2 162. ST. EIGIL. 699
The Poetical works of Theodulph are divided into six books.1 The first is entirely devoted to one poem, The exhortation to judges? in which besides describing a model judge and exhort ing all judges to the discharge of their duties he relates his own experiences while missus and thus gives a most interesting picture of the time.3 The second book contains sixteen pieces, including epitaphs, and the verses which he wrote in the front of one of his illuminated Bibles giving a summary in a line of each book, and thus revealing his Biblical scholarship. The verses are prefaced in prose with a list of the books. The third book contains twelve pieces, including the verses to Gisla already mentioned. The fourth book contains nine pieces, the most in teresting of which are c. 1 on his favorite authors, and c. 2 on the seven liberal arts, — grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, music, geometry and astrology. The ffth book contains four pieces : Consolation for the death of a certain brother, a fragment On the seven deadly sins, An exhortation to bishops, and four lines which express the evangelical sentiment that only by a holy life is heaven gained; without it pilgrimages avail nothing. The sixth book contains thirty pieces. Ten other poems appear in an appendix in Migne.4
§ 162. St. Eigil
I. Sanctus EIGIL, Fuldensis abbas : Opera, in Migrne, Tom. CV. col.
381-444. Hia Carmina are in Foetce Latini sevi Carolini, ed. Dilmmlcr I. 2 (Berlin, 1881).
II. S. Eigilis vita auctore CAXDIDO monacho Fuldensi, in Migne CV. col.
383-418. Hist. lit. de la France, IV. 475-478. CEILLIER, XII. 272, 273. EBERT, II. Cf. CARL SCHWARTZ : Uebersetzung und Bemerkungen zu EiyiVs Nachrichten ilber die Grundung und Urgeschichtc des blasters Fulda. Fulda, 1858.
1 Carmina, ibid. col. 283-380. Ebert (I c. pp. 73-84) analyzes these poems at length.
3 Peramesis ad Judiccs, ibid. col. 283-300.
3 Cf. II. Hagen : Theodulfi episcopi Aurelianensis de iudicibus versus recogniti, Bern, 1882 (pp.. 31). * Ibid. col. 377-380.
700 FOURTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
EIGIL was a native of Noricum, the name then given to the country south of the Danube, around the rivers Inn and Drave, and extending on the south to the banks of the Save. In early childhood, probably about 760, he was placed in the famous Benedictine monastery of Fulda in Hesse, whose abbot, its founder Sturm (Sturmi, Sturmin), was his relative. There Eigil lived for many years as a simple monk, beloved and re spected for piety and learning. Sturm was succeeded on his death (779) by Baugolf, and on Baugolf's resignation Ratgar became abbot (802). Ratgar proved to be a tyrant,1 and expelled Eigil because 'he was too feeble to work. In 817, Ratgar was deposed, and the next year (818) Eigil was elected abbot. A few months afterwards, Ratgar appeared as a suppliant for readmission to the monastery. " It was not in EigiPs power to grant this request, but his influence was used to gain for it a favorable response at court \_i. e. with Louis the Pious], and Ratgar for thirteen years longer lived a submissive and penitent member of the community which had suffered so much at his hands."2 This single incident in the life of Eigil goes far to prove his right to the title of saint.
Loath as he had been to accept the responsible position of abbot in a monastery which was in trouble, he discharged its duties with great assuiduity. He continued Ratgar's building operations, but without exciting the hatred and rebellion of his monks. On the contrary, Fulda once more prospered, and when he died, June 15, 822, he was able to give over to his successor and intimate friend, Rabanus Maurus, a well ordered commu nity.
The only prose writing of Eigil extant is his valuable life of Sturm.3 It was written by request of Angildruth, abbess of Bischof heim, and gives an authentic account of the founding
1 See section on Rabanus Maurus.
2 Mullinger, Schools of Charles the Great, London, 1877, pp. 141, 142.
3 Migne, CV. col. 423-444.