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.
EBERHARD, JOHANN AUGUSTUS (1739–1809), German theologian and philosopher, was born at Halberstadt in Lower Saxony, where his father was singing-master at the church of St Martin’s, and teacher of the school of the same name. He studied theology at the university of Halle, and became tutor to the eldest son of the baron von der Horst, to whose family he attached himself for a number of years. In 1763 he was appointed con-rector of the school of St Martin’s, and second preacher in the hospital church of the Holy Ghost; but he soon afterwards resigned these offices and followed his patron to Berlin. There he met Nicolai and Moses Mendelssohn, with whom he formed a close friendship. In 1768 he became preacher or chaplain to the workhouse at Berlin and the neighbouring fishing village of Stralow. Here he wrote his Neue Apologie des Socrates (1772), a work occasioned by an attack on the fifteenth chapter of Marmontel’s Belisarius made by Peter Hofstede, a clergyman of Rotterdam, who maintained the patristic view that the virtues of the noblest pagans were only splendida peccata. Eberhard stated the arguments for the broader view with dignity, acuteness and learning, but the liberality of the reasoning gave great offence to the strictly orthodox divines, and is believed to have obstructed his preferment in the church.
In 1774 he was appointed to the living of Charlottenburg. A second volume of his Apologie appeared in 1778. In this he not only endeavoured to obviate some objections which were taken to the former part, but continued his inquiries into the doctrines of the Christian religion, religious toleration and the proper rules for interpreting the Scriptures. In 1778 he accepted the professorship of philosophy at Halle. As an academical teacher, however, he was unsuccessful. His powers as an original thinker were not equal to his learning and his literary gifts, as was shown in his opposition to the philosophy of Kant. In 1786 he was admitted a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences; in 1805 the king of Prussia conferred upon him the honorary title of a privy-councillor. In 1808 he obtained the degree of doctor in divinity, which was given him as a reward for his theological writings. He died on the 6th of January 1809. He was master of the learned languages, spoke and wrote French with facility and correctness, and understood English, Italian and Dutch. He possessed a just and discriminating taste for the fine arts, and was a great lover of music.
Works:—Neue Apologie des Socrates, &c. (2 vols., 1772–1778); Allgemeine Theorie des Denkens und Empfindens, &c. (Berlin, 1776), an essay which gained the prize assigned by the Royal Society of Berlin for that year; Von dem Begriff der Philosophie und ihren Theilen (Berlin, 1778)—a short essay, in which he announced the plan of his lectures on being appointed to the professorship at Halle; Lobschrift auf Herrn Johann Thunmann Prof. der Weltweisheit und Beredsamkeit auf der Universität zu Halle (Halle, 1779); Amyntor, eine Geschichte in Briefen (Berlin, 1782)—written with the view of counteracting the influence of those sceptical and Epicurean principles in religion and morals then so prevalent in France, and rapidly spreading amongst the higher ranks in Germany; Über die Zeichen der Aufklärung einer Nation, &c. (Halle, 1783); Theorie der schönen Künste und Wissenschaften, &c. (Halle, 1783, 3rd ed. 1790); Vermischte Schriften (Halle, 1784); Neue vermischte Schriften (ib. 1786); Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie, &c. (Halle, 1788), 2nd ed. with a continuation and chronological tables (1796); Versuch einer allgemeinen-deutschen Synonymik (Halle and Leipzig, 1795–1802, 6 vols., 4th ed. 1852–1853), long reckoned the best work on the synonyms of the German language (an abridgment of it was published by the author in one large volume, Halle, 1802); Handbuch der Aesthetik (Halle, 1803–1805, 2nd ed. 1807–1820). He also edited the Philosophisches Magazin (1788–1792) and the Philosophisches Archiv (1792–1795).
See F. Nicolai, Gedächtnisschrift auf J. A. Eberhard (Berlin and Stettin, 1810); also K. H. Jördens, Lexicon deutscher Dichter und Prosaisten.
EBERLIN, JOHANN ERNST (1702–1762), German musician and composer, was born in Bavaria, and became afterwards organist in the cathedral at Salzburg, where he died. Most of his compositions were for the church (oratorios, &c.), but he also wrote some important fugues, sonatas and preludes; and his pieces were at one time highly valued by Mozart.
EBERS, GEORG MORITZ (1837–1898), German Egyptologist and novelist, was born in Berlin on the 1st of March 1837. At Göttingen he studied jurisprudence, and at Berlin oriental languages and archaeology. Having made a special study of Egyptology, he became in 1865 docent in Egyptian language and antiquities at Jena, and in 1870 he was appointed professor in these subjects at Leipzig. He had made two scientific journeys to Egypt, and his first work of importance, Ägypten und die Bücher Moses, appeared in 1867–1868. In 1874 he edited the celebrated medical papyrus (“Papyrus Ebers”) which he had discovered in Thebes (translation by H. Joachim, 1890). Ebers early conceived the idea of popularizing Egyptian lore by means of historical romances. Eine ägyptische Königstochter was
