It frequently served as a model for other biographies, and was extensively used as a school-book.
The reputation of Eginhard rests chiefly upon his life of Charlemagne (Vita et Conversatio Gloriosissimi Imperatoris Karoli Regis Magni, completed about 820), which is generally regarded as the most important historical work of a biographical nature that has come down to us from the Middle Ages.
He probably had no children, and the claim of the counts of Erbach, who trace their descent from him, and in whose castle the coffins of Eginhard and his wife are still shown, is probably unfounded. The report that his wife was a daughter of Charlemagne is probably untrue. As his wife Emma was still alive at this time, he appears to have agreed with her to consider her only as a sister. He was in 826 ordained presbyter, and in 827 assumed as abbot the direction of a monastery at Seligenstadt, which he had erected upon his estates. Here Eginhard spent the last years of his life in retirement. The latter presented him with a large tract of land in the Odenwald, the center of which was Michelstadt. On the death of Charlemagne, he was appointed preceptor of Lothaire, son of Louis le Debonnaire. Lerontius in Maestricht, Fritzlar in Germany, St. The emperor departed in his case, as in that of Alcuin, Angilbert, and some other friends, from his habit not to cumulate ecclesiastical benefices in one hand, and gave to him the abbeys of St. Eginhard accompanied the emperor in all his marches and journeys, never separating from him excepting on one occasion (806), when he was dispatched by Charlemagne on a mission to pope Leo, in order to obtain the signature of the pope for the document which divided the empire among the sons of Charlemagne. The emperor appointed him his private secretary, and superintendent of public buildings at Aix-la-Chapelle. Eginhard gained the favor of the emperor to a high degree, and an intimate friendship sprang up between him and the emperor's children, especially the emperor's oldest son and successor, Louis le Debonnaire. At an early age he repaired to the court of Charlemagne, and became a pupil of Alcuin. The place of his birth is entirely unknown. Eginhard or Einhard (sometimes also called Agenhard or Ainhard), the biographer of Charlemagne, was born about 770.
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