Ildefons of Arx

Ildefons of Arx

Ildefons von Arx (born October 3, 1755 in Olten as Urs Joseph Nicolaus von Arx ; † October 16, 1833 in St. Gallen ) was a Swiss monk, historian and from 1823 to 1833 monastery librarian in the St. Gallen monastery library .

Live and act

After his school education in Olten, Toggenburg and St. Gallen, von Arx entered the Benedictine monastery of St. Gallen as a novice at the age of 18 in 1773 and took the religious name of Ildefons during his profession a year later . He was ordained a priest in 1781. He was a friend of the last St. Gallen abbot, Pankraz Vorster, and was in opposition to the abbot Beda Angehrn , whose debt management he did not approve. For this reason he was transferred to Hemberg in 1788 and to Ehaben im Breisgau in September 1789 , where Vorster had already been transferred to a criminal offense since 1788.

In 1792, von Arx wrote the history of the lordship of Ehaben . In 1796 he was called back to St. Gallen by Vorster, who in the meantime had succeeded Prince Abbot Angehrn. In 1797 he was a member of the St. Gallen interim government. While organizing the Olten and St. Gallen archives, he wrote several historical works. His most important work were the three volumes, Stories of the Canton of St. Gallen (1810–1813). These deal with the historical background of the newly created canton. When the monastery was finally abolished in 1805, he worked as an assistant to the archivist Konrad Meier.

In 1813 von Arx became the head of the St. Gallen seminary , followed in 1817 by the education council and in 1824 after the death of his friend and predecessor Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger he was employed as a monastery librarian in the monastery archive of St. Gallen and canon of the dual diocese of Chur-St. Gallen and the role of clergyman . He also worked on the first two volumes of the Scriptores in folio of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica , where he published annalistic texts from St. Gallen manuscripts as well as Viten and the Casus Sancti Galli . He stood with other contemporary historians such as B. Joseph von Laßberg in lively exchange.

The Ildefonsturm in Olten is named after him.

Fonts

Replica of the fountain of the four brothers in front of the rectory in D-79285 Ehaben, originally built in 1790 by four monks exiled from St. Gallen to Ehaben. On the top right of the fountain PANVOR for Pankraz Vorster, who later became the last Prince Abbot of St. Gallen, on the bottom right ILDAR for Ildefons von Arx

• History of the Ehaben rulership in 1792 (google book search).
• History of the city of Olten. 1802.
• History of the Landgraviate of Buchsgau.
• Stories of the Canton of St. Gallen. 3 volumes 1810–1813.
  • Stories of the Canton of St. Gallen. Volume 1 (Google Book Search). St. Gallen 1810. Reprinted with an introduction by Michael Vogler, Rorschach 1987, ISBN 3-85819-114-0 .
  • Stories of the Canton of St. Gallen. Volume 2 (Google Book Search). St. Gallen 1811. Reprinted with an introduction by Michael Vogler, Rorschach 1987, ISBN 3-85819-115-9 .
  • Stories of the Canton of St. Gallen. Volume 3 (Google Book Search). St. Gallen 1813. Reprinted with an introduction by Michael Vogler, Rorschach 1987, ISBN 3-85819-116-7 .
• as editor: Rhyming Chronicle of the Appenzell War. Written by an eyewitness and continued until 1405 (Google book search). St. Gallen 1813.
• The causes of the abolition of the St. Gallen monastery. In two letters (google book search). 1805.

literature

• Gerold Meyer von Knonau :  Arx, Urs Joseph Nicolaus v . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 615 f.
• Jürgen Sydow :  Arx, Ildefons from. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 404 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Rudolf Schieffer : Monastic in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. In: Studies and communications on the history of the Benedictine order and its branches 118 (2007), pp. 31–43.

Web links

• Publications by and about Ildefons von Arx in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library .
• Karin Marti-Weissenbach: Arx, Ildefons from. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Remarks

1. ↑ actually Hildefons, "the ready to fight", from Old High German hiltja = fight and funs = ready
2. ↑ Historischer Verein St. Gallen (ed.): P. Ildefons von Arx, the historian of the canton of St. Gallen. A picture of life from the time of the upheaval. St. Gallen 1874. Contribution by ADB author Gerold Meyer von Knonau
3. ^ Table of contents SS 1, 1826
4. ^ Table of contents SS 2, 1829

predecessor	Office	successor
Konrad Meier	Librarian from St. Gallen 1824–1833	Franz Weidmann