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. In 1768 St. Blaise's abbey, with the library and church, was burnt to the ground, and the splendid new church which rose on the ruins of the old (1783) remained until its destruction by fire in 1874, at once a monument of Gerbert's taste in architecture and of his Habsburg sympathies. It was at his request that it was made the mausoleum of all the Austrian princes buried outside Austria, whose remains were solemnly transferred to its vaults. In connexion with its consecration he published his Historia Nigrae Silvae, ordinis S. Benedicti coloniae (3 vols, St Blasien, 1783). Gerbert, who was beloved and respected by Catholics and Protestants alike, died in St. Blasien on 3 May 1793. References Joseph Bader, Das ehemalige Kloster St Blasien and seine Gelehrtenakademie (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1874), contains a chronological list of Gerbert's works. 1720 births 1793 deaths People from Horb am Neckar 18th-century German Catholic theologians 18th-century German historians German musicologists German Benedictines German male non-fiction writers 18th-century German male writers