Martin Gerbert

[1] He was educated at Freiburg im Breisgau, at Klingnau in Switzerland and at the Benedictine St. Blaise's Abbey in the Black Forest, where in 1737 he took the vows.

[1] His examination of archives during his travels had awakened in him a taste for historical research, and under his rule St. Blaise's became a notable centre of the methodical study of history; it was here that Marquard Herrgott wrote his Monumenta domus Austriacae, of which the first two volumes were edited, for the second edition, by Gerbert, who also published a Codex epistolaris Rudolphi I., Romani regis (1772) and De Rudolpho Suevico comite de Rhinfelden, duce et rege, deque ejus familia (1785)[1] (cf.

The materials for this work he had gathered during his travels, and although it contains many textual errors, its publication has been of great importance for the history of music, by preserving writings which might either have perished or remained unknown.

[1] As a prince of the Empire Gerbert was devoted to the interests of the house of Austria; as a Benedictine abbot he was opposed to Emperor Joseph II's church policy.

In the Febronian controversy he had early taken a mediating attitude, and it was largely due to his influence that Bishop Hontheim had been induced to retract his extreme views.