EBERBACH, a famous Cistercian monastery of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, situated near Hattenheim in the Rheingau, 10 m. N.W. from Wiesbaden. Founded in 1116 by Archbishop Adalbert of Mainz, as a house of Augustinian canons regular, it was bestowed by him in 1131 upon the Benedictines, but was shortly afterwards repurchased and conferred upon the Cistercian order. The Romanesque church (consecrated in 1186) contains numerous interesting monuments and tombs, notable among them being those of the archbishop of Mainz, Gerlach (d. 1371) and Adolph II. of Nassau (d. 1475). It was despoiled during the Thirty Years’ War, was secularized in 1803, and now serves as a house of correction. Its cellars contain some of the finest vintages of the Rhine wines of the locality.
See Bär, Diplomatische Geschichte der Abtei Eberbach (Wiesb., 1851-1858 and 1886, 3 vols.), and Schäfer, Die Abtei Eberbach im Mittelalter (Berlin, 1901).
EBERHARD, surnamed Im Bart (Barbatus), count and afterwards duke of Württemberg (1445-1496), was the second son of Louis I., count of Württemberg-Urach (d. 1450), and succeeded his elder brother Louis II. in 1457. His uncle Ulrich V., count of Württemberg-Stuttgart (d. 1480), acted as his guardian, but in 1459, assisted by Frederick I., elector palatine, he threw off this restraint, and undertook the government of the district of Urach as Count Eberhard V. He neglected his duties as a ruler and lived a reckless life until 1468, when he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He visited Italy, became acquainted with some famous scholars, and in 1474 married Barbara di Gonzaga, daughter of Lodovico III., marquis of Mantua, a lady distinguished for her intellectual qualities. In 1482 he brought about the treaty of Münsingen with his cousin Eberhard VI., count of Württemberg-Stuttgart. By this treaty the districts of Urach and Stuttgart into which Württemberg had been divided in 1437 were again united, and for the future the county was declared indivisible, and the right of primogeniture established. The treaty led to some disturbances, but in 1492 the sanction of the nobles was secured for its provisions. In return for this Eberhard agreed to some limitations on the power of the count, and so in a sense founded the constitution of Württemberg. At the diet of Worms in 1495 the emperor Maximilian I. guaranteed the treaty, confirmed the possessions and prerogatives of the house of Württemberg, and raised Eberhard to the rank of duke. Eberhard, although a lover of peace, was one of the founders of the Swabian League in 1488, and assisted to release Maximilian, then king of the Romans, from his imprisonment at Bruges in the same year. He gave charters to the towns of Stuttgart and Tübingen, and introduced order into the convents of his land, some of which he secularized. He took a keen interest in the new learning, founded the university of Tübingen in 1476, befriended John Reuchlin, whom he made his private secretary, welcomed scholars to his court, and is said to have learned Latin in later life. In 1482 he again visited Italy and received the Golden Rose from Pope Sixtus IV. He won the esteem of the emperors Frederick III. and Maximilian I. on account of his wisdom and fidelity, and his people held him in high regard. His later years were mainly spent at Stuttgart, but he died at Tübingen on the 25th of February 1496, and in 1537 his ashes were placed in the choir of the Stiftskirche there. Eberhard left no children, and the succession passed to his cousin Eberhard, who became Duke Eberhard II.
See Rösslin, Leben Eberhards im Barte (Tübingen, 1793); Bossert, Eberhard im Bart (Stuttgart, 1884).
EBERHARD, CHRISTIAN AUGUST GOTTLOB (1769-1845), German miscellaneous writer, was born at Belzig, near Wittenberg, on the 12th of January 1769. He studied theology at Leipzig; but, a story he contributed to a periodical having proved successful, he devoted himself to literature. With the exception of Hannchen und die Küchlein (1822), a narrative poem in ten parts, and an epic on the Creation, Der erste Mensch und die Erde (1828), Eberhard’s work was ephemeral in character and is now forgotten. He died at Dresden on the 13th of May 1845.
His collected works (Gesammelte Schriften) appeared in 20 volumes in 1830-1831.