Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/490

 ENGELBERT

430

ENGELBERT

restrained the impetuous citizens of Cologne, broke the stubborness of the nobility, and erected strong- holds for the defence of his territories. He did not spare even his own relations when guilty. In this way he gained the universal veneration of his people and increased the number of his vassals from year to year. Although in exterior bearing a sovereign rather than a bishop, for which he was blamed by pious persons, he did not disregard his duties to the Church, but strove to uplift the religious life of his people. The mendicant orders, which had been founded shortly before his accession, settled in Cologne during his ad- ministration, the Franciscans in 1219, the Dominicans in 1221. He was well disposed towards the monaste- ries and insisted on strict religious observance in them. Ecclesiastical affairs were regulated in provincial synods. Blameless in his own life, he was a friend of the clergy and a helper of the poor.

In the affairs of the empire Engelbert exerted a strong influence. Emperor Frederick II, who had taken up his residence permanently in Sicily, gave Germany to his son, Henry VII, then still a minor, and in 1221 appointed Engelbert guardian of the king and administrator of the empire. When the young king reached the age of twelve he was crowned at Aachen, 8 May, 1222, by Engelbert, who loved him as his own son and honoured him as his sovereign. He watched over tlie king's education and governed the empire in his name, careful above all to secure peace both within and without the realm. At the Diet of Nordhausen (24 Sept., 1223) he made an important treaty with Denmark ; in the rupture between England and France, he sided with England and broke off relations with France. The poet Walther von der Vogelweide extols him as "Master of sovereigns", and "True guardian of the king, thy exalted traitsdo honour toouremperor; chancellor whose like has never been". — Engelbert's devotion to duty, and his obedience to the pope and to the emperor were eventually the cause of his ruin. Many of the nobility feared rather than loved him, and he was obliged to surround himself with a body-guard. The greatest danger threatened him from among his relations. His cousin, Count Frederick of Isenberg, the secular administrator for the nuns of Essen, had grievously oppressed that abbey. Honorius III and the emperor urged Engelbert to protect the nuns in their rights. Frederick wished to forestall the arch- bishop, and his wife incited him to murder. Even his two brothers, the Bishops of Miinster and Osna- briick, were suspected as pri\->' to the matter. Engel- bert was w-arned, commended himself to the protection of Divine Providence, and amid tears made a con- fession of his whole life to the Bishop of Minden. On 7 Nov., 1225, as hewasjourneyingfromSoesttoSchwelm to consecrate a church, he was attacked on a dark even- ing by Frederick and his associates in a narrow defile, was wounded in the thigh, torn from his hor.se and killed. His body was covered with forty-seven wounds. It was placed on a dung-cart and brought to Cologne on the fourth day. King Henry wept bitterly over the remains, put the murderer under the ban of the empire, and saw him broken on the wheel a year later at Cologne. He died contrite, having ac- knowledged and confessed his guilt. His associates also perished miserably within a short time. The crime, moreover, was disastrous for the German Empire, for the young king had now lost his best adviser and soon met a very sad fate, to the misf irtime of his house and countrj'.

Engelbert, by his martyrdom made amends for his human weaknesses. His body was placed in the old cathedral of Cologne, 24 Feb., 1226, by Cardinal Conrad von XIrach. The latter also declared him a martyr; a formal canonization did not take place. In 161S".\rolil)ishp Ferdinand ordered that his feast be celebrated on 7 November and solemnly raised his remains in 1G22. In the martyrology Engelbert is

commemorated on 7 Nov. as a martyr. A convent for nuns was erect«d at the place of his death. By order of Engelbert's successor, Henry I, Csesarius of Heisterbach, who possessed good information and a ready pen, wrote in 1226 the life of the saint in two books and added a third about his miracles. (See Surius, "Vitae Sanctorum", 7 Nov.)

BoHMER. Fontes renim Germanicanim (Stuttgart. 1854), II, in which the third booli of the Vitee is omitted: Ficker. Engel- bert d. hi. Erzbischoi (Cologne, 1S53); Winketjjann. Kaiser Friedr. II. in Jahrbitcher d. deutsch. Geach. (Leipzig. 1S89), I. Gabriel Meier.

Engelbert, Abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Adniont in Styria, b. of noble parents at Volkersdorf in Styria, c. 1250; d. 12 May, 1.331. He entered the monastery of Admont about 1267. Four years later he was sent to Prague to study grammar and logic. After devoting himself for two years to these studies he spent nine years at the University of Padua study- ing philosophy and theology. In 1297 he was elected Abbot of Admont, and after ruling thirty years he re- signed this dignity when he was almost eighty years old, in order to spend the remainder of his life in prayer and study. Engelbert was one of the most learned men of his times, and there was scarcely any branch of knowledge to which his versatile pen did not contribute its share. His literary productions include works on moral and dogmatic theology, philosophy, history, political science, Holy Scripture, the natural sciences, pedagogy, and music. The Benedictine, Ber- nard Pez, mentions thirty-eight works, many of which he published partly in his "Thesaurus anecdotorum novissimus" (Augsburg, 1721), partly in his "Bibli- otheca ascetica antiquo-nova" (Ratisbon, 1723-5). The best known of Engelbert's works is his historico- political treatise " De ortu, progressu et fine Romani imperii", which was wTitten during the reign of Henry VII (1308-1313). It puts forth the following political principles: a ruler must be a learned man; his sole aim must be the welfare of his subjects; an unjust ruler may be justly deposed ; emperor and pope are, each in his sphere, independent rulers ; the Holy Roman Em- pire is a Christian continuation of the pagan empire of ancient Rome ; there should be only one supreme tem- poral ruler, the emperor, to whom all other temporal rulers should be subject. He bewails the gradual de- cline of both imperial and papal authority, prophesies the early coming of Antichrist and with it the ruin of the Holy Roman Empire and a wholesale desertion of the Holy See. The work was published repeatedly, first according to the revision of Cluten (Offenbach, 1610) ; finally it was re-edited by Schott and printed in the Supplement to the "Bibliotheca Patruin" (Col- ogne, 1622) and in "Maxima Bibliotheca veterum Patrum" (Lyons, 1677). Following are the most im- portant of the other works of Engelbert which have been printed: " De gratiis et virtutibus beatte et gloriosce semper V. Mariae" (Pez, "Thesaurus", I, pt. 1, 503-762); "De libero arbitrio" (ib., IV, pt. 2, 121-147); "De causa longsevitatis hominum ante diluvium" (ib., I, pt. 1, 437-502); " De providentia Dei" (Pez, Biblio- theca ascetica, VI, 51-150) ; " De statu defunctorum" (ib., IX, 113-195); "Speculum virtutis pro Alberto et Ottone Austrice ducibus" (ib., Ill, entire); "Super passionem secundum Matthseum" (ib., VII, 67-112); " De regimine principum", a work on political science, containing sound suggestions on education in general, edited by Hufnagel (Ratisbon, 1725); " De suramo bono hominis in h.ac vita", "Dialogus concupiscentijE et rationis", " Utrum sapienti competat ducere uxo- rem" (the last three valuable works on ethics were edited by John Conrad Pez in " Opuscula philosophica celeberrimi Engelberti", Ratisbon, 1725); "Demusici tractatus", a very interesting treatise on music, illus- trating the great difficulties with which teachers of music were beset in conseqvience of the complicated system of the hexachord with its solmization and mu-