentioned, were Dietrich I (1239–53, 1258–77); Conrad (1308–36); John II, John III, and Wolfgang Marius. The last-named is perhaps the best known.