Historical Sketch. 



53 



self generous to the Church, and be- 

 stowed large gifts of vineyards on 

 the monasteries and the dignitai'ies 

 of the Catholic faith, who made good 

 use of his generosity for their own in- 

 terests. Thus it is recorded as an 

 historical fact that Jean de Bassiores, 

 Abbot of Citeaux, near Avignon, in 

 consideration of a present of thirty 

 casks of Beaune and Chambertin he 

 made to Pope Gregory XI., vcas re- 

 warded b}' that pontiff with a car- 

 dinal's hat. 



According to ancient chronicles the 

 vine was unk nown at Bingen in 

 the year 842, and in 1074 the first 

 wine was made at Euedesheim. 

 Bishop Paidhart, of Mayence, founded 

 a monaster}' in 1106 on an eminence 

 on the right bank of the Ehiue, which 

 was called after him Bischofsberg, or 

 the Bishop's Mountain ; but as it was 

 consecrated to St. John, it subse- 

 quently became better known as Jo- 

 hannisberg, now the valuable property 

 of Prince Metternich. The monas- 

 terj' was destroyed by the savage 

 Margrave Albrecht,ofKulmbach, a. d. 

 1552, and though subsequently rebuilt, 

 it was finally ruined by the fanatical 

 Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus dur- 

 ing the Thirty Years' War. Li 1641 

 it came into the possession of Hubert 

 von Bleymann, Treasurer of the Em- 

 pire, who paid for it 30,000 florins. 

 The present castle Avas erected in 1717 

 by Prince Adalbert von Walderndorf, 

 and in 1816 it was bought with all 

 the vineyards, covering an area of 

 sixty-five acres, b}^ the then Emperor 

 of Austria, Francis I., who made a 

 present of the whole of the valuable 

 property to his prime minister, the 

 first Prince Metternich, as a reward 



for his talents and brilliant services. 

 On the death of the late Prince it was 

 inherited by his son, the present pro- 

 prietor. 



The almost equally celebrated vine- 

 yards of Steinberg were first planted 

 in the year 1177, in the reign of the 

 Emperor Barbarossa (or the Eedbeard) 

 by the monks belonging to the ad- 

 joining convent of Elberbach, who ob- 

 tained great celebrity for their system 

 of colonization, and who with their 

 own hands transformed a tract of 

 eight}- acres from an unreclaimed 

 wilderness into a well-cultivated and 

 flourishing vineyard, which they sur- 

 rounded with a stone wall of solid 

 masonry twelve feet high. 



On the whole there is good reason 

 to believe that quite as much atten- 

 tion was paid in former times to the 

 cultivation of the grape as at present, 

 though perhaps it was not conducted 

 on such scientific principles as in the 

 present day ; nor were there formerly 

 exhibitions of wines or associations 

 of vine-growers for the improvement 

 of their produce. There can be no 

 doubt that the best wines were made 

 before the Eeformation by the eccle- 

 siastics of the different monasteries, 

 whoso object was not so much to 

 make a large quantity as to make it 

 good, it being principally intented 

 for their own consumption. This is 

 abundantly proved by the ancient re- 

 cords and chronicles still extant^ which 

 invariably praise the quality of the 

 "theological wine," and speak ofit 

 generall}^ as the best made. After 

 the Eeformation, when so many mo- 

 nasteries were secularized, their vine- 

 yards came into possession of laymen, 

 whose interest and ambition was to 



