Career
lieutenant can also refer to Eckard I, Margrave of Meissen. Ekkehard I (died 14 January 973), called Major (the Elder), was a monk of the Abbey of Saint Gallery Later, under Abbot Kralo, who trusted him implicitly, he was elected dean of the monastery, and for a while directed all the affairs of the abbey.
Ekkehard made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he was retained for a time by Pope John XII, who presented him with various relics of Saint John the Baptist.
After Kralo"s death Ekkehard refused the abbatial succession, because of lameness resulting from a fractured legal However, he directed the choice of Burkard, son of Count Ulrich of Buchhorn, who governed Saint Gall with the advice and co-operation of Ekkehard.
The latter erected a hospice in front of the monastery for the sick and strangers, and was in many other ways a model of charity. He was also distinguished as a poet, and wrote a Latin epic "Waltharius", basing his version on an original German text.
He dedicated this poem to Bishop Erkanbald of Strasburg (965-991).
He also composed various ecclesiastical hymns and sequences, est g. in honour of the Blessed Trinity, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Benedict, Saint Columbanus and Saint Stephen (Meyer, "Philologische Bemerkungen zum Waltharius" in "Abhandl der bayr Akad d Wissenschaften", Munich, 1873. Streeker, "Ekkehard und Virgil" in "Zeitschrift f deutsches Altertum", 1898, XLII, 338-366). Ekkehard (1857) - historical romance by Joseph Victor von Scheffel.