ON ST. WINEBAUD ABBOT,
AT TROYES IN GAUL.
AROUND A.D. 620.
PrefaceWinebaud, Abbot, at Troyes in Gaul (Saint)
G. H.
Nicolas Camusat in his Promptuary of sacred antiquities of the diocese of Troyes, among other illustrious monuments and Acts of the Saints, Life formerly written. published from p. 288, from ancient MS. Codices, the Life of Saint Winebaud, Abbot of the monastery of Saint Lupus, then constituted in the suburb of the city of Troyes. This Life, distinguished and illustrated in our manner, we give, written in a simple enough style but veracious: which Benedictus Gononus published in a style contracted of his own in book 2 on the Lives of the Fathers of the West, p. 97, and Nicolas Des-Guerrois translated into the French language in the Ecclesiastical History of Troyes, especially for the year 622, and finally Simon Martin in the Sacred Relics of the desert, p. 278 and following. Age. This holy Abbot flourished in that dignity around the year 580, and departed from life around the year 620, as we gather from the Acts themselves by probable conjectures.
[2] His monastery dedicated to Saint Mary When Saint Lupus Bishop of Troyes was flourishing in the fifth century of Christ, the aforementioned monastery already existed, but was dedicated to the Virgin Mary Mother of God, as the ancient Acts of the same Saint Lupus to be published on July 29 have, and Camusat confirms in his Notes on this Life. At which time also in the neighboring diocese of Langres was built the monastery of Réome, as is clear from the Life of Saint John the first Abbot, illustrated on January 28; and Romanus and Lupicinus, brothers and Abbots in the monasteries of the Jura, excelled in the holiness of life, concerning whom we treated on February 28 and March 21. then dedicated to Saint Lupus of Troyes Since the aforesaid Saint Lupus, buried in the basilica of the said monastery, became famous for many miracles, it began to be called the monastery of Saint Lupus, which persisted until the year 892, destroyed in the year 892 when it was burned and destroyed by the Normans. The Clergy and monks of the said monastery foreseeing this disaster sought safer places, carrying with them the relics of Saints Lupus and Winebaud, and after the Norman assault subsided, returning, they built a church within the walls of the city under the same name of Saint Lupus, long governed under the auspices of the Canons: who around the year 1135 adopted the norm of the Augustinian rule, restored within the city. Gerard being elected Abbot, taken up from the Prior of Saint Martin, to whom succeeded Eurardus; then Guiterus: under whom the sacred bones of Saint Winebaud were deposited in a new chest. The history of this matter Camusat thus narrates on p. 300. Relics of Saint Winebaud adorned in the year 1180. "In the year 1609 I asked the custodians of the sacred relics of Saint Winebaud, the Religious of the said monastery of Saint Lupus, to permit the chest, into which the relics themselves are placed, to be opened and closed again, which they readily granted. When it was opened, there were found bones, reverently placed in the same reliquary, covered with silver plates, which also the silver images of the twelve Apostles finely made surround on every side: on which some Latin verses were also incised: of which these two alone remain whole.
In the year one thousand one hundred and eighty, Under Bishop Matthew, I am made under Father Guiterus."
Concerning Matthew, who was the 57th Bishop of Troyes, consult the Sainte-Marthes in tome 3 of Gallia Christiana p. 1081.
[3] In the suburban place, where Saint Winebaud had been Abbot, afterwards a small chapel was built sacred to Saint Martin, arm in the chapel of Saint Martin. in which the other arm of Saint Winebaud is reported to be reverently preserved by the above-indicated Des-Guerrois; who asserts that a place eight leagues distant from Troyes, near the village of Saint-Pierre de Boursenay, is famous for the hermitic life of Saint Winebaud: where, as Camusat testifies on p. 300, "There is a Priory, distinguished by the name of the same Saint Winebaud, which depends on the monastery of Saint Lupus: where a fountain gushing with very limpid waters waters the sanctuary of the Priory: in which many, burning with febrile heat, after saluting with prayers and vows the same Saint Winebaud invoked, wash themselves, and are restored from their disease by his assistance: as happened four hundred years ago to Warner, Lord of Triagnel: who himself, not unmindful of so great a benefit, wished it to be attested to all posterity, by a literary monument conceived in this form of words.
testimony confirmed in the year 1179. I, Warner of Triagnel, wish it to be made known to all, both present and future, that the Canons of Saint Lupus of Troyes, dwelling at Saint Winebaud, used to pay me three modii of oats annually for protection, from their own. But when I had for a long time been vehemently afflicted with quartan fever, and with difficulty, on account of excessive weakness, brought in a four-horse carriage to the fountain of Blessed Winebaud, having been bathed there three days, wholly freed from the fever by the merits and intercessions of the blessed Confessor, I donated one modius of the said grain in thanksgiving to Jesus Christ to the same church in perpetual alms. Enacted in the year 1179."
[4] referred to December 18 by Trithemius, This Saint Winebaud, even by this sole title, that he was an Abbot, Trithemius ascribed to the illustrious men of the Benedictine Order book [*] chapter 67 in these words: "Winebald Abbot of the monastery of Saint Lupus of Troyes, a learned and holy man, was in great esteem with King Lothair, who held Burgundy. He was also very familiar and beloved by Blessed Lupus Bishop of Sens, and reconciled him to the offended King. He flourished in the year of the Lord 620, whose feast is celebrated on December 15 recte 18." Trithemius is followed by Wion and Dorganius in the monastic Martyrologies: on which day Saint Wunibald Abbot of Heidenheim died whom Ferrarius wrongly cited, refers to Saint Wunibald Abbot of Heidenheim in Germany, brother of Saints Willibald and Walburga, whom on December 18 we have said died, on February 7 in the Life of Saint Richard the father no. 9. About the same also on this day Saussay treats.
[5] on April 6 he is commemorated by others. But because Saint Winebaud is said below in the Life to have died on the eighth day before the Ides of April, he is referred to on this day, but with a more distorted name, in the Carmelite MS. preserved at Cologne and the MS. Florarium of Saints, likewise in the Cologne Martyrology printed in the year 1490, and in Greven and Molanus in the Appendix to Usuard: and he is called "Wermebandus Abbot": whom Wion and Dorganius followed. Ferrarius, ascribes both "Wermebandus Abbot" and "Guinebaldus Confessor," as distinct, to Troyes: whom Maurolycus calls "Wermebaldus." Menard more correctly names him Winebaud, as also do Saussay and Bucelinus, who have excerpted longer encomia from the Life. It is strange that the same is not referred to by Constantinus Ghinius in the Nativities of the Canonical Saints, since that monastery of Saint Lupus had been of the Order of Canons Regular of Saint Augustine for five hundred years. In a very ancient MS. Martyrology of the Church of Reims of Saints Timothy and Apollinaris, he is thus commemorated: "At Troyes, Saint Winebaud, Presbyter and Confessor." Ferrarius inscribed him again under the name of Vanebottus in his Catalogue on the 16th day of April. John Mabillon in the Index of Omitted Saints in the second Benedictine century refers to Saint Winebaud, and not affixing an asterisk, rejects him from the true Benedictines. The festivity of Saint Winebaud, for the greater convenience of the people flocking, is celebrated on the 2nd Sunday after Easter, as we received from a letter written from Troyes by the Rev. D. Cousinet in the year 1663.
LIFE
From the Tricassine Promptuary of Camusat.
Winebaud, Abbot, at Troyes in Gaul (Saint)
BHL Number: 8949
FROM CAMUSAT.
[1] The praise of holy works and virtues, truly increased, shines out in the paths of light; that perfection may not lack deeds, and that the pious people may not omit its order, but that it may be laid open by a manifest reason. The most holy man Winebaud, a native of a Nogent, a village of the diocese of the city of Troyes, was born of not lowly origin. Born at Nogent, For his father and mother were of Roman stock, but excelled the highest degree with the greatest liberality, and destined their son to be instructed in letters, who also with the utmost swiftness obtains wisdom, which is the gift of God; and presently attains the grace of the Holy Spirit, and being consecrated to God, he becomes a Cleric, since he feared the uncertain and falling chances of worldly frailty, he received the burden of the clerical office, and the divine fountain so infused into him the regular norm, that in a small cell he led a solitary life. When therefore he was spending the night in prayer and fasting and the singing of psalms and vigils, the holy man celebrated the divine offices frequently, not idly but becomingly, through the sacred mysteries through which was also shown an access to the fullness of his primitive virtue, it is more glorious to say. Now there arises for me the matter to be spoken of so great and such a man: who, truly most blessed, and he practices abstinence. from boyhood, at the Lord's inspiration, imposed on himself such bridles of continence with regard to abstinence either from more delicate food or the gluttony of flesh, that the little boy did not now demand more than to be fed with a single morsel of milk.
[2] When now the cattle, set free, were in their pastures, and the animals were pasturing on the victuals of the grasses, a certain (as they say) thief in a neighboring little field, by name b Honorius, attempted to steal a calf of his mother. a thief, carrying off a calf Then he, anxious what to do, as a terrible wild beast leapt out, grasped the neck of the calf with his arms, and more swiftly bound his mouth, so that the lowing of the calf might not be heard: the animal bound with iron, and moreover squeezed by blows, he separated from its mother, and placed it at his own house where he was hiding. Immediately having seized an axe, cannot kill it turning his right hand at the head, he wished to kill it, the most wretched man thinking that it could not be taken from him: at his back an Angelic hand held the haft. being hindered by an Angel: The increase of strength profited nothing, since in no way could he by any force do it damage. Often through three days the criminal thief performed this office, and at length was seized by a demon. seized by a demon, he utters a bellow: His human voice was changed into the voice of a beast, and they ran together, but his bellows penetrated to the stars. The calf with its bonds gnawed through and broken hastened unhurt to its mother; and the robber, crowded by dire burnings, came bloody to the Priest: and when he stood near the cell of the holy man, shaking his head frequently, he made inarticulate bleatings. Hearing these things the most blessed Winebaud, by Saint Winebaud, opened the door of his cell, and placed the sign of the Cross on his mouth; and embracing his neck, binding with his arms, he breathed into his mouth, and out of the bellow a tranquil voice returned. To whom the gentle man said: "I correct you with mild chastisement, corrected, he is dismissed. that you should no more be bold in being harmful to anyone; but if you will not, you will endure both here and in the future grave penal torments. Let what is yours suffice you in justice: use these if you wish to conduct your goods with a vital benefit and swiftly"; and chastised and mitigated, he permitted him to go to his own.
[3] The most blessed man c Gallomagnus, Bishop of the city of Troyes, hearing the fame of Blessed Winebaud, he himself summoned to the Bishop of Troyes: which was openly being spread among the people, at once with haste directed the most reverend Lector to the venerable man, whom the tertian fever with its grievous incommodities was pressing. The holy man Winebaud, fearing inwardly, and thinking that the greatness of the Pontiff would not permit him to return to his own, said: "My brother, I dare not refuse the Pontiff's command, if his holiness would permit me his servant to return to my own d cell." Finally by most confident merit he came to him, to whom it was not unknown by prayer to retain the favor of Saint Lupus: and when the force of heat and cold by sudden onset was more often shaking the limbs of the Lector, He frees his Lector from fever. thence bending his knee to prayer, prostrating himself to the ground, he shone forth with the virtue of excellent faith, and obtained the most salutary medicine. When the Pontiff saw the Lector snatched from the force of fevers by the virtue of Saint Winebaud, he said to the venerable man: "If your kindness permits, I shall not cease to speak to you. It is necessary for us, holy man, that you not desert this city, and that you dispose to pray for your own sheep." But the most blessed man said to him: "I do not dare to refuse the admonitions of Saint Paul, who says, 'Whoever resists the power, resists the ordinance of God.'" Rom. 13:2 The holy Pontiff asked that he would deign to be advanced to the basilica of e Saint Lupus, to serve his holiness with continuous prayers.
[4] At the same f time Audericus, Abbot of the said basilica, died: after whose death the holy praise of the Brothers with one voice acclaimed to the aforesaid Apostolic man, that they might deserve to obtain as Abbot before their own eyes the venerable Winebaud, whom in the degree of Levitic or Sacerdotal honor by a sacred blessing he had raised to the highest pinnacle. The blessed Pontiff seeing these things, He is ordained Abbot: that by God's nod one will was proclaiming in the people, said to all who unanimously persisted in his love: "O most holy men, this Winebaud whom you acclaim, by the nod of the supernal Arbiter and with the will of both sexes, we agree and ordain him for you as Abbot." The ordination having been received, the Abbot said to the Brothers: "Be comforted and fear not: let charity in you remain unshaken, that perfection may not lack service." The blessed man therefore, chosen by God, in continuous prayers and fasts constantly gave himself to pleasing goodness.
[5] fasting strictly It is worth recounting his virtues, because in him there was such abstinence, that he kept the forty-day fast up until sleep, and placed his neck subject to the yoke, that in the enclosure of his cell, with his limbs entirely weary, he cast himself upon the ground: for through the whole week he did not exhibit himself more abundant food than three modest loaves, and sleeping hard which he did not divide more than three fistfuls of flour each day, so that by the repeated number he might indicate the Holy Trinity. And when the most blessed Winebaud Abbot would come out of his cell on the birthdays of the Saints, with a cheerful face and bright speech he strengthened the Brothers. These however wondered and feared him in all things, that for so many days he endured such hunger, that half a bread he had to eat, and the whole parts that remained stayed, which his appetite had not consumed. The praise of parsimony grew for the better with the palm of triumph and fame among the people: because the merciful God ministered vital food even to his athlete. He remains in robust health. Greater strength grew in him by abstinence, than if his belly often satisfied with copious viands were filled: but the most holy man, vigilant in wisdom, prudent and simple, gentle in peace-making, did not pass over the saying of the Gospel, and held the cleverness of the serpent: because he also guarded his Head, which is Christ, that he might prudently avoid the snares of the devil; and held the simplicity of the dove, that with wonderful humility he might not perpetrate evils in this world. The most atrocious enemy always seeks an entry as a serpent, to deceive the souls of the innocent, that he may strike them by the snare by which he seduced Eve and her companion.
[6] A certain woman of the village of g Arceii, when on a holy Sunday her co-godfather came to visit her, who had spiritually regenerated her son from the sacred font, urgently she and her husband begged that he enter their house; for whom swiftly preparing seats, A woman foully avaricious they sat together. But when the loquacious woman, the spark of her own avarice having enflamed her, anticipated presumptuously her husband's conversation, so that what she had conceived in her mind she might utter wickedly with her mouth: "With indissoluble bond of faith," she said, "I bind myself to you: if I had cider or wine of Falernus, I would give you a cup": she who nevertheless had closed little flasks full in her chamber. He, full of faith, believed: and returned. Immediately the false-speaker by God's nod was struck with a serpentine dart. For when on the aforesaid holy day after these things she was washing and combing the head of her son, the fingers stuck with a hand tightened, and she pierced her palm with her bite, so that the utmost tip of her h teeth appeared: because she whom a whole week had not sufficed, incautious polluted the nourishing day. grievously punished And when she was now foreseeing sudden death before her eyes, with a great voice with wailing she cried out: "Woe is me! who shall come to my help, since I appear condemned by God's judgment?" Thence stricken with sadness, remembering the virtues of the holy man Winebaud, whose fame pervaded the provinces, most reverently with the utmost haste coming to him, as if to her own physician she asked for aid. But when the most blessed Abbot had most promptly prostrated himself to prayer, and was kissing the thresholds of Saint Lupus with his own lips, and tears were flowing from his eyes; divine mercy was not far from him: to serving whom continuously, he did not fail to be present. The prayer completed, by prayers and the sign of the Cross heals, taking the hand of the woman, he placed on it the sign of the Cross, and the fingers (which were joined in the flesh, and as if stakes) moving them one by one, and plucked them from the hand, recalling them to their pristine use, he sent her most healthy back to her lodging.
[7] A woman named Nonnulla, of the village of Pricciacum,
[8] For the redemption of Saint Lupus After this event, Blessed k Lupus Bishop of the city of Sens is known to have incurred (by I know not what chance) the calumny of King Chlothar, and outside the rite of canonical sentence obtained exile. For the cause of this matter, l his Archdeacon came to the most venerable Abbot, and knelt on his knees, that his holiness would not refuse to beseech the aforesaid King, going to King Chlothar, that the most sacred Church should no longer stand destitute of the protection of its Pastor, nor be held exiled or alien. Wherefore no delay was made for the one requesting, where mercy anticipates the voices of the supplicant. The journey being begun, with divine grace he swiftly undertakes the way. When the holy man was approaching the town of Rouen from afar, and now Phoebus, the day finished, was inclining his course toward the evening; he said to his companions, "Fix, brothers, our little tent, because we are worn out from the journey"; and when the most blessed man had prostrated himself for a little to rest, divine admonition came to the aid of the sick. It was spread about concerning his coming, that in a nearby place the Saint's lodging was had. Meanwhile the parents of a certain little woman rejoiced, he illumines a blind woman, and running together to her who had been deprived of sight, holding her whom they had seized by their own hand, they led her to the illustrious soldier of Christ, and said to him: "Lord, look upon our offspring." The most blessed servant of the Lord, considering the woman to have been condemned by such a case, placed a blessing on her head and eyes and the sign of the holy Cross. Immediately the darkness being removed, the lights become clear: and she who had been led to him by another's office, received whole sight, and on her own feet without doubt returned home.
[9] The girl had not yet gone away from the place, and behold, a certain little man, a native of the said city, at the instigation of the adversary, rabid, turbid, and desperate, as though hoarse with the voices of many barking dogs and fighting with his teeth, and he heals a rabid man. was tearing with his truculent teeth whatever he could catch, even the innocent: whom a huge crowd of men scarcely could suppress, binding his hands with bonds, and his sides fenced with chains, like a most ferocious bull he is dragged to the servant of God. "We are present," they say, "before you, merciful Lord; the adversary has dragged [him] from the way astray, because your servants could scarcely drag him here before you. We implore, Lord, restrain and give rest to the rabid one." He seeing them, felt compassion for the wretched one: and with eyes lifted to heaven, raising both palms on high, he prayed. Immediately seizing the hair on the back of the head, and the stiff neck warming with his embrace, he placed the standard of the Cross on his mouth; he was made safe, and no longer did he appear harmful to them, but unharmed returned to his birthplace.
[10] he obtains from the King the liberation of the captives and of Saint Lupus: Then the most blessed man came to the King at a villa by the name of Alent, not far from the town of Rouen. Who when he had seen him, rejoiced, and received him as an Angel of the Lord and as a heavenly gift. The man of God Winebaud therefore asked, according to the prayer of the Archdeacon, that the guilty who were held by his Dukes or Counts in pits or in prisons, his Highness would deign without any delay, for the sake of the religion of the Saints or for the stability of the kingdom, to absolve. Accordingly m what he asked he obtained: the captives being released, along with Blessed Lupus Pontiff of the Senonese.
[11] Farewell being said, he takes up the journey again, comes to the city of Paris, n and retaining with him only two Presbyters and one Deacon, being expected further on, he permitted the others to depart. After this, he said to the Brothers who remained with him: "Let us pray, and let us not delay, but more secretly let us walk our way": and when he had first reverently gone around the churches of the Saints, returning by prayer he opens the doors of the prison, the fountain and origin of mercy God intimated to him with the regard of piety, that to the condemned in the prison place, the bonds of custody being removed, he should impart the ray of mercy. Wherefore summoning the Presbyter the companion of his journey, he addressed him saying: "Hurry, do not delay: inquire diligently if the keeper of the prison is present." Who going more swiftly, pushing against the doors, found them fastened, and what he learned he reported saying: "Long since, Lord, divine announcement in many places openly announced your coming: the soldiers who guarded have fled, and all the bars of the bound ones are kept closed in silence." Then the Saint said: "Be silent, dearest ones, the place of prayer has come." and from the collapse of the same falling down, And when he had prayed, after a little that prison fell down, and within it struck down none of the condemned, nay also their limbs were all from the fetters and all the bars by divine mystery loosened. After these things he said to his companions: "Let us go now, because God has opened for us the doors of the dungeon." And when they had gone together, they entered to those who had been imprisoned among the stones: he leads out the captives, and they could scarcely extract anyone from the ruin with their hands, because half-dead from hunger and thirst they tottered in all their limbs, and could not govern their step. Thence the holy man gave them bread and drink, and with spirit and soul refreshed, he washed the heads of each with his own hand, and shaved the hair of those who had grown long with time, and paying the price he purchased clothes, commanding that the filth and rags with which they were clothed should be thrown away, he clothed them all again in new garments, saying: "See, my little sons, you have deserved divine absolution, without fear return to your own."
[12] His Pontiff and the holy man Winebaud having returned, and entering o the city of Sens, the exulting people go forth to meet them with hymns and songs. After this as time went on, on [p] a certain day, while Saint Lupus was sitting at table in the city of Sens, through the Holy Spirit he knew that the man of the Lord Winebaud had entered the church of Saint Stephen: then, leaving his meal, cheerfully he goes out to meet him with no one announcing it, and finds Saint Winebaud going between the church of Saint Mary and Saint Stephen, he is drawn by Saint Lupus to a banquet: and the prayer in the aforesaid church being completed, with the kiss of peace given, he led him to his own banquet.
[13] Often in bands the sick flowed together to the cell of the blessed man Winebaud, urgently beseeching, that he should by touch handle their limbs, and lift their grievous burdens from them. But God the true Physician, he heals various sick did not desert his faithful friend for long praying: for immediately where the hand of the Saint touched the infirm, with pristine vigor restored, by the Lord's help, unharmed they returned to their own dwellings. O most illustrious man, whose benignity freed those carrying his staff from sufferings and fevers! While he was still constituted in the body, many seized by demons, and the possessed: with various voices cried out that they were being tormented by his virtues, and when in detail he more diligently applied the rigor of the word, through the standard of the sign of the holy Cross the demons, driven away, left the possessed, like shining vessels: for the most blessed athlete and servant of the Lord, by divine adjuration commanded that the marvellously driven away malign spirits should go to where they would endure flaming torments.
he excels in chastity and other virtues: O how precious a man! in whom no deceit stood, who never lustfully mingled the carnal bed, so that chastity being guarded, the integrity of virginity might remain in him. He had also such mercy in him, that he incessantly bestowed the food of alms to the needy. O most excellent Priest, chastised by fasts, devoted to prayers, a temple of the Lord, a habitation of the Holy Spirit! Let us come therefore to that time, in which he migrated to the Lord. He was translated into the supernal Jerusalem, the Just exulting to have received a colleague full of such faith. The friend of God deserved that, born on earth, he should possess the glory of heaven by virtue which he did not have by nature. The holy man died on the eighth day before the Ides of April. He conquered the world, he dies on April 6. sending his spirit to heaven: he did not lay down the term of life, but changed it. Let us pray that through his intercession the Lord may deign to enlighten his face upon us, by which we may be able through the true word to run the narrow way. Which he himself may deign to grant, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.
NOTES.
A fountain is there unsullied and silver with glassy waves.
So Camusat. Concerning this fountain famous for miracles we have treated above.
King Chlothar (after he had obtained the kingdom of Burgundy, King Theoderic having died and his sons having been killed in the year 613) directed into Burgundy; and the iniquity of Medegesilus, who ruling a monastery in the suburb of Saint Remigius, attempted to occupy the place of the holy Bishop, and therefore was killed by the citizens of Sens.
p The same things are plainly narrated in the said Life of Saint Lupus.
ON BLESSED NOTKER BALBULUS,
MONK OF SAINT GALL IN HELVETIA.
A.D. 912.
PrefaceNotker Balbulus, monk of Saint Gall, in Helvetia (Blessed)
AUTHOR D. P.
The most holy author and founder of the monastery of Luxeuil and of the discipline propagated from it, Columban, Disciple of Saint Columban, Saint Gall, whose feast day the Church recollects on November 21, yielding to the fury of the impious Brunichild, took up among the other companions of his journey and exile Saints Gall and Deicolus; whom, when they had been forced to remain on the way and dismiss their master because of infirmities sent by God's providence; from one of them the monastery of Lure in Burgundy, as we remember saying on January 18, took its beginning; from the other, the now most noble monastery in Helvetia retains its name, from Saint Gall, I say, buried in the same place around the year 626 and shining with miracles. What Rule was observed there at those first beginnings is no business to inquire, for it must be held most certain that the disciples kept and handed down to be kept by posterity the institutions of their master: but these (as it will be plain to him who examines them) were very different from the Benedictine constitutions. he held the institute of his master: It might only be asked how long these were observed alone by the followers of Saint Columban: and concerning the monks of Lure it will be more difficult to define this, since from the Life of Saint Deicolus we only have that the wicked possessors of the now desolate place, afterwards a monastery is founded at his cell, Hugo the Count and his sons, terrified by divine vengeance, after the year 911 vowed that they would obediently submit themselves to the Rule of the most blessed Benedict, tonsure, habit, profession, and would guard the stability of the same place unto the end. Concerning the Cell of Saint Gall it is more definitely established, from his own Acts faithfully described by Walafrid Strabo, that Saint Othmar, the first Abbot, was instituted in that place by Charles Martel, that he might strive to establish a regular life there; and from Martel's son Pepin, he received the booklet which Father Benedict had composed on the conversation of monks, and from that time the beginning of monastic life in the monastery of Saint Gall is designated.
[2] With what great increases it grew there will excellently shine forth from this Life, which we are about to give, of Saint Notker Balbulus. Yet because the discreet indulgence of the Abbots to those holy ascetics, because of the great poverty of the place and want of fish, which as being less regular under Otho I was accused had relaxed something beyond the prescription of the Rule concerning the eating of meats and the propriety of a few things, a certain huge storm was stirred up against them under Otho the Great, under the pretext of establishing the Rule. But Bishops and an equal number of Abbots having been sent to inspect, first of the kingdom, it was manifestly plain, that what some of them had testified to the Emperor before they went, that monks more regular were not to be found in the Kingdom. And so they, as had been commanded them, using wonderful discretion of charity, left them best consoled, and established in the Rule of Saint Benedict as they wished; but to the Emperor they reported that, having diligently scrutinized everything they had, among none of them had they found any abundance of any good except of charity and humility: that only the poverty of the place hindered, so that in wine and the other expenditures of the Rule the prescribed consolations should not be provided to the monks. And when nevertheless the Emperor had ordered Kebo Abbot of Lorsch to return to the same place, it is found to observe the best discipline. to enter upon the way of Benedict with the discretion by which he knew, before the chicks of Gall, and to teach them to live after his manner; and not content with this, also ordered Sandrat a monk of Cologne after some time to be received by them, as a master for forming discipline; this man, because he found nothing there which he might accuse, was not ashamed to turn it against them as a fault, that with glorious exaltation of voices they daily celebrated Sunday in the church; but in the refectory they always kept Friday, by the rigor of fasts and the parsimony of wine. Therefore when this one, from the shame of the faults committed against the very Rule which he had come to establish, at length took to flight; Otho repenting of the troubles which under the pretext of the Rule he had brought upon the innocent, consoled them by his own visitation, and wondering at the admirable rigor of discipline in all things, when standing in the middle of them in the church and surveying all around, he let a staff slip from his hands as a test, and saw none of the monks moved even his head or eyes at this.
[3] These things are described at length by Ekkehard a monk of Saint Gall, in the book on the cases of the monastery brought down beyond the year 982; and they are so described, that unless Walafrid Abbot of Reichenau, at the request of Gozbert Abbot of Saint Gall and his monks, and Saint Benedict's Rule to have been received with its first Abbot. writing the Life of Saint Gall about the year 830, had so expressly taught, that after the glorious deposition of Blessed Gall, from the time of Dagobert up to Charles Martel, certain religious Clerics had administered the daily vigils at the relics of the sacred body, either kindled by the memory of his discipleship or by divine love, without any form however of cenobitic life; and that to Saint Othmar, received to establish the same there, was given the booklet containing the Rule of Saint Benedict; unless I say these things Walafrid testified so clearly from the writings of the Saint-Gallians themselves, we should altogether suspect that that place, from the death of Saint Gall up to the times of the Othos, with never an interrupted order of discipline, had been governed according to the Rule of Saint Columban, upon which to have the Benedictine superinduced was then first stirred up with so much clamor and effort. But now there is nothing why anyone should hesitate to ascribe Saint Othmar and the Saints that followed in the Saint-Gallian monastery, and namely him of whom we are about to treat, Notker Balbulus, to the Benedictines.
[4] There Saint Notker flourishing around the year 870 This man was received quite a boy into that monastery under Grimald the Abbot, after the year 841, and first committed to the training of Iso, then of Marcellus the Irishman, succeeded the latter in the mastership of the claustral school; as his inseparable companion Ratpert in the governance of the canonical, that is, clerical youth outside the cloister, had succeeded Iso who died around the year 871. At this time or a little after, the same Blessed Notker composed that Martyrology, which under his name from the MSS. of Saint Gall Henry Canisius published in tome 6 of the Ancient Readings, as he himself manifestly indicates on the 10th day before the Kalends of June, writing about Saint Desiderius Bishop of Vienne in this manner: "Concerning whom, that is, Desiderius, because the Venerable Father Ado, he wrote a martyrology: in our age Bishop of the same church, as one placed in the presence and for that reason most known in all his own, judged it superfluous to say anything special in his Martyrology; we, according to the writing which the same Apostolic man in the year from the Lord's Incarnation 870, Indiction III, together with the relics of that same holy Martyr Desiderius, and the pledges and contests of other Saints, directed to us constituted in the monastery of Blessed Gall, briefly touching a few things about him, have taken care to intimate to those ignorant of the same things." Notker moreover made use especially of the Martyrology of Ado, which he seems in part to have taken to be contracted, in part to be supplemented, both from more ancient MS. martyrologies and from Rhabanus and the proper Acts of certain Saints.
[5] he died in the year 912. Moreover, as Notker makes mention of the relics of Saint Desiderius, brought in his time to the Saint-Gallians, so he would not have omitted on the 5th day before the Kalends of September, reciting in a compendium the Martyrdom of Saint Pelagius, to have mentioned the body brought from Rome to Constance by his Abbot and Bishop of Constance Salomon around the year 918, had he at that time still been among the living. Wherefore Hepidannus's Annals, brought down from the year 709 to 1062, we can, nay must, understand of Saint Notker (for so Ekkehard expressly indicates him in chapter 16 of his book, falling upon his memory as of one already dead) when we read there in the year 912, "The same year Notker the Master died." For although more Notkers shone in that monastery, of whom we shall speak soon, nevertheless none in that whole tenth century except Balbulus deserved to become known. afterwards other Notkers of the same name flourished there, For Notker the Physician and Notker the Abbot, the latter the nephew, the former the uncle, flourished under the Othos, and in the year in which the comet-star was seen in autumn time, namely 981, soon followed the death of Abbot Notker, only a seven-year period before having been ordained in the flower of his age, and of his former predecessor Burchard (as Hepidannus writes) and of Notker the physician, a decrepit and blind old man. These however are much later than he, whom Murer refers with the title of Blessed, Notker Labeo, and writes to have died on July 28 in the year 1022. But also in Hepidannus's Chronicle it is read, that in the year 1228, Notker the most learned and most benign man of our memory, and others there named, perished with a widely raging disease; this perhaps is the one whose death is noted in the Saint-Gall Ephemerides, written in the year 1272, on the 18th day before the Kalends of January, as of a monk and Presbyter, if however this one is different from Murer's Blessed.
[6] The deeds of Saint Notker, such as we give here, the aforesaid Ekkehard inserted almost verbatim into his history: The Life of Saint Notker written in the 13th century, "Junior" he is called, with respect to another coeval and a little before him Dean in the Saint-Gall monastery: but who, with respect to others no less famous, and to both the aforesaid Ekkehards seniors, could have been called "the Fourth." For the first from
those whom we know, and absolutely to be called elder, and Dean of the monastery, flourished under Otho the First: the second was chaplain and master of Otho II: the third, already before named Dean: the fourth, the cited writer, under Norbert the Abbot, constituted around the year 1040, composing the history of the Cases of the monastery, continuing the work of a certain Ratpert from Solomon to Immo, that is, to the year 972. After all these, with an interval of a century and a half, again another Ekkehard, distinguished with the title of Dean, also himself existed, who testifies that he lived in the time of Innocent II (as will be seen below in no. 28), and gathered the Life of Saint Notker from the aforementioned book and some other monuments: would that these themselves had come to us sincere, rather than the variously interpolated Life such as is that published by Goldast. It was not however extremely difficult to purge it of certain inept glosses, and patches ineptly thrust into a foreign place; and so to take care lest the audacity of an unskilled man should confuse the reader, who wherever he read the name of Emperor Charles, added the surname "the Great," and between nos. 48 and 49 interjected a chapter on the zeal of Otho I toward the monastery of Saint Gall, adding how the Emperor, coming there a little before his death, inquired where was and whether his sweet nephew Notker Balbulus still lived, afterwards interpolated not without confusion whom, aged and dim-eyed, having kissed, he and his son Otho II, taking his hand, led him courteously into the cloister: all of which the book of the cases of the monastery (whence they are taken) tells of Notker the Physician, uncle of Abbot Notker, things done almost 70 years after the death of Saint Notker.
[7] Similarly also in no. 7 was inserted an importunate digression about three Notkers, confusing Notker the Physician and the Abbot into one person, and having so placed it, assigning a third, who was surnamed "Peppercorn," on account of the sharpness of his mind: which is clearly read in Ekkehard chapter 9, where Notker, whom they called "Peppercorn" for the severity of disciplines, is asserted to have been a teacher, of persons and times: painter, physician, under Craloh the Abbot: and so none other than he who is everywhere indicated as "Physician" or "Medicus." Conrad of Fabaria, Presbyter of Saint Othmar, and composing the fourth book on the cases of the monastery of Saint Gall, and ending in Conrad the Abbot, at whose election made in the year 1226 he was present, recounting in chapter 3 the disciples of Iso, distinguishes from Notker Balbulus "Notker the master of the theoretical art," so that you may doubt whether he means the Physician, who could never have seen Iso. Finally Melchior Heimenfeld Goldast, who published at Frankfurt all the Saint-Gall monuments, because certain ones did not sufficiently distinguish more Notkers. illustrated with his own annotations, everywhere in the Index gives Abbot Notker the surname "Labeo." Metzler in Canisius places two Notkers famous for writings; one Balbulus, who was the author of the Martyrology; the other Physicus, who died in the year 1033: all of which fall from the things said. Moreover, since the Saint-Gallians themselves, later than the 13th century, were so deluded about the Notkers, it must be forgiven to Trithemius, Fisen, and other external writers, that they did not distinguish Notger Bishop of Liège from this our Saint, or drew this same one back to the times of the Othos, deceived by the interpolator of the Life: whom to contradict themselves, Vossius well noted in the book on the Latin Writers. Yet Arnold Wion and, following Arnold, Philip Ferrarius, erred no less, when on the 10th day of April they increased the titles to Notker Bishop of Liège, and named him absolutely "Saint," and believed him to have been Abbot of Saint Gall, when he was raised to the Episcopal infula. A holy man he is called by Alberic, referring his election to the year 972: "of holy memory" by Saussay, mingling him with the Gallican Saints: Fisen, who knew very well that he was not held as a Saint, so relates his Life brought down through seven chapters, as to abstain from every more religious title. Notker the Bishop died in the year 1007, on the 9th day before the Ides of April. But Abbot Notker on the 18th day before the Kalends of January in the year 973, after a Prelature of four years; so that the election of the Bishop preceded the death of the Abbot by only one year.
[8] Writings attributed to the Saint, The Saint-Gallians long preserved the Psalter, translated by Notker into the Alemannic language during the reign of Arnulph, with such difficulty of words, says Joachim Vadian book 2 On the ancient colleges and monasteries of Germany, that "it cannot be received except by an attentive and abiding reader: so hard and panting was that old language of the Franks and Alemanns." Whoever wishes to know a specimen of the language in the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed, written after the same Psalter, let him read the aforementioned author in Goldast vol. 3 p. 47. The Psalter in whose hands was then the said copy, written by the hand of Ekkehard the Younger for the use of the Empress Saint Matilda at Mainz: but Goldast, dissenting from Vadian, vol. 1 p. 5, makes the interpreter of the Psalter not Balbulus but the Physician. It seems possible to ascribe more certainly to Balbulus the Charter of alimony, by a certain Wiliboldus, for the delivery of his little field purchased by Hartmuot the Abbot; which Notker, instead of Winidhart the monk, wrote and subscribed, and noted the year 33 of the reign of Louis the Younger, counting namely from the death of his father Louis the Pious, that is, from the year 840: so that the common year 873 is there noted, when the 16th day before the Kalends of June fell on a Sunday, as the same signature in Goldast vol. 3 p. 67 has. The aforesaid Vadian says there also exists a Life of Blessed Gall, by the same author written in hexameter verses, hard indeed and uncultivated, but rare for that age. Trithemius ascribes to him a book "On Music and Symphony"; which seems indicated in no. 14 of the Life, as though written to a certain Lampert: accordingly we more easily consent with him on this than on the book "On the expositors of sacred Scripture," and another "of letters to diverse," scarcely doubting that those are of another Notker, and perhaps of Liège, concerning whom Trithemius had promised to treat under his title.
[9] Saint Notker Balbulus won especial praise from his "Sequentiary," of which there is a treatment in chapter 4 of the Life: chiefly for the Sequences, on whose occasion on whose occasion he is there reported to have been pronounced worthy of the honors of the Saints by Innocent III, although the Saint-Gallians up to that time had acted concerning him as for any other deceased, he began to be held as Blessed under Innocent III which Conrad of Fabaria, writer coeval to the author of the Life and to Pope Innocent III, thus expounds: "Questioned, Ulric VI the Abbot, by the Apostolic, namely Innocent III, about Blessed Notker, whether he was of great authority among the Alemanns, the Pope judged him worthy of Catholic canonization, the Abbot's response having been heard." I think however that nothing at Rome was then moved, but that from this time the anniversary commemoration of him was begun, which in the Saint-Gall Ephemeris written in the year 1272, is thus noted: "On the 8th day before the Ides of April the death of Notker, who composed the Sequences: and the day of his death to be commemorated, April 6. on whose anniversary is given a lesser stoup (a kind of beer-measure) from the Balnea-stupa behind the walls and from two other houses adjacent to it and the gardens placed above, which belong to the church of Saint Peter." The author of this provision is noted by the same Ephemerides on the 5th day before the Ides of December, where is signed: "Death of Hermann the monk and Presbyter of Ottiburron and Zuozwillere, and it is added: This man instituted the stoup on the anniversary of Notker, master of the Sequences."
[10] In the Epitaph which is added after the Life, "Our Notker is said to have been released from the flesh of Otto on the Ides of April." Ferrarius however in his General Catalogue, and Hugo Menard following him, and then Bucelinus, others wrongly read the 6th Ides. note the deposition of Blessed Notker on the 6th day before the Ides of April, deceived, as it seems, by the corrupt text of that Life, where "VI Idus" is written for "VI day of April": on which 6th day the index of the proper Offices of the monastery of Saint Gall notes the feast of Notker Confessor, double of 2nd class: but it is added, "It is celebrated on Jubilate Sunday." Wherefore we cannot sufficiently marvel that that error about "VI Idus Aprilis" is found not only in that Hagiology which the Saint-Gallians read privately in German (where it is noted "April 8, today is the day of the death of the Holy Father Notker"), but also in the Lessons which were offered to the sacred Congregation of Rites and approved by the same in the year 1608. We approve however that about the canonization (which in the said Hagiology was wrongly ascribed to Julius II) the Lessons speak more clearly and truly, under Leo 10 the feast was instituted whose 2nd Nocturn concludes in this manner: "When almost six hundred years he had shone with frequent miracles, by the order of Julius II Supreme Pontiff, Hugo Bishop of the church of Constance, in the year of the Lord 1514, the 2nd year of Leo X, declared him Blessed. His festivity by an anniversary rite, to be celebrated in the monastery and all subject churches, Francis the Abbot transferred to the third Sunday of Easter."
[11] The Process formed by the said Hugo by the mandate of Pope Julius, but completed only under Leo, and consigned by the actual celebration of the feast itself, the process presented beforehand, we give. we will give after the Life, from Goldast and Canisius compared with each other, both of whom received it from a Saint-Gall autograph. We could have added the celebrity of the year 1628, in the year 1628 the translation was made. in which on the Ides of October were translated the bodies of Saints Othmar and Notker; of which Translation the historical narration was transmitted to us by the Rev. D. Marcus Erber, Dean of Saint Gall: but since the principal honor is owed to Saint Othmar, we prefer to defer it to November 16. Meanwhile here from the supplication of the Saint-Gallians, offered to the sacred Congregation of Rites in the year 1624, we add that there exist letters, written by Hugo of Constance to the Clergy of Saint Gall, under the year of the Lord 1520, April 3, by which he testifies that "he had by Apostolic authority inscribed Blessed Notker in the Catalogue of the Saints." But since the authority to canonize Notker could not have flowed from the commission of Julius II (for this one had expressly provided, lest "from those things which concerning decreeing the feast of Blessed Notker the same Hugo had ordained, the said Notker on that account be considered Canonized or otherwise approved," his cult restricted to the Saint-Gallians alone. and this again Hugo admonished in the decree drawn up on the subject), someone might suspect that, after the institution of that feast, something further had been done and obtained from the Apostolic See, by force of which it became permissible to venerate Notker, as a Blessed approved by the universal Church. But against this stands, that it is said in the aforesaid supplication, "It has not rarely happened that when new altars were being erected in the churches and places subject to the monastery of Saint Gall, these were also dedicated in honor of Blessed Notker; his name was used in the Litanies, Collects, and other public and solemn prayers: yet on account of the clause, inserted in Julius's indult, it had been doubted by many whether these were lawfully done and could henceforth be done." But the sacred Congregation of Rites responded that they were lawfully done and could be done, the things standing which Pope Julius had written back; only that the monks or Clerics of Saint Gall should refrain from
doing these things outside their own dominions, and from celebrating the Mass and Office of Blessed Notker elsewhere than in their own. From which the former suspicion falls, and it is plain that the cult of Blessed Notker is up to now lower than that which is offered to Blesseds approved for the whole Church; and the aforesaid words of Hugo to the Saint-Gall Clergy are not to be taken too strictly.
LIFE
By the author Ekkehard, Dean of Saint Gall. Published by Canisius and Goldast from MSS. of the monastery of Saint Gall.
Notker Balbulus, monk of Saint Gall, in Helvetia (Blessed)
BHL Number: 6251
FROM EKKEHARD.
PROLOGUE.
[1] First of all I complain, that what most grieves me, perfect and most wise men, Life of Saint Notker dwelling in the monastery of Blessed Gall, did not write the praiseworthy deeds of the many Fathers or Brothers abiding there: since it is established that they did and said many things worthy of relation. Therefore I am afflicted with much grief, and I marvel greatly what cause existed, that thus were neglected such great men, of whom the world is unworthy to enjoy, by whose institution the Clergy is formed, through whom the all-creating Holy Spirit wished to adorn the divine Office, in which the souls of the just rejoice; by whose doctrine the Church of God shines and rejoices, not only throughout Alemannia, but also from sea to sea, and throughout the whole world unto the ends of the earth, in hymns and sequences, in tropes and litanies, in various chants and melodies, and many ecclesiastical disciplines. For since we know them to have been most holy and most learned, and some of them were received into the number of the Saints; it is grievous and tedious to us that we have found nothing written about their virtues. But we the same deeds, though moderate, from older sources which the ancients have left to us in writings, about Notker, surnamed Balbulus, a man at that time most famous for the doctrine of wisdom, and most blessed for the holiness of his merits, and about his comrades, whatever we have found in schedules, we have striven to compile into one.
[2] For although I am far unequal to this work: the laudable conversation of life and the wisdom of the aforesaid Notker Balbulus greatly demands this, that so bright a lamp not be placed under a bushel but upon a candlestick, that it may give light to all who are in the world. To write worthily the virtues of a holy man and his life is not the office of a tepid soul: since I do not believe any one, however wise, to be sufficient for this work. Some however, laboring in the investigation of reasoning or in the ornament of eloquence, by things which could be simply and plainly set forth, often offer disgust to the hearers or readers. We therefore, neither sufficiently imbued with the rules of Donatus, The author with simple style undertakes the gathering. or the grammar of Priscian, nor exercised in dialectical subtleties, nor cheered by the rhetorical flowers of philosophical eloquence, not in sublimity of speech, shall pursue the things we have gathered, in true faithful humility, justice of reasoning dictating. One thing however is to be feared and revered by me, when I shall narrate the great deeds of the Saints, lest God say to me sinning, "Why do you declare my justices, and take my testament through your mouth?" Ps. 49:16 I, not presuming of justice, but having invoked the holy man of God, that by his merits and prayers help through the grace of the Holy Spirit may be conferred on me, that the work begun may be devoutly finished, as if some libation for tasting, I set before your ears and mind: but if anything displeases, I ask that it be amended and granted to us.
NOTES.
* or "subolet"
* or "eorum"
CHAPTER I.
Saint Notker's monastic institution, and his virtues in youth.
[3] Saint Notker to be adorned with all virtues, Christ, the virtue of God and wisdom of God, who mercifully, that he might free us from sins, had assumed the form of sinful flesh to himself, as he calls us sinners through diverse ages, so also justifies and saves us for the diverse virtues of merits. For some he sanctifies and fills with the Holy Spirit while still in the womb; some however at the mother's breast, though not discerning the qualities of virtues, he clothes with the adornment of modesty; others yet boys, that they may cease from lasciviousness, he strengthens with the dowry of continence; the youths themselves, having suffered the greatest struggle of flesh against spirit as if too hot, he grants to triumph in the crown of victory; the old, now as it were declined to death, he recalls to repentance; finally those who are in decrepit age, afflicted by various tribulations, at last by the love of the heavenly fatherland he grants to sigh to the things above. These virtues therefore although he partly gives them through diverse ages to some, many however may be seen whom because he has proposed as a mirror and form for his Church, he adorns with all these virtues, as him about whom our discourse is. About whose virtues those things which I have learned by the truthful relation of very venerable men, or a written according to the extent of the commentaries have found, lest I be accused of feigning anything through love of the place, simply with humble scratching let us pursue; and confirming each of his deeds or sayings with the authorities of the holy Scriptures, that Spirit corroborating with which the holy man abounded, let us return to the proposition of our relation.
[4] Therefore blessed Notker was born from the district which is called b Turgowe; born of noble stock in Thurgau, and in a village which in Latin is called Sacer pagus, but commonly called c Heiligowe, was procreated from most noble progenitors. For from the race and blood of the Carolingians and of d ancient Saxons was the lineage of his parents. But he was fulfilling the etymology of his own name through the turnings of the times, when with the Apostle e necessarily desiring to be with Christ, much more so. But such a name in such a place I do not think to have happened by chance, but by the disposition of God, without whose nod neither a drop of rain falls to the earth. For the Son of God who had chosen Bethlehem where he would be born, Nazareth where he would be nourished, Jerusalem where he would suffer, and who wished those very places to be named with such great names corresponding to the mysteries; he himself also wished the place, which he had consecrated by the nativity of so great a man, to be called by such a name. Whose aforesaid parents, when they flourished elegantly in the nobility of the secular life, by pious parents had vowed from the very womb of the mother to subject their son to the whip of the grammar art. But because they had heard that in the monastery of Saint Gall there flourished the study of the seven liberal arts and the rigor of the regular life and discipline (the Holy Spirit inspiring such desire in them, in the monastery of Saint Gall he is offered. that through the virtues of so great a man the same place might be adorned on account of the merit of the blessed Patron), they proposed to subject him there to the monastic life. f Whom also under the Archimandrite by name g Grimald, who then presided over this place, an Abbot h Canonical, a very venerable and holy man, with an oblation bringing him regularly to Lord and Father Gall, thence for the grace of sacred institution they left: and thus grace of the Holy Spirit being first given, the hair of his head being deposited under the rule of the same Abbot, and delivered to Iso as master to the master Iso, most learned in all arts and most especially skilled in divine Scriptures, he is handed over to be instructed.
[5] And so the boy of good disposition, applied to literary discipline, learned each thing with such great ingenuity that it might be easily known, that this was not the capacity of human study, but the operation of the divine Spirit: who, as in the book of Kings is read of David, i the Holy Spirit being received while a little child, remained with him through all the time of his life and the rest. 1 Kings 19:3 For as he had received the grace of the same Paraclete in baptism, so from boyhood through all ages preserving himself in the fear of God * immaculate (except those things without which man cannot live), never from the secret of his heart, where the true temple of God ought to be, had he expelled it. Here as if a new Daniel, he excellently advances, both in learning still a boy, he discussed the deeds of the elder fathers, and weighed them with such great discretion, that whatever of virtue he saw in them fitting to his age, this, painting in the hidden part of his mind, he hid away to imitate; but if he had sensed anything vicious or reprehensible, or from which suspicion could arise to him, at once he would look upon his own wretchedness: and knowing that there is scarcely a man who does not sometimes exceed, on account of the rigor of the mastership of claustral discipline, which was always greatest in that same place on account of the custody of the holy rule in his boyhood age, he did not wish or dare to accuse, but quickly removed them from himself; and cast them far from the attention of his recollection: for he had in his desire more to lead a celibate life on earth, and preserve fraternal charity toward all, than to nourish hatred with the eye of suspicion, the nourishment of detraction.
[6] The holy man of God, when he had proceeded from infantile simplicity to the flower of youth, as by the gravity of his morals yet always had his mind firm to the devotion of the good purpose, knowing it written, "Youth and pleasure are vain": * and again turning himself to that saying which says, "Rejoice, young man, in your adolescence," never showed himself more joyful, but rather offered examples of gravity to his coevals. Eccl. 11:9 & 10 For the flame of love so burning, and daily affecting his mind in prayer, and macerating his flesh through tears of compunction, seeking nothing earthly, nothing transitory, he was alone in his leisure; so that with mind collected into one he might cling to him who made all things, and by his desire might transcend all worldly things, not now from fear of punishments, nor from memory of vices, but kindled by the fire of love with the odor of virtues: so that rightly in the praise of the Bride it might be said of his soul, and by the fervor of prayer, "Who is this that ascends through the wilderness, like a small rod of smoke, from aromas of myrrh and frankincense and all powder of the perfumer?" Cant. 3:6 And so the prayer of the just man, conceived from the virtues of intimate love, as smoke from aromas is wont to elicit tears; because while it asks only heavenly things, sometimes the force of love becomes of so great subtlety, that the mind itself, which deserved to be illuminated, cannot comprehend it: and therefore he sacrifices the incense of frankincense and myrrh, while he continuously mortifies the vices of the flesh, and tends to the vision of God, to which he burns from the marrow to attain; and exhibits and exercises himself in God in the good works of virtues, and so he is offered as powders of the perfumer.
[7] The blessed man had a defect from boyhood, that he was of slower and more impeded tongue, although called Balbulus for his voice. but was most swift in the eloquence of the spirit k. Which must not be thought to have happened to him by chance: but as blessed Moses, from when the Lord began to speak with him, confessed himself not eloquent; so to this one, the grace of the Holy Spirit having been received, the outer man was made tongue-tied, that the inner might speak plainly. For the man full of God devoted himself, to the custody of the senses lest he easily lose the grace conferred upon him,
to fortify his heart with all custody: to prayer, vigils, fasts, abstinence, and patience he gave his effort, and suddenly transcended himself, according to that saying of Isaiah: "Those who go in with force to Jacob, Israel shall flourish and sprout, and they shall fill the face of the world with seed." Isa. 27:6 With every effort he strove to overthrow the flesh, to overcome the demons, that he might come to that height, at which he might behold the invisible things of God understood through those things which are made. And so directing the eye of contemplation through the window of humility, he looked up to the supernal city Jerusalem, and to the whole assembly of the sons of Israel there, that is, those seeing God, where from the fullness of him sitting at the right hand, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, he might receive whence he might fill the holy Church, spread through the wide world, with seed, that is, with example, doctrine, and praise. The sacred Orders, which while still a boy he himself had received, he so adorned with blessed morals, that if the tenderness of his age had not contradicted, he could have been fitted to whatever higher sacraments. And when he was passing his boyhood age with his coevals and emulators of the same virtues, he so joined himself to them in all familiarity and honesty of morals, that he easily found praise without envy in them, and equal friends.
[8] Those things however which the vicious and slippery age of youths demands, such as to run about, wander, circle, be lascivious, and he devoted himself to interior collection: be proud, be ambitious, burn with pleasures, seek foolish companions, speak useless things, and many other things with which youths are affected, he so utterly detested, that never outside the gates of the monastery, except when forced by obedience, did he set foot. And when firm religion had compelled him to this, before he would go out, fortifying himself with the sign of the Cross as though about to fight more bravely, then seeking for himself protection with tears through each altar of the Saints, even prostrated at the feet of religious Brothers, lest he be infected by any secular stain or delight, he besought them to pray: for a Psalm or holy meditation, while he was outside, rarely or never was lacking: other things whatever he made little account of, these he never neglected. But in the Monastery no one ever saw him rise from his stall or walk, except in order; Never did he mingle himself with the jokes of youths or comrades; but while they were joking, because "the extremes of joy are occupied by mourning," he often proclaimed. Sirach 7:15 Nor was he a forgetful hearer of that precept: "In all your works remember your last things, and you shall not sin forever. He humbly serves the sick, The same one was in all meekness subject to all, and most prompt to serve: and now made an imitator of his Lord, who did not go to the son of the Regulus, but was ready to go to the servant of the Centurion; he strove to be more frequently in the cells of the sick, than to converse with the healthy. Whom, gently consoling, he faithfully admonished that they should hope that the infirmity itself had come about not idly, but for the pardon of their sins. And the filth and stench of the sick he so familiarly and delightedly endured, that you would have thought he perceived not the stench but the fragrance of the sweetest odor.
[9] Provostships or deaneries or any office of any order or prelacy he never desired, he flees prelacies, saying that prelacy often was accompanied by pride, boasting, arrogance, running about, and much talking; and to take part in this without crime would be not of human virtue, but of divine donation. Yet suffering with them, he did not harshly or vehemently accuse the transgressors, but begged them to seek their former repose by weeping and prayers more diligently. For he testified that prelacies sometimes by virtues, sometimes also by vices, to the greater condemnation of the same, by the hidden judgment of God come about. The conversations also of women, as certain snares of the tempter, he carefully preserves chastity, he fled; from their form, even of those joined to him by the chain of consanguinity, he turned away his eyes, saying with the Psalmist: "Turn away my eyes that they may not see vanity: in your way enliven me." Ps. 118:37 Of chastity namely and purity of heart he was so ardent a follower and lover, as he himself often by example with his companions conversed, that he might be able to follow the footsteps of the Lamb without stain. Never overcome by the delusions of any women or at the instinct of demons did he consent to imagination, so that he should pollute himself with any kind of fornication; but he kept his mind under such caution, that after the example of blessed Job, he did not even think of a virgin. If also he had heard any to utter lisping or ridiculous discourses, he, the lover of charity, predicted that they, as being about to render account of every idle word.
NOTES.
* or "immaculatus conservabat"
* or "Plus"
CHAPTER II.
The progress of Saint Notker and his companions under Marcellus as master, the commendation of Saint-Gall discipline.
[1] Notker desiring greater advancement, Narrating or praising the deeds of the most holy Notker Balbulus, I cannot at all keep silent about the praises of his companions: and therefore I must be spared, if compelled by necessity, I touch with the plectrum of the tongue the string on the side, by which there may resound things worthy of praise—the virtuous deeds or sayings of the companions of this most sweet man, to be inserted into this work. When the mind of the blessed man, satisfied with the crumbs falling from the great table of sacred Scripture, with his companions Ratpert and Tutilo, equally Monks, under Iso the Master at that time most learned, had been quite sufficiently taught the subtleties of the liberal arts, not for glory or secular favor, but for the utility of the holy Church of God, and had not been mediocrely initiated in divine things; yet desiring to be imbued further, he asked in faith, nothing doubting, the Holy Spirit, who had filled him from infancy, who breathes where he wills, to fulfill his desire. For as to a dry land he sends the later rain with which it may be watered, that it may sprout; so presently a certain Scottish Bishop, by name Mark, the Lord sent to the cell of Saint Gall. Who returning from Rome, wishing to go home, visits Gall as his fellow-countryman: and captivated by the doctrine of Marcellus his host, to whom was accompanied the son of his sister, by name Moengal: afterward by our people he was called diminutively Marcellus from his uncle Mark. This man was most learned in divine and human writings, with whose doctrines the thirsty heart of the blessed man Notker was refreshed. And when they were received honorifically by the brothers, as befitted a Bishop; the blessed man Notker, having known the knowledge of the said Marcellus, ran suddenly and poured out prayers to the Lord, * more urgently with tears prayed and asked that he would give them the will to remain there on account of the merit of Saint Gall: who immediately was heard. He entreats God that he would be willing to remain there, And so great a desire both of the place and of the regular life, the grace of the Holy Spirit working it, had begun; that if they had been compelled to depart, they themselves, as much as they prevailed in strength, would have resisted to remain.
[11] What more? The Bishop is asked to remain with his companions some time in our place, the nephew being attached; and long deliberating with themselves, yet at last the Bishop consented to remain, with his nephew and few assistants of his tongue. The rest therefore returning home, clothed in stole he blessed those departing, and with many tears on both sides they departed. After a short time the cloister schools are handed over to Marcellus along with blessed Notker Balbulus and the rest of the boys of the monastic habit: but the exterior, that is, the canonical, to Iso, with Salomon and his peers. under whom with Ratpert and Tutilo Who this Salomon was or what kind of man we shall say in the following. But Marcellus presiding, imbued fully the minds of the disciples Notker, Ratpert, Tutilo, and others, in the knowledge of the seven liberal arts. But to music, the most pleasant art, these three more diligently before the others applied their mind, but before all holy Notker: which since it is more natural than the other arts, and although more difficult to apprehend, yet more convenient and sweeter in use, they prevailed so much in it at last, he learns music, as in the works of each of the six other arts which we have touched before. These three disciples of Marcellus, Notker Balbulus, Ratpert, Tutilo, were so unanimous in all familiarity, honesty of virtues, and conversation of morals, that they had one heart and one soul.
Inseparable in the love of fraternal charity, and as a mother her only son, so lovable in their life they loved each other, and when in death they are separated, yet in the kingdom of Christ they have been gathered into one: although by vows they were one-hearted in fraternal charity, yet by nature, as will be, they were dissimilar. But how much the man of the Lord Notker with his companions advanced in the musical art, the following will declare.
[12] When in the manner of most wise Solomon, according to the institution of King David his father, Gregorian chant. in the house of the Lord, on account of the compunctions of musical sweetness, the blessed Pope Gregory (as John Archdeacon of the Roman See a writes about him) most zealously had most usefully compiled the Antiphoner "centonized" b, also established the school of Cantors, which up to now with the same institutions sings in the holy Roman Church. The sweetness of this modulation, among the other peoples of Europe, the Germans or Gauls or Alemanns could learn and often relearn; but they by no means preserved it uncorrupted, both by the levity of mind, by which they mixed some of their own with the Gregorian chants, and also by natural fierceness. For Alpine bodies, resounding on high with the thunders of their voices, do not properly echo the sweetness of the received modulation: because the barbarous coarseness of their drinking throat, while with inflections and repercussions and diphthongs of diaphony it strives to produce a gentle tune, by a certain natural crash, as wagons sounding confusedly in descents, hurls out rigid voices; and so it disturbs the minds of the hearers, whom they ought to have soothed, such ones, by more vehemently exasperating and causing uproar c People of this kind, [from whose peculiarity the Transmontanes have declined, if perhaps they are lacking natural good qualities, or if they will not or cannot attain a good manner, at once despise and fall into that saying, "The foolish despise the doctrine of wisdom"; and though they are unformed in morals and uncouth of voice, they wish yet to seem masters and rulers, on account of some appearance of religion which they arrogate to themselves; and not only do they themselves not perceive, but they also hinder others from perceiving the sweetness and understanding of modulation. [Hence it is that in the time of this Gregory, with Augustine then going to Britain, cantors of the Roman institution dispersed through the West also remarkably taught the barbarians. Who having died, the Western Churches suddenly corrupted the instrument of modulation they had received. d Again therefore a certain John, a Roman cantor, with Theodore equally Roman but Archbishop of York, was destined through Gaul into Britain by Pope Vitalian: who recalling the sons of Churches situated all around to the pristine sweetness of the song, both through himself and through his disciples, for many years kept the rule of Roman doctrine: but with these dead they immediately deviated. [This is that Prelate Vitalian, whose chant even now when the Apostolic celebrates, certain who are called Vitalians are wont to utter in his presence.]
[13] Meanwhile Charles, who was called the Great, King of the Franks, being at Rome, offended by the dissonance of the Roman and Gallican chant (when the insolence of the Gauls e argued that the chant from the Romans had been corrupted by certain dirges, Charles the Great takes care to restore it, and the Romans on the contrary credibly showed the authentic Antiphoner), is said to have asked: "Who is accustomed to keep clearer water between the stream and the fountain?" Those answering "the fountain," he prudently added: "Therefore also we, who up to now have drunk the corrupt water from the stream, must run back to the principal currents of the perennial fountain." And so presently he left two of his industrious Clerics with Pope Hadrian; and these being rather elegantly taught, he recalled the Church of Metz to the sweetness of pristine modulation, through which he corrected all Gaul. But when after some times, these, who had been educated at Rome, being dead, the most prudent of Kings saw the chant of the Gallican Churches differing from that of Metz, and noticed each one jeering the chant as corrupted by the other: "Again," he said, "let us return to the fountain." Meanwhile there was in the Prelates of Saint Gall f and the other masters living there the greatest desire to regulate the chant according to the authentic Antiphoner, and to keep the melodies in the Roman manner. two Cantors being sought from Rome, But how they pursued this we shall take care to communicate to posterity. Sending therefore again Emperor Charles to Rome, to Pope Hadrian, he asks that he again send him two Romans, skilled in chants, to Francia. Then the Pope assenting to the king's prayers, according to his petition sent two a second time, with authentic Antiphoners, and books on the seven liberal arts: by whose judgment the Emperor knew that all had corrupted the sweetness of Roman chant, by a certain levity. One of them was called Peter, and the other Romanus, sufficiently imbued with the pages of chants and of the seven liberal arts, one of whom at Metz and went to the Church of Metz, as the first ones. When in Septimum g and lake Comum they were being shaken by an air contrary to the Romans; Romanus, seized by fever, could scarcely come to us; but the Antiphoner with him, Peter resisting, willy-nilly, since they had two, one he brought to Saint Gall. In a short time, however, with the Lord's help, Romanus recovered from the fever. Peter indeed goes to the Emperor, who, having learned about Romanus, sends a swift messenger, who, if he should recover, ordered him to stay with us and instruct us. Which he, returning thanks to the hospitality of the Fathers, most willingly did, the other in the monastery of Saint Gall. saying h: "Four rewards, you holy Lords, you have acquired in me alone: he was a stranger, and you took him in in me: sick, and you visited: he hungered, and you gave me to eat in him: he thirsted, and you gave me to drink in him." Then both, fame flying, when each had heard the zeal of the other, they emulated for praise and glory, after the natural custom of their nation, which of them would surpass the other. It is worth remembering how much by this emulation each place advanced, and grew not only in chant, but also in the rest of the disciplines.
[14] Peter had indeed made there jubili for the Sequences, which the people of Metz call: they compose melodies, but Romanus on the contrary Romanly and pleasantly from his own had modulated jubili for us: which indeed afterward, the holy man Notker bound with those words we see; namely "Frigdorae" and i "Occidentanae," as he so called them, and new melodies animated by their chants, himself also thought of his own. But Romanus as if it were right to exalt our things before those of Metz, took care to confer the honor of the Roman See upon the monastery of Saint Gall thus: there was at Rome a certain instrument and chest, for the deposit of the authentic Antiphoner and for the public inspection of all comers, which from "cantus" was called "cantarium." Such a one he caused to be placed among us, like that one, around the altar of the Apostles with the authentic one which he himself had brought, an exemplary antiphoner, in which even today if anything is dissonant in the chant, as in a mirror, every error of this kind is seen through and corrected. In the same one also that first man devised to assign the significant letters of the Alphabet with notes, according as it seemed, upward k or downward, before or behind l: which afterwards Blessed Notker Balbulus elucidated to a certain Lampert kindly asking: which in him should not be despised since also Martian, whom m we admire for "the Nuptials," strove to write of their virtues. From there took its beginning almost all Europe, whom Notker augmented and illustrated: and especially Germany or Teutonia, according to the manner and form (as in the Monastery of Saint Gall most skilled men, Romanus and Notker Balbulus and the other masters, corrected according to the example of the authentic Antiphoner of Gregory) chose to sing, and to keep this rite of modulating, which also all called "Usum" n. Following these aforementioned men, Berno monk of Saint Gall, afterwards Abbot o of Reichenau, wrote a very subtle Sum on this Use to Peregrin Bishop of Cologne [p].
[15] How much the cell of Saint Gall at this time began to grow by the auspices of virtues, whose time the discipline of the monastery was seen in person. on account of the merits of its inhabitants, and by spiritual disciplines, and at length flourished, it is pleasant to remember. For the Senate of the commonwealth of that place was then indeed most holy, as Adalbero [q] Bishop of the Augsburg Church testifies. This blessed Prelate, hearing of the signs and virtues of Saint Gall from many, went to the place on the day of his festival [r] for the sake of praying, and present seeing more things, "Greater," he said, "is the grace of this place than the rumor I heard." Returning home, he is praised by Saint Adalbero Bishop of Augsburg. asked among other things once by his people, whether with us, as fame had spread, there was religion with doctrine, severity with discipline: "What the rest think," he said, "I do not know; what is in my mind I pronounce: I sought one Saint, and that one dead: but living, as I confess truly Brothers, I found most holy ones. Their doctrine and discipline is to be seen in the works of their virtues: for it delights me to remember such men, whom indeed I can scarcely wait to see again. I must by all means, with my people helping me, prepare myself, so that on the next day of Saint Gall, visiting the men of God, I may be inscribed as their Brother, and as much as grace is in me, repay their charity." The chosen of God came as he had promised, and cheered the Brothers and familias with great gifts.
[16] In the same way it happened that Peter [s] Bishop of Verona came unexpectedly. To Peter or Adalpret Bishop of Verona The Brothers therefore receiving him, were offering him the Gospel which they had better. But he, thinking himself despised, since he had heard the great fame of the place, was floundering within himself about the cheapness of the book. At Mass a silver chalice is set out, which is also held the better: about which he weighs something sinister. And when he was fed with a sumptuous meal, rising from the table, he seeks a conversation with the Brothers. When they were gathered: "Well, Lords," he said, "you have dealt with me; and as we heard, so we saw; but for a Gospel and chalice cheap set forth, a scruple remains: although I am unworthy and cheap, yet I am not called Bishop of a cheap place." Us constantly protesting that there were no better ones at Saint Gall, the spirit of the man was quieted. Taking at last some of the Brothers aside in secret, he said to them: "Send after me to Verona six of those whom you have most faithful travelers; who two and two, by three ways which lead from here there, may come to me; yet individually two and two let them show themselves to me; and with the thumb curved back to the hand let them ask alms. Whom I, as I am wont to do to others, into my inner chamber, alone to alone, in the presence of my people shall lead in and clothe; but gold, the equivalent weight of which I give you, I shall bind around their legs with little bands, and send them away, that by the same art by which they came, with fortune as companion, they may return to you." It was done as the sharp giver taught; there was brought to Saint Gall and his Brothers a heavy weight of gold of Verona, and the weight matched the equivalent weight. What then? From the gold of Peter there is made a chalice, is made a chest, is made a case for the Gospel, all adorned with most precious gems.
[17] In similar manner [u] Landeolus a holy man [x] Bishop of Darvia: this man was a Swabian and noble, and brought up and taught at Saint Gall: who also bestowed many
gifts to his monastery and Brothers. and Landeol Bishop of Tarbes Therefore made Bishop, he was wont to go often to Rome; but at last once returning from Rome, desiring to visit his Gall and the Brothers, seized by fever from the defect of the Italian air, he could scarcely come to us. Knowing that the end of the present life had come upon him, having called to him the Abbot and Brothers, in their presence he closed his last day, and with a noble death passed on, and with every honor his body was buried in the Church of Saint Peter. At whose tomb often the sick, by his merits have obtained health. Let these be written for the glory of the house, in which such Saints dwelt, whom Bishops of regions and Princes of lands came from East and West to emulate; but let us return to the proposition.
NOTES.
p This one succeeded Saint Heribert in the year 1021, whose Life we gave on March 16.
q Ascribed to the Saints by Hugo Menard and Bucelinus on June 12, he was created Bishop according to Bruschius in the year 904.
r Namely October 16.
s Before the year 1290 the Veronese had no Bishop Peter; and that the catalogue of the Bishops is accurate, which the historians of that city refer at the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth, the diplomas related by Ughelli tom. 5 of Italia sacra demonstrate: wherefore I am greatly moved to believe that the name Adalbert or Adalpert or Adalpret, written or kept by memory less fully, has given occasion to the error. This man was sitting in 891 and in 926 he still seems to have been alive, Notherius having been taken as Coadjutor and successor, unless you prefer that he abdicated the Episcopate in favor of Notherius.
t To this, namely, that if they should strive to reserve anything to themselves, they could be betrayed by the indication of the weight. But why with such caution? I believe on account of the wars by which Italy was vexed under King Berengar, which finally compelled the wretched man to, with the greatest damage to the whole region, call in the Hungarians for aid, in the year 919.
u Murer calls him Landolus, and notes him as dead in the year 878, and assigns to him as a Blessed the day January 31: we have found nothing else about him.
x Derbia is an ignoble town of England formerly Derwentium, but nowhere is it mentioned to have had an Episcopal See; and if it had, how could a Swabian man have come to it in such a century? Murer makes Landeolus Archbishop of Trier: but all the Trier annals fight against it, recognizing no such Bishop. I should think "Tarbiensis" or rather "Tarbensis" ought to be read, which was anciently and is still an episcopal city in Aquitaine, known from the year 506, when in the Council of Agde Ingenuus the Presbyter subscribed in the name of Bishop Aprus. The names of most of the more ancient Bishops are hidden, to which this Landeolus, now unknown to the people of Tarbes, may be reckoned.
* or "Prælibata adepta"
* or "obnoxius"
* or "quibus"
CHAPTER III.
The proud tempter of Notker is punished: Salomon becomes a monk and then Abbot.
[18] It is written, "A hidden treasure and hidden wisdom, what utility is there in either?" Eccl. 20:32 The holiness of a perfect man unknown is as it were the Sun under a cloud at night, shines on no one. Therefore we are taught by the voice of truth, Notker full of the Spirit of God, that we should place the light of holiness not under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, so that it may shine to all who are in the house, and a city set upon a mountain be not clouded over by the hidden places of ignorance. Matt. 5:25 Although signs are not for the faithful but for the unfaithful: yet Christ the Son of God crowned his beloved servant Notker with the spirit of prophecy, through which with very many signs, that the goodness of the holy man might become known, he marvellously endowed him. Indeed in the Spirit of God, he foretold many good or ill fortunes to good and evil men: for to those who, as the Apostle Paul says, are led by the Spirit of God, the power has been given to become sons of God, as John asserts. Rom. 8:14, John 1:12 Such ones also sometimes work signs from power, as Peter who raised Tabitha the dead by praying; Ananias however and Sapphira by rebuking he delivered to death: so this blessed man, by punishing one proudly inquiring, cast him down; the other, fallen into death through foolish stupidity, he recalled by his prayers from the pains of hell to perpetual life, about whom in the following we shall speak. Emperor Charles a, who had enriched with many goods the place of Saint Gall, himself in person in the week of Saint Othmar was provisor and cupbearer. At that time therefore, as in his customary manner he often remained there, to gladden the Brothers, he came to the said Monastery; and having stayed three days there in charity, by the Chaplain of the Emperor with the most profound questions of Scriptures
he exercised himself with the holy man Notker b: whom a certain Chaplain of his, of an elated mind, accompanied. But God, who deposes the arrogant, but gives grace to the meek, showed in this how great it is to despise the just and hate them, and (which is properly the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, which is remitted neither here nor in the future) to detract from their virtues.
[19] This man therefore, when he had heard that the King was exercising himself by asking and questioning, and that he had been assured by the responses of the most sweet holy father Notker, Satan breathed into his heart, that envying the wisdom, justice and humility of the holy man (as the proud always oppose the humble), he began to mock, torment, and despise him. And when he wished to pass through the church thinking all this with himself, he saw the man of God, sitting at the Psalter as usual, having been asked contemptuously what God was doing? and having recognized that this was he who had yesterday resolved the many questions of Emperor Charles, he said to his companions: "Behold, I say, this is he, than whom they say no one in the kingdom of Charles is more learned; but if you wish, I will try that most excellently learned man for your derision; and I will ask what the man of such fame cannot at all solve." They curiously asking him to do this, they approach together and salute him. He, humbly rising, wondering at their coming, asks what they seek or what they wish. But this unfortunate man, of whom we have spoken: "We know," he said, "most learned man, that you know from study the depths of all arts, but from the contemplation of a holy life know all the heavenly secrets: what now God is doing in heaven, if you know, we desire to hear from you." Then the Saint, certain of the promises of the Lord, who said: "Do not think how or what you speak; the Holy Spirit answering through his mouth, 'I know,'" said he, "I know, and know best: for now he is doing what he always does, namely what very soon he will also do with you; he exalts the humble, and humbles the proud." That the holy man did not say this with a curser's wish or of vengeance, but by the office of one prophesying, the very prophetic spirit, which does not enter a malevolent soul, proves.
[20] That tempter and mocker went away, mocked more by his own, making little of what was foretold him would happen. What more? The bells continually sound for the coming together and praises of Caesar about to withdraw. That unhappy one snatches up his standard, on that day in his order going before the Lord; His leg is soon broken, and mounted proudly on a horse, striking before the gate of the city, he fell; and wretchedly dashing on his face, he broke his leg. He is committed to the new Abbot by name Bernard c to be taken care of. Soon the Brothers run, lift up the fallen man, bring him into the cloister, work with various fomentations, that his leg might be coagulated and united. But when they saw that their arts profited nothing, having at last learned of the presage of the blessed Notker, they exhort him not to neglect to ask of the man of God, if he should deign to visit him, absolution and the blessing of so great a Father. When he, as he was always of a perverse mind, heard this despisingly about Notker, and proclaimed that nothing evil had happened to him by the prediction of that Father, that fracture could be coagulated by no fomentations, united by no bandages. Therefore, when he had long been tortured by continuous pain, at last returning to himself he pondered how he had tempted the man of God. And so in the middle of the night he begs the Brothers, that they should entreat the servant of God to come to him, about to lay a blessing upon him. They immediately fulfilling the orders, quickly summoned the Saint of God, pitying his suffering and cries. nor is he healed except by the Saint's blessing. But that one coming, asks what he wishes. Then he: "Holy Father, I have sinned against God and you, by tempting you: I beg, therefore, forgive me, and touch my leg; and I hope to be healed." Who when he had handled the leg, at once he felt it boiling up, and suddenly was coagulated and united; so that the sick man in a few days was restored to his pristine health, by the merits of the holy man; and corrected by his words, that he should no longer be proud, he learned severely thereafter to think humble thoughts, and how God humbles the proud: humbled then in mind and body healed, he returned to his own with joy.
[21] In the times of the aforesaid Grimald the Canonical Abbot and Hartmot d his Co-abbot, the parents of Salomon, since they were famous e and illustrious, hand him over to Iso, monk of Saint Gall, at that time the most famous teacher, Salomon brought up under Iso as a Cleric; to be taught, and initiated in the clerical office. Whom, as they say, he had chiefly taught, but had preferred him to the state of Notker Balbulus, Ratpert, Tutilo, and Hartmann his fellow monks, and had brought him up more delicately, as a Canon. Thence had grown clandestine envies among the fellow students of the highest character; and since they were freeborn by birth and nature, as that age is wont to do, they did not equanimously bear that someone alien, who would be Brothers to them, should be preferred before them; and that one who was their equal by birth should be ahead of them in the progress of learning. Salomon's parents die while he was still a boy, and he, made heir, and taken from the schools, as an adolescent sought to be enrolled as a Brother, which also he obtained. Abbot Grimald, who was Archchaplain, had substituted him for himself, and with his help he is made Archchaplain of Louis the Pious f, by whose singular grace he was so possessed in a short time, that still as Canon he was first placed over Ellwangen g, afterward also over the people of Kempten h. At length with Hatto i Archbishop of Mainz favoring him, he is placed as Abbot over more places. But the place of Saint Gall he loved before all others, whence he handed over of his estates, that a lodging might be made there for him, lest coming often from the court he might be burdensome to the Abbot and familia. The cloister also, because he was powerful, he daily entered without a guide, and (what was then and is great confusion) in linen; for which reason murmurs arise from his rivals, though he himself was unaware. For when he wished to give to one a fur garment: "Your fur garment," said that one, "I shall appreciate greatly; I have two cowls, of which I hand over to you one, to be put on, that you may enter the cloister more fittingly with us in it." And he: "Now then," said he, "these things surely Tutilo and Ratpert, or others envious of me, have placed in your mouth." The clever man withdrew, as if overcome by a simple reason, and thenceforth piously devoted to the place, reckoning that a man of such merit had not spoken such things to him except in the Spirit of God: and thenceforth he refrained from openly entering the cloister without some one of the Fathers, as is the custom, as guide.
[22] And so he enters secretly the inner parts of our cloister at night, a good thief, barefoot, k and clothed in a cowl so that he might be thought one of the Brothers. The aforesaid six companions, Notker, Ratpert, and Tutilo, had sensed him, and caught entering the cloister at night, but had covered the holy fraud. "Too insolent," they say, "it is that anyone in the habit of a monk besides us should enter our innermost parts, especially at night." Counsel is taken, and two watchmen are constituted to observe his going. He enters again, as a thief in the night. Rutker the elder, who had gone ahead to the matins vigils, standing in prayer, had sensed him, and when he had seen the man in darkness he did not know who he was; but he was recognized, when the watchmen approached with a light. Again that father: "By the merit of Saint Gall" (for so the Fathers swore), "we do not permit this habit in his cloister, at these hours." But he, trembling at the words of the man who was not unknown to him (for he always had him before his eyes, and had chosen him in things which were of God as guide and guardian): "Suffer me," he said, "reverend Father, he asks that the monastic habit be granted him for this, to enter the chapel of Saint Peter; there after I have prayed, I will never, except as the law of the place has, enter the cloister. But with you helping me and the Brothers, tomorrow my intent is to beg the Abbot, that I may be permitted to leave and enter the cloister in the monastic habit, but outside, in the presence of my soldiers and others, to walk in the canonical clothing, as I am wont." "Nay rather," said the elder, "let Saint Gall put into your heart, that if once you have been clothed in it, you may never, as long as you live, be stripped of it except at the time customary for monks."
[23] The mind of the man and his petition is opened to the Abbot, Rutker assenting. There were then in our commonwealth senators, holy and prudent men, who are consulted: Hartmann, great in counsel, who had woven the Litany, l "Sanctus humili prece," and had made the melody; Notker Balbulus, who the Sequences; Ratpert, who the Litany, "Ardua spes mundi"; Tutilo, who "Hodie cantandus," and many other things had composed. There were also other monks of Saint Gall, men most learned and of holy religion: Hartmann the younger and Waltramn, and many other holy men, whose melodies themselves do not hide what sort they were, for many of their works exist, clear through the Church: who all were ordered by the Abbot to speak. "Our Rule," said Hartmann, "does not seek the likeness of a monk, having heard the opinions he is urged but a monk." Notker said: "This pretext with which he desires to be over-clothed, if it went before the toga, would not at all be displeasing." Ratpert said: "Either this is a machine constructed against our walls, or some error lies hidden." Tutilo said: "We have fully granted him fraternal fellowship; this, as much as is in me, my Abbot, I do not deny him: but if he seeks to clothe the wolf in the sheep's fleece, he will accomplish it with the consent of others than mine." Bernard the Abbot, hearing what they suspected in the man: "I know, sons," he said, "what you fear from him; but I think it would be better done with us if, having been initiated with us, he should at some time make himself our monk, and take the habit from Saint Gall; lest if by art it should happen, as we fear, that we should again be subjected to a Canon, yet he should be our brother and Monk."
[24] Rutker is sent to him with certain others to persuade the matter; in course of time, God giving, he promises to do what is counseled, yet meanwhile on account of the reverence of the cloister, he asks that such a habit be permitted to him. By various treatments of the Brothers, hither and thither, it is scarcely at length granted: a place is designated to him, where entering he would put on the habit, and exiting put it off. Some time after, coming from the court, among other things about the gifts of King Arnolph m, which he said he would give to Saint Gall; he brought also a very glorious gift, a chest solidly gold, royally set with gems, filled with the highest relics, formed in the manner of a chapel, to which indeed we have never seen anything like. that he may in reality become a monk: Rutker again persuades the man to offer, not the gold, but himself to his Gall, and to complete himself at last as his true monk. It was done, as the Angel of great counsel urged him: after he had opened his vow to Arnolph, the giver King, hanging that chest from his neck, clothed in the tunic and cowl of a monk, he went barefoot to the altar of Saint Gall, Bernard the Abbot assenting, weeping his sins, renouncing the world, professed himself a monk of Saint Gall: whom also the Abbot, as a monk from the palace, treated more delicately, and had before the others. After a short time, the whole commonwealth ringing that it could not lack the counsels of the man, with permission of his Abbot,
which being obtained, he becomes Abbot, the King took the same Salomon again into the court, and n restored him to the positions of his former honors, and finally also augmented them: for he handed over to him the Abbacy of Reichenau o.
[25] Bernard having resigned his abbacy by the counsel of Hatto, the same Salomon is substituted, and took over to be ruled the place of Saint Gall; which he afterwards took care to amplify before God and men more than all places, in treasures, in ornaments of gold and silver and precious gems, and the Relics of Saints, and great substance. When however he had presided a year and a half over the place of Saint Gall, at length he is promoted at Constance, and made a Shepherd and Bishop of God. For the man was fortunate, prudent in counsel, and eloquent, and very liberal. The same Salomon brought from Rome to Constance Pelagius the Martyr, and as is thought, from Perugia Constantius Bishop and Martyr, then also Bishop. for whom he procured sarcophagi of wonderful craftsmanship in gold and gems and ivory through the hands of Tutilo. Whoever desires to know his deeds, let him read the book which is written on the cases of the Monastery [p].
NOTES.
p Therefore we have cut off here certain superfluous things: we also omit as thrust in by the interpolator and pertaining nothing to Saint Notker, a chapter on Emperor Conrad, how he himself, as Hepidannus says, "In the year 912, on the festivity of Saint Stephen at vespers, came to the monastery of Saint Gall."
CHAPTER X.
Notker shines by writing Sequences: likewise Ratpert and Tutilo his inseparable companions.
[26] Emperor Conrad holding Easter a at the city of Mainz, a monk of Saint Gall ruling the schools there, and also performing the office of Cantor; as is customary, standing in the middle of the choir b imposing, frequently crowned, and c with a mitre, and adorned d with most precious garments: A disciple of Notker honored in the King's presence: and when he had duly raised his hand to intone the modes of the Sequence; three Bishops, formerly disciples of the man, next to their Emperor on the throne, said: "We will go, lord King, and help the master in that which he himself taught us." That one saying this would be acceptable, they descending clothed in pontificals join the monk of Saint Gall, and bowing as he bowed, reverently with him complete the work of God which he had taught. The man wept with joy, returning thanks to Saint Gall. After the Masses were finished, that one scarcely, compelled to approach the feet of the Empire, as is the custom, lifted up the ounces of gold placed in them: but to the Empress e, with the Emperor laughing, dragged by force, and there took his gold from her feet. Matilda also, his sister, inserted a ring on his finger, willy-nilly. These things I have recounted that I might set forth for the edification of the hearers the honor of doctrine and discipline, as the blessed man Notker had learned it from the Holy Spirit in the secret of his heart contemplating. For God gave the same angelic discipline to the holy man and his companions, to teach his Church through his Holy Spirit in doing the jubili f of Sequences; therefore, as I think, that through the contemplation of angelic disciplines devotion of mind might arise in men; and with the heart dilated, the mind might transcend itself, and become more spiritual. The prophet Elisha, as the book of Kings narrates, being asked about the word of the Lord, when he had felt that he did not then have the spirit of prophecy, had a harper brought to him, and at his playing he at once drank in the prophetic spirit.
[27] For sweet harmony is wont, as we know many, to gladden the heart, and to recall to it its joys, he himself full of the Spirit of God and by which one's own love most closely affects the mind of each, by so much the more deeply heard external harmony touches the affection, and brings back to memory that interior spiritual harmony; so that a melody heard, uplifts and raises the hearer's mind to wonted joys. By singing therefore or praising we prepare the way for the Lord, by which he desires to come to us with certain wonderful revelations of his mysteries, when from a great exultation of the heart we jubilate in divine proclamations, and rising up in thanksgiving from our inmost bowels to the very marrow resound in God's praises with sincere love of mind, with great cry of the heart. he composed a book of Sequences, In such psalmody therefore and spiritual harmony, a contemplative soul, accustomed to spiritual theoriae, begins to exult, and because of the excess of joy to gesticulate in its own way, and to make certain spiritual and sui generis leaps, and to suspend itself from earth and all earthly things, and with total alienation of mind to transcend to the contemplation of heavenly things. With such doctrine the Holy Spirit had filled the chosen vessel for himself, blessed Notker. The Sequences which the same holy Father had made, he sent by a courier of the city of Rome g to Pope Nicholas and to Luitward, Bishop of Vercelli, at that time Archchancellor of Emperor Charles. Which venerable Pontiff of the Apostolic See confirmed the things that the holy man had dictated at the assent of the Holy Spirit; and appointed them to be celebrated through the regions of the world to the praise of God in the holy Church of Christ: and not only what blessed Notker had dictated, but also what his companions and Brothers had composed in the same monastery of Saint Gall, he canonized all, namely hymns, sequences, tropes, litanies, and all the canticles which they made, which Nicholas I received into the use of the Church. in rhythm, meter, or prose, and the disciplines which they taught, he authenticated the whole, and spread abroad in the praise of the holy Trinity and of the blessed Mary and all the Saints of the holy mother Church.
[28] h As often in prayer the words exceed the affection, there is much speaking, in which sin will not be lacking. Nor are men heard by God by such prayer, as if they should attempt to bend him with many words; nor does the manifold discourse of one praying propitiate him, but the pure and sincere intention of the prayer. If however the prayer be of sadness, it is called a wailing; if of joy, a jubilus; then nothing can be expressed in words, the utility of modulated psalmody nor can it be altogether kept silent. And so the holy man, because he had a defect of tongue, always strove to pray in the heart. Moreover he knew also that it was good to glorify God with the sound of the voice, with hymns and spiritual canticles: yet he said it profited little to sing with the sound of the voice without devout intention of the heart; but as the Apostle says: "Singing in your hearts to God": that is, not only with the voice, but also with the heart singing; whence also elsewhere he says: "I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the mind." Col. 3:16, 1 Cor. 14:15 As therefore by prayers we are governed and taught to be devout to God and stable in virtues: so by the studies of Psalms we are delighted in the ineffable eternal things. For the utility of singing consoles sad hearts, makes more gracious minds, delights the studious, arouses minds, invites sinners to laments, renders the interior of man more pure, and more prompt to works of piety. For although the hearts of the carnal are hard, to stir up the affection of devotion. as soon as sweetness has sounded to the effect of clemency, it bends their mind. And so since the Christian ought to be moved not by the modulation of voice, but only by divine words, yet by I know not what bond, sometimes by the modulation of one singing, greater compunction of heart is born. For many are found who, moved by the sweetness of the chant, bewail their crimes, and by that part are more bent to
the spirit of contrition, and abundance of tears and benevolent amendment, from that moment not of words, but of the sweetness of voices of those singing and the discernment has sounded most pleasantly. Prayer in the present life is poured out only as a remedy for sins: but the singing of Psalms recalls to mind the perpetual praise of God, as it is written: "Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord, forever and ever they will praise you." The Sequences also designate a song of victory in which the souls of the just exult in God for their liberation: just as the sons of Israel used to sing a song of victory for their rescue, and formerly the Romans. Ps. 83:5 The jubilus however, that is, the neume, which some jubilate in organs, commends the applause of rejoicing victors i.
[29] It is reported of the blessed man, that on a certain day passing through the dormitory; listening to the nearby mill, Notker on account of the Sequence on the Holy Spirit whose wheel was turning slowly, and chattering on account of the scarcity of water, was giving forth certain, as it were, sounds of voices. Hearing this the man worthy of God, was immediately in spirit, and published that elegant composition, and from its possessor, namely from the same nourishing Spirit, he uttered a nectar-like modulation and served it up to the whole world for salvation, the Sequence I mean, which is on the Holy Spirit k; "Sancti Spiritus adsit nobis gratia." When therefore he had completed it, he sent it as a gift to Emperor Charles l. The same true worshipper of Christ the Emperor sent him by the same carrier, what the same Spirit had inspired him, the Hymn "Veni creator." With such wings winged animals are wont to strike each other, that is, perfect and learned men, instructed in spiritual knowledge, are wont to exercise themselves with the diversity of exhortations, as Saint Augustine to blessed Jerome, and Saint Jerome to blessed Augustine through the intermediary Paul Orosius m did. The Greeks also in a similar manner [n affirm the philosopher Pythagoras to have passed by some workshop; and hearing the blows of the smiths upon the anvil, he distinguished the six musical voices.]
[30] It is well to place here what in our times happened in a conversation about the blessed man Notker at the Roman See. The venerable Abbot of Saint Gall Uldalricus o, of pious memory, the sixth of this name, in the legation of King Frederick II, afterwards Caesar, came to Rome sent to Pope Innocent III. He is praised by Innocent III, And when there was a discourse about many things, and they discussed more with one another, it happened that Mass was being celebrated before the Apostolic about the Holy Spirit with the Sequence, "Sancti Spiritus adsit nobis gratia," the Abbot presiding. The same Pope himself had also made a sequence on the Holy Spirit, namely "Veni sancte spiritus." Mass and prayers performed, they came together again to talk, and among other things the Pope asked the Abbot, saying: "Who was your Notker? How do you keep the day of his anniversary?" For there were at Rome some writings about him in the books of the Sequences, which the Pope himself had read. The Abbot responded: "He was a simple monk in his house, and is judged to be venerated festively. born of the most noble of the earth, very learned and holy." To whom the Pope: "Do you hold his festivity?" To whom he: "No, lord: we know that he is a Saint privately only: he is celebrated as for any other deceased." Moved by these words the Pope: "O most wicked men," he said, "to your own evil! Of so great and so most holy a man, who was most full of the Holy Spirit, you do not make a memorial? Because you do not celebrate his festivity, [p] you will be unfortunate."
[30] Now, what sort the three aforesaid senators of our commonwealth were, let us remember with writings. Notker with his companions They were never at leisure, and what is always of the learned and useful, walking in gentleness of spirit and quietness of heart, rarely or never passed their time without work or meditation or the exercise of virtue: whence they suffered from some assiduous detractions and backbiting, as is accustomed viciously to happen in communities. But especially, because he was less accustomed to refute, the saint, as I truly assert, the lord Notker. Tutilo indeed and Ratpert, sharper to such things, and less apt to affronts, were more rarely injured by them: but Notker most gentle of men, learned in his own self what injuries were. Of which many we wish to introduce some one, that how much Satan presumes in such, from one you may learn all. There was here a certain Refectorarius, by name Sindolph; with feigned little services at last, [q] since in all other things he was useless he sought the favor of Salomon, accusing the brothers with fabricated crimes, by which the traitor himself was known, and those betrayed were found perfect. For when he was Refectorarius, he often exhibited things inconvenient instead of convenient to those whom he dared, but most of all to the holy man Notker. Which he, bearing with equanimity, had compassion on the one who was inflicting it, and prayed for him. But with Salomon engaged in many things, nor sufficient to attend to individual things, while the food was sometimes being withdrawn or depraved, many cried out against the injustice: among whom also sometimes these three, whom we mention, said some things. But Sindolph, always a firebrand of discord, knowing the old torch of hatred of his fellow students and its cause, fitted himself to the ears of Salomon, as though for his honor about to tell him the matter: he suffers calumny from Sindolph; but he, although he knew nothing more harmful to Prelates and subjects than to hear whisperers and detractors, asked what new thing he would bring. The subordinate lied that those three, always accustomed to throw words against him, had yesterday also spoken against him things that were intolerable [r]. He believed the discourse which he had spoken, and bore rancor against them, though they were thinking nothing evil of him, and at last also showed it. But they, when they could not draw out any of their guilt from him, guessed they had been circumvented by the tricks of Sindolph. The matter at length discussed in the presence of the Brothers, when they themselves, with those testifying, convicted him with the rest that they had said nothing at all concerning the Bishop: they asked each that he should judge the false speaker, and take vengeance upon him: which when he had dissembled, they were silent.
[31] who observing their conversations at night, The custom of the three inseparable ones was, with the Prior's permission, in the interval of nocturnal Lauds to meet in the scriptorium, and make collations most fitting to such an hour from the Scriptures. But Sindolph, knowing the hour and their conversations, on a certain night, clandestinely approaches outside the glass window, at which Tutilo was sitting, and with his ear affixed to the glass, listened, if he could snatch something, which depraved he might deliver to the Bishop. Tutilo, a stubborn man, had sensed him, and trusting in his arms, and in Latin, so that it might lie hidden from him who would not understand, addresses his companions: "He is there," he said, "and has fixed his ear to the window. But you, Notker, because you are a little timid, go into the church: but Ratpert, my soul, taking the scourge of the Brothers, which hangs in the pyrale, run from outside; for I, when I have felt you approaching, the glass being very swiftly opened again, will violently hold him seized by the hair and dragged to me. But you, my heart, be comforted and be strong; and with the scourge strike him with all your strength, and avenge God in him." But that one, as he was always most sharp for disciplines, going out modestly, snatching the scourge ran most swiftly, and the man being dragged head in through the window, with all his strength beat him about the back as with hail. And behold he, struggling with hands and feet, grasped the scourge with which he was being beaten, is caught and chastised by Ratpert and Tutilo. and held it. But Ratpert, from nearby, seeing his own rod, snatched it and broke strong blows on him. When however, now badly beaten, in vain he asked that he be spared, muttering within himself that there was need of voice, exclaiming he shouted. Immediately some of the Brothers hearing a voice unusual at such a time, astonished ran with lights, and asked what it was. But Tutilo, constantly reiterating that he had caught the Devil, asked that a light be brought, so that in whose image he held him, terrified he might behold. Turning the unwilling head this way and that, he asks of those looking on, as if ignorant, if it were Sindolph. Everyone crying out that it was he, and begging that he let him go, leaving him, he said: "Wretched me, I have laid hands on the Bishop's confidant and intimate." And Ratpert indeed, with those running up, retreating to the side, secretly withdrew himself (for neither could he himself who suffered it know by whom he had been beaten): and some asking where then Lord Notker and Ratpert had gone; "Both," he said, "to the work of God, sensing the devil, went away; and left me, walking in darkness with that business." "Truly," he said, "all of you know, an Angel of God struck him with his own hand with blows." At length with the Brothers departing, from the followers of parties arise, as happens, much talking. Some said it had been done by God's judgment, that clandestine eavesdroppers might be made public: but others said that to such a man, except that he claimed an Angel of the Lord, such a work had not befitted.
[32] He was therefore hiding himself, broken equally by the pain of body and mind. and going on to be adverse to the holy men The Bishop asks at length after several days, where then his "famulidicus" was tarrying so long: for so he was wont to name and call the man, always secretly bringing him some new things. And from whom the matter being truly learned as it was, because he did not wish to impute anything to such great authority for one so foully guilty, consoles him being summoned thus saying: "Since," he said, "those who from boyhood were always my rivals have done badly to you, I, if I live, shall have to do better for you." So he was made from the workers by him the Dean, all contradicting, lest he should cast a matter of so illustrious a place upon such a man. Thereafter he did not further cease to oppose those three, stirred up by the disgrace inflicted on him and the office conferred. Therefore on a certain day, when he was refectorarius, and Notker and Ratpert were ordinary in the kitchen, when the measure of drink, as was of his office, he did not I say place in his own vessel [s] for the blessed man; but mumbling curses in his absence, as though he threw it down, that vessel by chance falling from the table fell on the ground, and with the cover rolling far away, the vessel lay on its side, and contained the wine solidly as if it were standing upright [t]. Which he, seeing, going about here and there, at length morosely returning, when he had lifted it, with those running up who had seen it standing by, he is confuted by a miracle, and with those beholding the ground, if anything of the wine had been spilt; and they finding not even one drop to have come out: "Do not wonder," said Sindolph, "if the devil, from whom he himself and his companions learn black books, kept the cups of his enchanters that they should not be spilt." Which Hartmann, * afterward Abbot, when he heard from those saying, and had met that insolent one: "See," he said, "good man, lest in such men, bearing your injuries so patiently, you too much play the fool. Why does your spirit covet to envy so much? Do you not know that whisperers and detractors, and those who provoke brothers, and sow discords among them, are hateful to God?" To whom he, when he had answered with his usual impudence even to insults, nor yet is he amended: Waltram then the Dean subjected him to regular vengeance in the next Chapter, but yet his wicked spirit did not yet rest.
And so at last an evil came upon the holy man through him, by which pain he was struck within the depth of his heart: the Canonical Greek Epistles, lent him by Luitward Bishop of Vercelli, the blessed man had with many sweats copied, and behold Sindolph, coming upon the same codex delicately written by chance, stole it, and each of the quires, as is today to be seen, cut out with a knife, tore and depraved, and afterward rejoined them, and secretly placed them back in the place where he had stolen them. The same holy man translated the Psalter from the Latin language into the barbaric language, as is today in the cupboard.
[33] Ratpert diligent in the schools Ratpert walked in the middle between both, Notker namely and Tutilo, the master of the schools from his youth; a plain and benevolent teacher, but rather harsh in discipline; rarely putting his foot outside the cloister except for the Brothers; having two shoes for a year, calling excursions death: and therefore often admonishing the traveler Tutilo to beware of them embracing [him]. Diligent in the schools, he for the most part neglected Hours and Masses [x]; "We hear good Masses," he said, "when we teach them to be done." Who when he had named the greatest stain of the cloister to be impunity, yet he did not come to the Chapter except when summoned, since to him the office of holding chapter and punishing was, as he said, given as most grievous. But when also the holy one himself around the cloister of Saint Gall was going long languid, and yet did not cease from teaching; forty disciples once his own canons, then indeed Presbyters, he dies piously. coming to the place on account of the feast, he committed his soul into the hands of each, each of whom promised him thirty Masses as he was about to die. So he, most joyful, asking God to cook him longer in sickness, and made bright by the punishments, passed among the hands of his disciples, as we believe, into paradise. For whom Blessed Notker and Tutilo besides the rest of the Brothers, grieving that they were left after him, did many things. The same blessed man had written a book on the cases of the Monastery, beginning from the times of Blessed Columban up to Salomon our Bishop and Abbot. He had also composed Litanies, which the Church sings through the whole world on the days of Rogations, besides many other things he had made.
[34] Tutilo, painter, sculptor, goldsmith, musician Tutilo was good and useful far otherwise than his companions, a man in arms and all his members, as Fabius teaches to choose athletes. For he was very eloquent, with a clear and sweet voice, elegant in engraving, an artificer of painting, and a wonderful goldsmith; a musician as also his companions, but in every kind of strings and instruments and pipes before all: for he also taught the sons of nobles in strings in a place designated by the Abbot. A skillful messenger far and near; in buildings and his other arts effective, ready and strong by nature to compose in either [y] language, festive in serious and jest; so that our Charles once cursed him who had made such a man of such a nature a monk. But among all these things, what is before others, strenuous in choir, in hiding places was tearful; most mighty to make verses and melodies, chaste as a disciple of Marcellus, who closed his eyes to women. But the things which he had composed are of singular and recognizable melody, because through the psaltery or through the wheel, in which he was more powerful, [z] the neumes found are sweeter, as appears in the tropes "Hodie cantandus," and "Omnium virtutum gemmis": which tropes he offered indeed to Charles to be sung, and a famous poet, to the Offertory namely "Viri Gallilaei," [aa] which he himself had made. This Offertory also the King, when he had dictated it, sent to Tutilo, and enjoined him to add verses. And he added: "Quoniam Dominus Iesus Christus cum esset omnipotens genitor, fons & origo," with the following: "Gaudete & cantate." Other many also they composed together: but these we have set forth, that because his melody is different from the others, if you are a musician, you may know. With the permissions, and mostly precepts, of the Abbots under whom he had served, he had traveled through many lands on account of his crafts and at the same time his teachings: paintings and goldsmith works also and reliefs, he was singularly adorning with precious songs and epigrams: and of such great authority wherever he stayed he appeared, that no one who had seen him doubted him to be a monk of Saint Gall. For he was in divine and human things equally most prepared for answers, and most zealous and if he had seen anything indecent or disordered anywhere, especially in monks, for place, time and person he was stirred as a zealot, as in one of many we shall have to speak.
[35] a lascivious monk For the skilled man, since he was an itinerant far and wide through lands and cities, was once sent for a common cause to Mainz, namely for buying woolen cloths, which they call "sericales" [bb], and tunics. On entering therefore the city around the monastery of Saint Alban seeking lodging, his men immediately sent to market for fodder and victuals, he placed himself on a seat tired, to rest a little. Those days were the vintage days, in which the Brothers have been sent out to their obediences through the vineyards. And behold at the first signal for Vespers being rung, the Circator [cc] about to gather the Brothers, sitting on an ass for religion, approaches the door of the aforesaid guest-house, as if there seeking someone; stealthily also, if his godmother was home, inquiring, he disturbs the house. But she, coming out from her chamber, greeting her co-godfather, thinking that guest asleep, offered the man new wine. Which he impatiently having drunk and the vessel returned, titillates the breast of the woman assenting. he chastises with a scourge, But the guest, having seen the deed, sprang up, lest it should proceed further in deed; and crying out at that wicked man, grasped him by the hair and threw him to the ground; and with the scourge, which he had used for the horse, still having in his hand, sharply beat the man, adding: "This Saint Gall, brother of Saint Alban, has given you." He indeed, though sad for his guilt and having suffered, yet fearing for himself, having asked pardon, begs the man to wish to keep him concealed. The guest to him: "Lest you add sin to sin, as much as is in me, you will be well concealed." It is intimated to the Abbot that a Brother from Saint Gall lodges before the gate, who at once by a messenger calls him into the cloister. The name being asked, they recognize the man long famous in fame, and with him treated in charity they themselves were giving him Martha, but he offered to those capable Mary. And he is asked to stay there until he should engrave the throne of God on the gold plate of the altar: to which similar relief it is rare up to this day to see another, writing in the circle this verse:
"Behold mightier than the pole a throne, and the earth a footstool." but the reputation of the penitent he spares.
When however he had tarried somewhat, leaving the work not hidden in part and returning; being asked by our people what he had done outside, to tell, "A Brother," he said, "I saw there undisciplined, whom that I might strike, lifting a scourge I threatened: which to him and to me indeed I ask that it be pardoned." So he, mindful of faith, sparing the truth, yet did not lie.
[36] Sent once to the city of Metz, about to engrave the throne, and the image of Blessed Mary above it, he did something which, although it was not of a monk, yet because of the nature of the man I wish to say. When therefore he was making the journey, he went through a forest fit for robbers, accompanied by his two men, one shielded with a lance, he puts two robbers to flight, the other without: And behold, attacked by two most bold ones, both of these he had thrown each from his horse. Meanwhile he, with each occupied in spoils, seized a certain strong stout log seen round about, and with great terror menacing came upon them. But they seeing the man similar to a strong man, omit the spoils, turn the shields cast upon their back against him. And he ordered his men most swiftly to snatch the lances of the robbers thrown far off through security, and sharply warned them with words to defend themselves. When they swift snatched the thrown ones, seeing they could in no way endure the violence of so great a leader, the enemies disarmed by him depart. So these also with their lance raised (as that if they returned, they would give it to their Lord) untimidly pass through the forest. Therefore Tutilo when he had come to the city, and standing by about to engrave the work was diligent, he paints the image of Blessed Mary behold two men stood beside him, engraving the image of Saint Mary, in the habit of pilgrims, and asked for alms. To whom when he secretly gave coins, turning aside from him, they said to a certain Cleric standing by at a distance: "Blessed be that man to the Lord, who has well consoled us today. But is that illustrious lady his sister," they said, "who gives him the rays so conveniently to his hand, and teaches him what he shall do?" But he wonders what they said, since having very recently departed from him he had seen no such thing: he returns therefore with the pilgrims, and what they had said he beholds as it were for a moment and in the twinkling of an eye. But they said to him, the Cleric and pilgrims: "Blessed are you, Lord Father, who use such a mistress for your works." Who when he affirmed that they did not know what they were saying, vehemently inveighing against them, threatens lest they should say such a thing to anyone. the same one directing his brush, And immediately indeed the pilgrims passing disappeared, nor were they any more seen by anyone: the next day however, when he heard many speaking such glory of him, secretly withdrawing himself, he departed from their midst, nor did he wish any more to work in that city. But in that gold plate itself, when he had left the plane of the circle empty, by I know not whose art, were engraved such letters:
"This scene pious Mary herself engraved": [dd]
But also the image sitting as if alive, still today is to be venerated by all beholding. But the Fathers told us that the very man of God on his return making the journey, hastening to a certain village where it was rung for Mass, he frees a possessed person. cast out from a man a demon raging in the church, by the invocation of Saint Gall. There are also many others which we have heard about him, about which because nothing is certain to us, we preferred to be silent than to write. But concerning his death, [ee] because we have learned nothing certain, this alone we assert, that we trust and indubitably assert that he passed on to eternal joys.
NOTES.
abundance of pearls and splendor woven together, we inspected in the year 1660, on August 20.
p This therefore must have been the beginning for the Saint-Gallians of following up annually the memory of Saint Notker, at least with private cult.
q The book of cases thus: "With feigned little services at last, when in other things he was in nothing useful, accusing the Brothers of concocted crimes, by Salomon he was placed Dean of the Workers."
r Both places thus: "Yesterday those that are intolerable to God": we have corrected it by conjecture.
s What the other Ekkehard says commonly of the three in the plural, the compiler by changing a few things fits to Notker alone: wrongly; if there was a common vessel for the three, that was it.
t Otherwise "subreptum" (stolen).
v There, likewise, more briefly and clearly: "Which he, morosely having returned (for he had departed for several steps hurriedly) when he had lifted it."
x Gregory of Tours, book 1 On the glory of the Martyrs: "But the Abbot rising with the monks in the morning to celebrate the course." Therefore the "ecclesiastical cursus" (about which the same Gregory testifies he had composed a book) are the Canonical Hours: as even today it is a custom among the Germans to call the Office of the Blessed Virgin "the cursus." It is plain moreover from this how ancient is the custom, even in the best disciplined monasteries, that the Masters of the Schools be absolved from the burdens of choir, and satisfy by the private recitation of Office and Mass.
y Latin namely and Alemannic: but "concinnare" here he calls what we "componere."
z Otherwise "pneumata": and more correctly, if you consider etymology: for νεῦμα assent, nod, will—what has it to do with Music? πνεῦμα indeed spirit, spiration, quite a lot: meanwhile however a certain Balbus in Goldast, when he had said, "Neuma is the emission or modulation of voices; Neumaticus, a sweet, pleasant and consonant modulator": adds, "And it is a fault of writers, when 'pneuma' is found, so that it is written with a P, and there is a barbarism." Beletus on the divine offices in the same Goldast: "It is to be noted that 'neuma' of the feminine gender without a P is taken for a jubilus."
aa The chant after the reading of the Gospel: which is called "Offertorium" in the Roman ritual.
bb I should prefer to read in this manner, "which they call 'sergiales'" for tunics, namely, to be made: for such a woolen cloth of lighter weave is called in Spanish "Xerga," in Italian "Sargia," in French "Sarge": in German also by a compound word "Sare-wat."
cc So called from "circando," that is, going around, he who in the time of the divine Office goes around the cells and workshops, about to investigate the absentees.
dd It seems to be said as though contracted, as though παράθημα a repository or depository: and perhaps more correctly it would be written "Parthema."
ee The Saint-Gall Ephemerides on the 5th day before the Kalends of April: "Blessed Tuitilo died." Murer marks the year 896, and says he was buried in the chapel of Saint Catherine, which was also said to be called the chapel and cemetery of Saint Tutelo, and notes the day, as his proper feast, in the margin January 31. The same fits the titles of Astronomer and Confessor to Tutilo: we have found him nowhere specially praised from a singular skill in astronomy. The MS. Saint-Gall Necrology has his elogium on April 27. Bucelinus recites an Epitaph set for him.
* or "præclaram"
* or "Proabbas"
CHAPTER V.
The humility of the Saint and frequent victories over the devil.
[37] Beloved by all for his doctrine Notker Of the blessed man Notker what remains concerning him we shall boldly narrate; since we in no way doubt him to be a vessel chosen of the Holy Spirit. For he was slender in body not in spirit, balbulus in voice not in spirit: erect in divine things, patient in adversities; gentle to all, among ours he was a sharp exactor of discipline; to sudden and unexpected things he was a little timid, except for harassing demons, to whom indeed he was wont to boldly oppose himself: in praying, reading, meditating, dictating, * most eminent. And that I may embrace in a summary all the endowments of his holiness, he was a little vessel of the Holy Spirit, than whom in his time there was none more abundant. For, as we have tasted beforehand, days and nights always the same and new, what Ratpert in the schools, this he in the cloister, except for stripes, did with every censure of charity. And so with the permission of the Priors, and moreover also with their exhortation, the younger ones apt for this, nights and days, when he rested from prayers b, were as it were in ambushes [for it was not said to be an unsuitable hour, if with codex in hand someone was speaking with Lord Notker]. But he, although on account of the tenor of the rule he would drive them off with hisses, sometimes also with noise; yet by the Abbots through obedience there was enjoined on him this same thing which he had refused. For he taught them goodness and discipline and knowledge, and to believe and observe carefully the commandments of God, saying that the cleanness and purity of life was not found in the land of those living sweetly: but a man must cultivate the earth of his heart, as the rustic his field, that he may have abundant fruits therefrom. But those who begin and do not persevere are compared to the partridge, of which Jeremiah says: "The partridge fostered what she did not bear; in the half of her days she will leave them, and in the end she will be foolish"; not heeding that the extremes of joy are occupied by mourning. Jer. 17:11
[38] most humble however was he, With the permission of the Abbots under whom he served, he lived according to his own will at his pleasure; because they saw it confirmed by the word of the Lord, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, since the spiritual man judges all things, and he himself is judged by no one." For his arduous life continually showed forth a certain divine excellence in his countenance: the eye looking at him was gladdened, and the ear hearing him was pleased. Yet all the grace which he had felt himself to have received, he studied to hide under the guardianship of humility, saying with Blessed Job: "If I am washed with snow waters, and my hands shine cleanest: yet you will dip me in filth, and my garments will abominate me." Therefore, for the custody of humility, when he was a most learned man, he always sat more at the Psalter than at the other books c. Job 9:30 Among all his fellow brothers he so walked, the greater and lesser he so venerated, that he preferred himself to none, but as far as was in him, was lovable and affable to all: how honey-flowing however he was in responses and addresses, the tears of those who had seen the man, and survived him, clearly manifested to those seeking him.
but rather now made Presbyter: But after the man of the Lord Notker, compelled by much obedience, most humbly had ascended the grade of Presbyterate; then at last as though he had done nothing virtuously before, he observed those four cardinal virtues and their appendices, that is, justice, prudence, fortitude, temperance, as natural to the soul, with such diligence, discussed, and exercised himself in these; that it was manifest to all that a brave soldier of Christ, about to fight against the iniquities of the devil, had put on all spiritual weapons. Spiritually also, as we have said, he was strong, as the Prophet says: "Those who draw near to God will receive of his doctrine: and those who hope in the Lord, will change their strength, and will take to themselves feathers like eagles: they will run and not labor, will walk and not fail, but will fly that they may rest, like a dove in the holes of the rock," that is, of Christ: "and therefore removing themselves from the fellowship of worldly offense, they will flee and remain in the solitude of inner joy." Isa. 40:31
[39] But as much as Tutilo was robust against men, so much and more did the holy man himself prevail against demons: otherwise, however, he was attenuated in body, whence strong against the demon, as fasting and keeping vigils, weak, tender and thin. It happened therefore on a certain night, that anticipating the day in church at matins, and going around the altars, as he was wont, in prayer weeping he wailed: and when coming into the crypt of the twelve Apostles and Saint Columban, he was weeping abundantly, and from behind the altar his eyes were drawing forth sharper tears, he heard as if a dog muttering. Sometimes also when he perceived a voice mixed like that of a pig grunting, he understood the tempter; and "Is it you," he said, "there again? d How well, wretched one, does it go with you now, muttering and grunting, appearing in the shape of a dog after those glorious voices which you had in the heavens": and lighting a lamp, in what corner he was lurking, he sought. But he, to the one approaching the left corner, tears his clothes like a rabid dog: "Well then," he said, "I have to attend to your service outside the crypt: for those punishments, which (as they say) you already suffer, are not sufficient; I am about to prepare for you something sharper. I command you, moreover, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and of these Saints, that you await me in the same canine body in which you are now clothed." And he: "I will do so," he said, "if I will." But Notker, going more swiftly: "I trust," he said, "in the Lord that, willy-nilly, you will wait for me." Hastening then to the altar of Saint Gall, he seized the cambuta, which the holy master
Columban e had sent through Magnoald the Deacon with a letter of absolution to his blessed disciple Gall, the worker of many virtues, he scourged with the staff of Saint Columban, with that most well-known sphere of the holy Cross, and placing the sphere on the right at the entrance of the crypt, he entered from the left with the staff, and attacked that canine devil. But when he had begun to strike him with the holy staff, he uttered his former voices with a higher yelp, barking and grunting. At length when the devil, fleeing from the one striking, had come to the most holy sphere, unable to proceed further he stood still, and no longer enduring to bear so many blows and strokes, crying out in a barbarian tongue: f "Owe mir! we!" he shouted.
[40] Meanwhile the sacristan, when he had entered the basilica, and had heard the horrid voices, took a swift light in his hands, and hastened to the crypt. But the holy Father, when he had given the last blow to the demon, broke the holy staff in… g places. And unless the sacristan, seeing the sphere, had lifted it, and so permitted the devil to depart in the manner of a dog, he would still have had more to strike him. But the sacristan, examining the staff, astonished: "Have you, my Lord," he said, "fouled the holy staff on a dog?" But he being silent, he added: "Who then was that," he said, "who cried out, 'Owe mir, we'?" To which Notker answered nothing. Thinking therefore the sacristan, that he wanted out of piety to conceal some thief, he went on foot through the whole church, desiring to apprehend the thief; but when he found neither thief nor dog, he walked fluctuating in thought with himself, and insulted him. because entering after himself he had closed the church, wondering enough what it could be that had happened. At last he did not dare presume to speak to the regular man, now once silent to him. But because the holy man of the Lord Notker was humble and prudent, signing to the sacristan to go outside, he took him aside, and a blessing being given, "How did I break the staff, my son," he said, "unless you help me my secrets will have to be carried forth. But because it is not mine to walk in great matters nor in wonders above me, I commit what was done to the silence of your fidelity": and thus he explained to him the matter, although unwilling, as it had been done. And he, having secretly repaired the staff through a workman, for a time concealed what had been done: but in the course of time, the matter came into the open as it was. Of few of the Saints do we read to have so coerced the devil, that beaten, he could not escape the blows of the one striking: whence that infernal dog plotted something of this kind within himself, how he might repay the holy man for the confusion worthily inflicted on him.
[41] who in turn, as he had threatened, There was at that same time, in the place, a certain young monk, quite learned, son of the Count of Kyburg h, nephew of the blessed man Notker on his sister's side, by name Wolo, restless and wandering. To whom on account of his aversion, when the Dean himself nor Lord Notker nor the others could command him, and often he was coerced with words and stripes, and profited nothing thereby; all grieved for a man of such genius. For on a certain day his parents had come to the Monastery solicitous about him, by whose admonitions when he profited a little, again after their departure he was the same. But one day the devil appeared to Saint Notker at dawn: "Evil," he said, "I am about to do to you and your Brothers tonight." i The blessed man answered the wicked spirit: "An evil bird is often wont to report evil fame." Presently that good Notker, for so was he called by the crowd, intimated to the Brothers what he had heard from Satan, and made it known that they should guard themselves on that day: Wolo, Notker's unruly nephew, but Wolo when he too had heard this from those saying it: "Old men," he said, "always dream vain things." It was moreover that day, on which it had been forbidden him by the Dean not to go anywhere, as he was wont, out of the cloister, all knew. When therefore he was sitting to write, his last writing was, "For he was about to die," as is had in John fourth. Therefore at once leaping from his place, the rest calling out to him: "Whither now, Wolo? whither now?" he began to ascend the bell tower of Saint Gall, by the steps indeed prepared for this purpose for us: so that with his eyes, because by gait he could not, looking around at mountains and fields, thus at least he might satisfy his wandering mind. For ascending when he had come above the altar of the Virgins k, by the impulse, it is believed, of the devil, through the ceiling he fell, he fell headlong from the tower: and shaken in his whole body broke his neck. With very many running up who had perhaps seen or heard, when they hastily brought him viaticum, confession being said he communicated. But they, when they wished to bear him off, and carry him to the house of the sick: "Leave me," he said, "first to cry out to the holy Virgins: for they know, although in other things most wicked, yet I never knew a woman."
[42] but the penitence of the dying one Meanwhile when he had wailed loudly, with Blessed Notker running up, he stretched out his hands to him: "To you," he said, "my lord and to the holy Virgins, whom you always loved, I commend my sinning soul." Who at once disturbed in spirit, groaning throwing himself around him: "Holy Virgins," he said, "trusting in you, I take the crimes of this Brother upon myself, and I commit us both to you": and saying this, he was weeping and wailing from the deepest affection of his heart. And when he was being carried out of the chapel, rest being asked for before the doors of the church, squeezing Notker most tightly by the hand, all pouring out prayers for him, he sent forth his spirit. At his funeral Saint Notker washed him, in the customary manner placed him in the bier, himself performing the office, arranged his whole burial, as long as he lived and was able, took two offices of a Monk upon himself, and established for himself by law that they must be performed. But Compline, while it was being finished on the very day of the man's death, one of the Fathers, more simple, when he had recited the prayer in which is read, "That as we have led the day in joy, so too may we pass through the night": the man of God rising in grief, "What do you ask," he said, "admirable brother, what do you ask? Today's day would suffice its own evil, and would superabound: but you pray the same things for the night." and his salvation is revealed But on the seventh day of the man's death, when the Saint of God had remained in the church through the night, around the time of the nocturnal praise, resting for a little on his knees, he sees as it were his Ratpert waking him and saying to him: "Many sins have been forgiven him, because he loved much." Waking therefore he said: "Whence, my soul? whence do you know this?" These things therefore when he had added, as with a modest step he went out. But he thinking that he had gone out of the church, so that there he might speak more freely, while he follows him outside the veil, he could feel neither him nor any sound of his steps, and lighting a candle he sought him in his bed. Whom also when he had found him already rising from his bed, so that he too as he was wont might go ahead at matins, to his grieving uncle, and anticipate the vigils, the man of God, the candle extinguished, returned to the church; for he thought that he had seen a vision, and understanding he knew that what had been done, had been done through an Angel. Soon therefore made joyful, exulting, "Te Deum laudamus" beginning, weeping for joy, he silently sang. When the day was clearly given, with Ratpert asking, whether he had come to wake him at night; the Saint of God what he had seen, opened to his beloved: at length also the rest of the Brothers such hope did not hide. The Brothers therefore rejoiced with great exultation about the salvation of the Brother, praising and glorifying God in all things, which they had heard and seen, as the blessed man had told them.
[43] To the same one accustomed to pray in a corner of the church, As can be seen by those still considering and beholding the religion of the place, even in psalmodies he had thirteen seats with psalters, either adorned in gold or with other noble paintings, and according to truth… very corrected. Besides that basilica of Saint Gall has other chapels l, in one of which, a corner one, nearest to the doors, the blessed man Notker was wont to sing. For this is the place, where assiduously the Saint of the Lord, humble and trembling, seeing his poverty, was awaiting singing in spirit and mind, so that he might understand in the immaculate way, when he would come to him, and in his meditation that divine fire which the Lord sent into the earth, whose dwelling is in Sion and whose furnace in Jerusalem—that is, in speculative minds, whose desires like sparks tend to lofty things, and while living in the flesh, walk beyond the manner of carnal life—might burn and kindle his speech. O how often in the same place the holy man was infused with a shower of tears, and irrigated by heavenly dew; so that his fiery prayer as it were smoke of aromas, and as the vapor of frankincense with sweet-smelling incense, rose, penetrating the heavens, thurifying the altar of God, that he himself might sing: "Let my prayer, O Lord, be directed as incense in your sight"; and with Habakkuk: "He will lead me, the Victor, upon my high places, singing in Psalms"; where troops of Angels praise with ineffable jubilus the God of majesty, three and one.
[44] It happened that on a certain day he so pressed on this occupation, that he did not relax the spirit from continuous contemplation, the demon insults him for the omission of None, so much so that he did not come to the synaxis of None, nor sing it by himself. And so in that seat, when after compline with the day still bright he was insisting on prayers, he sees above him in the ceiling with beams broken the devil sitting, and with a stylus writing on a tablet: for he had torn out a tablet from the ceiling, on which he was writing. Whom when he had asked what mischief he was writing? "None," he said, "which you mischief today had passed over, I am writing." But he faster than speech, "Deus in adjutorium" etc. and following up the rest, sees again the devil most swiftly with his hand had planed out what he had written. And when the man of God cast himself down for the prayers of the synaxis, the tablet from the broken ceiling, on which the devil was writing, he cast down upon him. But the holy man seeing it, that he might more swiftly decline the blow, leapt back from the place. Then cackling Satan: "This only," he said, having been conquered he strives to kill him, "have I effected, that you might rise to me." "Indeed," said Notker to him, "if you have been canine or porcine, I have to work with you again." Immediately when he had fled vanishing, some Brothers praying in the extremities of the temple, hearing the sound of the tablet and the voices, wondered what it was, and quickly were present. Seeing him therefore, as he was wont, prostrated, they were unwilling to impede him, also because it was an unfitting hour. However Tutilo, one of them, giving a sign amicably calling him outside, silently in his ear: "Great," he said, "disturbances you and your demons are wont to make for the Brothers." To whom he: "Did they hear," he said, "my soul, all the Brothers?" "Not all," he said, "but I should wish you to disclose to me in detail what this tumult was." And so when the man of God denied it, and snatching from him concitedly the tablet, which had fallen there, took it away, others who had seen it praying in hiding places, did not conceal the whole as it had been done. Truly this place is more venerable
than the rest and holier than all corners, in which such a great contemplator exercised himself in such great gymnasia of celestial virtues. How secretly and subtly he did this, a brief indication subjoined will declare.
[45] Emperor Charles so much loved the place of Saint Gall, by the example of one tending a garden and was so familiar with the Brothers, that they called him none other than "our Charles." He loved however more, and with a greater privilege of love, his Notker, because knowledge, understanding, and the religiosity of spiritual disciplines and heavenly virtues were found more abundantly in him. m For the man of the Lord was always his counselor in spiritual matters; and wherever he could catch him, either he himself came to him; or if not, through an intermediary messenger he conferred with him about counsels. It happened however once that he directed letters to the blessed man through someone, perhaps asking him to unravel some questions about virtues and vices, and to express their solutions more distinctly. And when the messenger had come to the place, he remained in the place for some days. the Emperor is taught about the cultivation of the soul, On a certain day, overcome by weariness of tarrying there, he went to the holy man, and found him in the garden uprooting, plucking out and throwing away useless herbs, rooting however, transplanting, planting and watering useful herbs. The messenger brought in saying: "Holy Father, what do you enjoin upon my lord?" To whom he: "Those things that you see me doing: these tell him and nothing else." Returning therefore the messenger to his Lord, announced to him what the blessed man had said. Then he added, that he had found him in the garden uprooting and throwing away useless herbs, and rooting and setting and watering useful herbs. To whom the Emperor responded: "You have told me enough, it would suffice for a prudent man." I think that the happy King understood, that the man of the Lord had admonished him, that he should uproot and throw away spiritual or carnal vices from the garden of his heart, so that through the increases of the graces of the spirit the virtues might grow up; not without fruit. or perhaps that from the Church of God, over which he had taken rule, he should pull up and extirpate the erring and impious, so that the lit path of the just might grow and be extended up to the perfect day. Nor is it wonderful if the blessed man willingly performed the office of the garden, watering, planting, uprooting and throwing away, imitating the Lord saying through the Prophet: "I will water my garden." Sir. 24:42, Hosea 14:6, Song 6:1 And Hosea: "I will be like dew: Israel will sprout like a lily." Accordingly the soul of the just one has been made like a watered garden. And the bridegroom in the Canticles: "He has gone down into the garden to the beds of aromatic spices, that he may feed in the gardens and gather lilies." And so by a Mary the same bridegroom was seen in the garden, and judged to be a gardener. So, so the holy man, tending to the summit of speculative life, as an eagle looking and shining back against the brightness of the Sun, so the spiritual observer with the eyes of the interior man, by singular humility transcending himself; above measure excelling, the weight of divine glory contemplating, he penetrated the heavenly secret. For he labored with such a wrestling in the garden of God, that rightly with Jacob, "Israel," that is, "a man seeing God," he might be called: and such a man trained in these exercises, discerned virtues from vices.
NOTES.
* perhaps "most frequent"?
CHAPTER VI.
Saint Notker's old age, illness, death, burial.
[46] Bereft therefore of his companions, a the most illustrious man of the Lord Notker, since we in no way doubt him to be the most elect vessel of the Holy Spirit, most holy survived himself, in the same spirit widowed and orphaned of his brothers of one womb. For he had now proceeded into very many days, yet did not relax the spirit from the best undertaking on account of the excessive heaviness of his years: but more and more strengthening himself with exhortations, in spirit extending himself to the things in front, thinking that which is written: "What is a man or what is his favor? The number of his days, at the most a hundred years, are as a drop of the sea and as a grain of sand, so small are they reckoned in the day of eternity." Sir. 18:7 For he was sitting in his little place alone quiet, fearing as a wise man in all things; and therefore in the middle of the night anticipating the vigils, he always prepared himself for prayer, saying with the Prophet: "My soul has desired you in the night, but also with my spirit in my heart from morning I will keep watch to you." Isa. 26:9 For although no one knows whether he is worthy of love or hatred; he gives himself entirely to the contemplation of heavenly things, yet the holy man standing continually on his watch, confidently presumed on the spirit, which from infancy had imbued him with its charisms. And if wine and music gladden the heart, and the pipe and psaltery make a sweet melody; how much more the love of wisdom, whose—that is, of Christ whom the holy and just man loved—words, were sweeter to his throat than honey and honeycomb, and he kept them from the womb of his mother? For the Lord of virtues will not deprive of goods him who so walks in innocence hoping in him. The Lord conferred on him grace according to his merits, so that he might in his conversation merit to obtain the glory and fellowship of the Saints, whose praise he amplified in the holy Church in the sight of the sons of men, so that every Christian might hasten and fall on his face to adore Christ the Lord. Therefore the spiritual man without intermission poured out prayers to the most high omnipotent God, and repeated his prayer, that the Lord would multiply those singing with their voices, so that in heaven the sound might resound, increased by the grace of the Holy Spirit, full of every sweetness of sweet odor. And therefore worthily his memory was made in the composition of the perfume of the holy Church as the work of the perfumer, that he should not be defrauded by his merits and prayers of virtues, but as is the manner of all, the name of Notker might be praised in him who made him, and as honey his remembrance might be sweetened, and as music at the banquet of wine, which makes virgins spring up: that is, by his example of chastity and his arduous continent life many may be instructed. Now concerning his passage, because we know little; we will quickly explain what we know b.
[47] The holy and spiritual man therefore, his age pressing excessively, sitting in his little place, that is, in a corner of the temple, and he aspires to them with great affection of soul: reckoned the want of things and poverty to be the abundance of his spirit. This Saint could say, even attenuated in body, with every desire aspiring with the eyes of the inner man, always looking up on high, groaning within himself: "O when shall I enter the way of all flesh? Or how shall I enter into the place of the admirable tabernacle up to the house of God? Do you think I shall ascend to the girded people, that I may rest and be in the mansions of the Angels, and among the fullnesses of the Saints be my detention? O how blessed are those who dwell in your house, Lord: for they shall walk in the light of your countenance, and in your light shall see that ineffable paternal light: they shall be filled and inebriated from the abundance of your sweetness, and with the torrent of your pleasure you shall give them to drink. Therefore my soul has thirsted for you, the fountain of life, and rising in the morning my tears have been for me bread day and night." For the man of God after he had received the grace of the Holy Spirit, from infancy to this age, so manfully fought against the threatening flesh, against the pride of the world, and fearless against the terrors of demons, that never did anything of worldly contagion fly to his pure heart to pollute it, according to that of the Gospel: "Blessed are the pure in heart, because they shall see God." Contempt of self and frugality, as we have said before, he so loved, that it fits him aptly: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
Therefore deservedly confidently secure he subjoins: "For I am certain, that neither tribulation nor anguish, nor death nor life, nor any creature shall be able to separate me from the charity of Christ, who has promised to him who strives, saying through the mouth of John in the Apocalypse: 'To the one conquering I will give to eat from the tree of life and the hidden manna, and he shall be clothed in white garments, and shall be a pillar in my temple, and I will make him sit upon my throne, as I also have sat on the throne of my Father.'" With these and such incitements, and many other exhortations, he was exercising and cleansing in his meditation his spirit, from youth to old age.
[48] At length when his soul wearied of life in this vain world, he prayed God that he would make a sign in good, and fortified with the last Sacraments saying: "Because you are great, Lord, and doing wonders, you alone are God, sweet and mild, and copious in mercy, patient and of much mercy, and true to all who call upon you; with your ears receive my prayer, and hear the voice of my supplication." At length God sent his mercy, and snatched him from the wicked age; and in the midst of his Brothers took him up, as a sheep from the flock of the Lord, and in the understandings of his hands led him. For seized by fever he was languishing for some days. And when he felt the day of his calling was at hand, and with pain growing he became weaker, the Brothers being called together, in their presence he was fortified with the Viaticum of the most sacred mystery of Christ's body and blood; and anointed with the unction of the divine liquid, bidding farewell to all he blessed them, and commending them to God and the holy Patrons Gall and Othmar, and commending himself to their prayers, famous for many merits, girded round with the odors of virtues, in good old age full of days, failing in a blessed end, he gave up his holy spirit. he happily dies, I do not think anyone doubts about the soul of so blessed a man, distinguished by so many perfumes of his labors, so often kindled by the Holy Spirit, which taught the Church of God the jubili of Angels, that in Angelic songs it has been lifted up to the heavenly kingdoms; where among the choirs of those singing, and among the bands of the elect monks sitting in a starry seat, he may shine forth crowned, and may see the majesty of the omnipotent God face to face. Saint Notker of God died, the sealed vessel of the Holy Spirit, * on the sixth day before the Ides of April: and was added to his fathers, at the head of the basilica of Saint John the Baptist and blessed Peter the prince of the Apostles, and was buried in the eastern quarter.
[49] With a hymn said at the funeral of the man of God, rolling a stone over his sepulcher, sealing the monument, and with great mourning he is buried the Brothers returned groaning and sad to the oratory, bedewed with showers of tears, grieving that they should no longer have the bodily presence of the holy man: "Alas for me, oh grief and wrong! O negligence! O sloth! O torpor! That so many cycles of years have rolled by, that so great and such a one, so elegant, so brilliant, so elect, and illustrious a pearl, lay hidden behind and not in front, in the diadem of the Queen, that is, in the forehead of the holy Church placed, that it might shine to all who are in it? Or why did a man of outstanding grace not perform more miracles?" why a man so learned wrote so little, To whom must be responded in order. It is true that the holy Father wrote a few things, besides the Sequences and other small things, and also corrected the chant according to the use, according to the exemplars of blessed Gregory, and taught and instituted it in the schools, as we said before. For the man of God knew that others had done more works, whom more learned and more holy he humbly preferred to himself: and because knowledge puffs up, wisdom builds up, charity illuminates; and therefore he entangled himself in no business, that he might more largely have leisure for God and himself, and more freely decline arrogance or boasting. For he was of such humility and despising of himself, that not only did he not seek praise from men, but also, as far as was in him, he wished his name to be unknown on earth: for the glory for which with much fervor of desire burning he was often aflame.
[50] and why so holy a man did so few signs? In another way concerning signs. It is to be known therefore, that there are many who make signs, and do not have the virtue of signs: and there are others who have the virtue of signs, yet do not make signs, as is read in a certain Homily of Blessed Gregory: and there are several other Saints who make signs strongly and abundantly, to whom however greater are those who do not make signs. For as in the Apostles themselves the admirable virtue of works was more than of signs; so now it is in the Church. It is more to live well than to make signs. Scarcely any signs did the Patriarchs and Prophets make, except Moses, Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha. Or what signs did the most holy and preexcellent Mother of God the eternal Virgin make? Or he than whom among those born of women there is none greater? No signs are read to have been made, while they were in this life. Nor is the Lord himself known to have made signs in those thirty years. No signs therefore are the Angelic hosts read to have done, that it is said, "This sign did that Choir, or that Cherubim or Seraphim, nor any Angel of the order of any host in its own person, unless perhaps Michael or Raphael alone did something: but nevertheless we believe that by their ministry almost all miracles are accomplished." There are also certain of the Saints, whose feasts the holy Church is wont to celebrate very solemnly, and hold their commemoration, to whom however some are greater, of whom no mention is made. One of those was this holy and blessed Notker, because fixed with Christ to the cross, he crucified his flesh with its vices and concupiscences. Wherefore the same Lord Jesus Christ, made the highest Pontiff, with the staff, that is, the cross, entered once into the Holies, that by his blood he might sanctify the temple and dedicate it to the Church exulting in heaven: in which he canonized the feasts of the aforesaid Saints, to be celebrated by the Angelic spirits, of Blessed Notker and others similar, there namely in his presence: in which temple sitting on a throne, but shining gleaming, and with him thousands of Saints. In his right hand a fiery law, and because he has loved them, they will be preserved forever, and they will be delighted in the multitude of peace: and because their place is made in peace, therefore they will shine brighter than the sun in the land of the living, and will reign with him forever and beyond.
[51] Why have so many Scriptures been interwoven here? If perhaps anyone, kindled by the torch of envy or hatred, shall accuse us of sin and of injustice, by his judgment detracting from us with the word of the Lord, saying of Elihu to blessed Job: "Who is this who wraps sentences in unskilled discourses?" Job 38:2 because I have inserted such great and such authorities into the work: whoever he is, he ought to know that it is of reason, because the mystical merits, life and deeds of the Saints are to be illustrated with mystical authorities, and spiritual things are to be compared with spiritual. Therefore I the more reprove myself and do penance, that I have said less than the merits and deeds of the just man demanded. But if anyone should impose upon us that we have fabricated false things; I call God to witness, let who wishes believe, I have written nothing except what I have heard, seen, or read: otherwise I should prefer to have been silent. One thing however I say, and therefore I must be spared, although I am unlettered and unlearned, since I have not known literature; yet by that spirit in which the man of the Lord abounded giving, entering into the powers of God, from the right hand of him sitting on the throne, and from the fullness of the same Spirit I have received what I have written? And although I am not a rhetorician, yet imitating the rule of the rhetorical art, by the attestation of true or probable things I have rendered the cause probable: because the authorities which I have placed, he who with the eye of reason discerns and considers, will very well recognize how aptly they fit the text and are congruous with the man of God.
About the miracles of the blessed man Notker, which after his passage at his tomb, why very many of Saint Notker's miracles have been omitted? his merits aiding, have occurred, it would be long to narrate how many or of what kind: for from the day of his deposition, on which the holy clod was hidden and the precious treasure concealed in the earth, many signs were wrought by his intercession, for a space of about two hundred or more years, before which the holy Father migrated to the Lord. But as we have heard, so also we have seen, men of both sexes, old with young and little infants, laboring with the misfortune of various sicknesses, staying around the tomb of the holy man, pressing in prayer, offering oblations upon the sepulcher, lighting lamps, awaiting the grace of healings, urging the divine help: at length soon by the merits of his servant, God sent his word and healed them, and snatched them from their destruction. For many of them at length obtaining health, freed from all evils, having attained their pristine health, returned with joy to their own, glorifying and praising God, and his servant Saint Notker. But if anyone should wish to write all his miracles, the volume would become greater than the life: for many have been neglected by the men of the place, and in the course of time consigned to oblivion. Since therefore signs are not for the faithful, but are done on account of the unfaithful, and to some are the odor of life unto life, to others the odor of death unto death, especially to the incredulous and scoffers, lest we be accused of concealing the glory of God and of the holy man, and there be said to us that Apostolic saying: "Dumb dogs, not able to bark" the praises of the Lord and the virtues of his Saints; and lest being reproved by silence, afterwards each of us grieving and mourning with the Prophet may say: "Woe is me because I have been silent, because I am a man of polluted lips," how many miracles we have heard and known to have been done, and our fathers have told us, and still some will tell, certain things in writing we commend to posterity c, [certain things we omit, because they are still hidden from us. Isa. 56:10 & 6:5
EPITAPH AT HIS TOMB
Behold the ornament of the fatherland Notker, the teaching of wisdom, As a mortal man is buried in this tomb. On the eighth day before the Ides of April here loosed from the flesh, He is carried to the heavens, received with a song.
NOTES.
manifestly to the year 973, when Notker was made Abbot, one year before the death of Otho himself: whom nevertheless he brings in asking, "Where his sweet nephew Notker Balbulus was and whether he was still alive." Where Ekkehard only has: "His Notker, where he was, he asks": with the same impudence the blindness of this Notker, namely the Physician, already decrepit, he transferred to Balbulus. Therefore we have cut off this whole chapter: for manifestly against the author's intent the context of the history is interrupted, passing to the narration of the holy man's death.
* indeed, "eighth"
PROCESS OF CANONIZATION,
published by Henry Canisius from MSS.
Notker Balbulus, monk of Saint Gall, in Helvetia (Blessed)
FROM HENRY CANISIUS
CHAPTER I.
The delegation and subdelegation of the Commissaries to institute the examination.
[1] Hugo, by the grace of God and the Apostolic See Bishop of Constance, Hugo Bishop of Constance to the venerable, to us in Christ sincerely beloved Lord John Zwick, Licentiate in Decrees, Canon and Custodian of our church of Constance, and our faithful Counselor, greetings in the Lord, and to apply faithful diligence in the things commissioned. May you know that we have received, opened and read the letters of the most holy Father in Christ and our Lord, Lord Julius of happy memory the Second Pope, in the form of a Brief closed under the fisherman's ring, issued, and delivered to us on behalf of the venerable and religious to us in Christ sincerely beloved Francis the Abbot and Convent of the monastery of Saint Gall of the Order of Saint Benedict of our diocese, principals and in the same letters principally named, sealed; with that reverence which befitted, under this tenor.
[2] To the venerable Brother Bishop of Constance, Pope Julius the Second. Venerable brother, greetings and Apostolic blessing. by the commission of Julius II, Recently there was set forth to us by the beloved sons Francis the Abbot and Convent of the monastery of Saint Gall of the Order of Saint Benedict, of your diocese; that since the body of Blessed Notker, once a monk of the said monastery, is preserved with due honor in the chapel of Saints Peter and Paul, situated within the precincts of the same monastery (who as yet has not been annotated in the catalogue of Saints and canonized, and shines with many miracles, and there is a frequent concourse of the faithful, since by his intercession many of the said faithful feel and know their petitions to be heard before the Lord); they greatly desire that permission be granted to them and to any other persons to celebrate solemnly on one day of each year to be chosen by them, or on the day on which the said Notker migrated from this world, the feast of a minor Confessor and the Mass and Office of the same Blessed Notker, from the first Vespers up to the second Vespers of the same day, in the said chapel of the same monastery, and also in other churches and chapels subject to the said monastery, without the necessity of anyone's permission. Wherefore on behalf of the aforesaid Abbot and Convent it was humbly supplicated to us, that we should deign opportunely to provide in the premises out of Apostolic benignity. And so we, inclined to this supplication, not having certain knowledge of the premises, commit and command by these present to your fraternity, in whom in the Lord we have special confidence, that in the premises, about which we burden your conscience, you may do, order, and decree as it shall seem to you to be done, notwithstanding Apostolic constitutions and ordinances and any others to the contrary. We wish however that from those things which concerning the premises you shall do, decree, and order, the said Notker on that account shall not be considered canonized or otherwise approved.
Given at Rome at Saint Peter's under the fisherman's ring, the 20th day of December 1512, the 10th year of our pontificate.
Balthasar Tuerdus.
[3] After the presentation, reception, opening, and diligent inspection of these pre-inserted letters, made by us and through us as is premised, to John Swick Custodian of Constance we were required with due insistence on behalf of the said Lord Abbot and Convent principals, and in the pre-inserted letters, as is stated, principally named, that we should deign to proceed to the execution of the said letters and of the contents in the same, according to their force, form, continence and tenor. And so we not having certain knowledge of the premises, and nevertheless desiring reverently to execute the commands of a superior, and especially Apostolic, as we are bound; to you, of whose fidelity and circumspection in the Lord we have special hope, by these presents with the Apostolic authority committed to us and which we perform, commit and command; that not only in the said Monastery, but also in other parochial churches of the said town of Saint Gall, to compel and hear witnesses he delegates; you shall cause a public edict to be set forth; admonishing and requiring by the aforesaid Apostolic authority, and if it seems fitting to you, under the penalty of excommunication of late sentence, all and each person of both sexes, to whom concerning the life or miracles of Blessed Notker, once a monk of the said monastery, it may have been known either from certain knowledge or from the truthful report of the elders, or from authentic writings, that they may in person appear before you in the said monastery of Saint Gall, and there in a "the chamber Auff der Hell" commonly so called, about to depose the recognized truth of the premises. Those thus appearing, having taken to yourself the discreet, to us in Christ beloved Leonard Altweger, Notary and sworn Scribe of our diocese and in the office of the Vicariate of our Constance court, you shall receive solemnly as sworn to say the truth in the form of law, and shall diligently examine concerning the things narrated in the pre-inserted letters; asking the same concerning the truth of the things narrated in the same letters, and he prescribes the matter for instituting the examination. and concerning the life and miracles of Blessed Notker: whether for the name of Christ he suffered labors; about his humility; whether in life he suffered persecutors, and about the cause of persecution: likewise about the miracles performed by him in life and after death, and which or what kind of miracles he performed, and how they came about; whether from the force of words or from the merit of that holy man, whether those miracles tend to the corroboration of faith, and which or what is the fame of the neighborhood about them, and about other circumstances. And the sayings and depositions of such witnesses, faithfully reduced to writing by the said Notary, and closed with your seal on the outside, you shall send back to us as soon as possible. But the witnesses who shall be named to you, if they shall withdraw themselves by grace, hate, love, fear, prayer, price or favor; by our vice and authority, nay more truly Apostolic, by ecclesiastical censure you shall compel to bear witness to the truth, we burden your conscience in the premises.
Given in our hall of Constance, under the impression of the office of the Vicariate of our Constance court, in the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred thirteen, the first day of the month of April, in the first indiction.
Leonard Altweger the Notary subscribed.
[4] This delegate could not fulfill the office enjoined on him: wherefore the Bishop transferred to him, whom he had constituted an assessor for John, Leonard, the whole province of informing the cause, by a brief of this which follows tenor: "Hugo… Bishop of Constance, etc… Although we had before committed the examination and reception of witnesses, to John ill is substituted Leonard the Notary. upon the narrated matters of certain Apostolic letters in the form of a brief, issued on the occasion of Blessed Notker, to be produced, or by virtue of the edict issued on this matter appearing, to the venerable to us in Christ beloved John Zwick by our other letters of a certain tenor: yet because the same Lord Custodian by reason of bodily infirmity cannot attend to this examination, we to you, of whose industry and fidelity we have special trust in the Lord, commit by Apostolic authority the examination and reception of witnesses in this manner under the manner and form of the prior commission made to the said Lord Custodian, and surrogate you in the same's place by the tenor of these letters.
Given in our hall of Constance in the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred thirteen, the second day of the month of April, indiction first, under the seal of the Vicariate office of our said court of Constance, impressed on the back of these.
By the special commission of the said Lord Hugo Bishop, Conrad Rainer subscribed."
[5] By virtue of this pre-inserted Commission, I, the aforesaid Leonard Altweger, Notary, caused the public edict of this cause, according to the content of the prior Commission, to be set forth in the town of Saint Gall, and indeed in the Monastery and in the parochial churches of Saints Laurence and Magnus, and a faithful account of its execution having been made to me, I the same Leonard Altweger received the witnesses subscribed before me appearing at the time and place noted below, by virtue of this edict, solemnly sworn in the form of law, and according to the mind and form of the said prior Commission diligently examined, depositing as follows. But each of them swore that for bearing witness nothing was given, promised or remitted to him: nor does he hope from his deposition to obtain profit, convenience or emolument: nor has he been instructed what, how, or in what manner he should depose: but through fear of censures and by virtue of the edict he appears, about to depose the truth known to him, with hatred, love, favor, prayer, price and all human favor entirely laid aside and set apart.
NOTES.
CHAPTER II.
The depositions of the sworn witnesses, especially concerning the miracles of Blessed Notker.
Witness 1.
[6] The prudent Othmar Blum sub-burgomaster of the town of Saint Gall, 41 years old, deposed and said, For the neglect of the care of canonization that he himself was born in the town of Saint Gall, and from his earliest age had heard from his parents and elders, how that Saint Notker, whose body is buried in the church of Saint Peter of the same town of Saint Gall, was a holy man and most worthy of canonization and veneration: and as long as his canonization was omitted, always in a hundred years the town of Saint Gall would have to suffer the whirlpool of fire, as he had heard that thrice a thus it had been consumed, he himself however does not remember. And so he had heard that, he not canonized, no Abbot of the monastery of Saint Gall would have good health or soundness of body, as he himself remembers three, citizens and Abbots afflicted namely Lords Abbot Ulric, Abbot Gotthard, and now the present Lord Abbot b: who indeed all after they obtained the Abbatial dignity had been infirm, as also the present Abbot is today infirm, the paleness of his face witnessing it. And therefore the same holy Notker had been venerated, as long as the witness remembers, as a saint and powerful in the sight of Almighty God, etc. The same aforesaid Othmar also noted, twelve or fourteen years elapsed, from the late Conrad Lacher of Constance the stonemason, citizen of the town of Saint Gall, how he was present, when the sepulcher of Saint Notker was raised higher, and a new stone placed on top: and that there was found a leaden sarcophagus c, whence the sweetest odor came forth, so that he and the others wondered at it, and
ran to the monastery, announcing these things to the Brothers: who sang a litany there. These things as aforesaid he heard from the said Conrad, a man indeed worthy of faith. the witness himself and his son healed. The witness himself finally had a son one year old, who labored with epilepsy, commonly "Rindlivve"; but when the wife of the witness herself made a vow with a candle for the little boy to Saint Notker, he immediately recovered. And from then thirteen or fourteen years have elapsed. The witness himself also about twelve years ago labored with a very perilous sickness, through six or seven weeks, where he by the benefit and intercession of this Saint Notker was continually cured, his wife making a vow for him, he says nothing else.
Witness 2.
[7] Lawrence Hochrutiner citizen of the town of Saint Gall, 38 years of age, diligently examined upon the narrated matters in the letters of the brief, having previously taken his oath, says that he from his earliest age had heard that Blessed Notker was held as a holy man and most worthy of veneration and a singular helper of all those invoking him in necessity. he is cured from an incurable fistula. Whence he himself before or around fourteen years had pain in his leg, and had many holes, very dangerous, and since he himself could be cured by no one; he vowed to God and Saint Notker, that he would every Sunday visit his sepulcher, and there say three Pater noster and as many Ave Maria, with a quarter of wax; and immediately the vow being made within six days he recovered. And he had heard that none of the Abbots of the said monastery of Saint Gall would enjoy health, with that holy man not canonized.
Witness 3.
[8] Gall Stucheler of the town of Saint Gall, of age over 30 years, says that Blessed Notker had been venerated as a saint. Whence ten years elapsed, he himself had a certain swelling in his left hand for fourteen days very dangerous, and so grievous, that with it he could do nothing at all. But when he made a vow to Blessed Notker, within three days he recovered. are cured of swelling of the hand He says also that he himself had a two-year-old boy, who also had a swelling about the genitals so great that he was believed to be ruptured: but by the benefit and intercession of Blessed Notker he continually recovered by a vow, made to the same Blessed Notker.
Witness 4.
[10] Egli Ebinter in the suburb of Saint Gall, of age over fifty years, says that Blessed Notker was a holy man, and as a saint was venerated. The witness himself also had a wife and two offspring, who labored vehemently with fevers, and he himself made a vow for them to Saint Notker, which being fulfilled they immediately recovered, as he believes from the intercession of Blessed Notker.
Witness 5.
[11] Magdalena Ebinterin, wife of John Eblin of Gekenweil, of the Parish of Saint Laurence, of age 26 years, says that she had always heard that Blessed Notker was a holy man and worthy of veneration, the worst ulcers, and the singular helper of all invoking him in their necessities: whence she still unmarried, and indeed before or around ten years, had both swelling and the worst ulcers in her right leg, so that many said her to have the plague of Saint Quirinus. She vowed and promised Saint Notker that she would visit his sepulcher with certain prayers: at once when she fulfilled the vow and before she returned home she recovered, as she believes, by the invocation of the said Saint.
Witness 6.
[12] Elsa Holderschwenderin of Schowigen of the Parish of Saint Laurence, of age 27 years, deposes that she had always heard from her elders and parents, infirmity of the head, that Saint Notker, etc. Whence she about six or five years ago was seized with a sudden and vehement infirmity of the head: and when to the sepulcher of Saint Notker she made a vow, with one candle of one obol, namely that as long as the same candle burned, so long she would pray on bare and bent knees. And immediately the vow being made she began to be better, and she recovered fully, by the merits and intercession, as she believes, of the said Notker being aided. Similarly he had also helped her mother, having pains in a certain arm, and truly he is held as a holy man.
Witness 7.
[13] Anna Tannerin of Strubensell of the Parish of Saint Laurence, having of her age 51 years, says that she cannot depose more about his life, broken leg than that she had heard from the elders that also by miracles in life he had shone. For she had heard it said that in the time of Saint Notker there was a certain d merchant, who was adverse to him in all things, and at length fell from his horse and broke his leg: and that the same, after he could be cured by no one, by the benefit of that holy man was restored to his former health. She herself also for thirty years had been in this… * and also had pustules, and from them was as it were contracted in all her members, a contracted woman, and by the benefit and intercession of the same she had felt herself not a little relieved, and freed from these pains and infirmities.
Witness 8.
[14] Ulric Bogt, residing near the town of Saint Gall of the Parish of Saint Laurence, of age 34 years, says that in the week just passed, around the genitals, rupture, he had a certain swelling, he does not know from what cause; so that many believed, and indeed the witness himself, that he was ruptured. But when he made a vow to Blessed Mary the virgin in the Monastery of Saint Gall and to blessed Notker, he immediately obtained his former health: so that he feels no pain whatever. And he had heard him always to have been and to be a holy man, etc.
Witness 9.
[15] Paul Stabinet of the Parish of Saint Laurence of the town of Saint Gall, swelling of the heart, having of his age 40 years, says that he from his earliest age had always heard of the holiness and miracles of the holy man Notker: whence he about ten years fell into a grave infirmity, so that he was swollen around the heart, so that no one promised him hope of life. In which infirmity the wife of the witness made a vow for the witness himself to Saint Notker: which vow being made and not yet fulfilled, the witness immediately felt improvement, and as he believes, from the intercession of Blessed Notker has obtained his former health. From which time he has borne singular devotion toward the same, and he believed and today believes, him to be a powerful helper.
Witness 10.
[16] Peter Wyss, citizen of the town of Saint Gall, of age 60 years and about, says that it is otherwise not known to him about the life of the same Saint Notker, than that he once heard from a certain Conventual Bernard, About the Chaplain refuted, Preacher of the Monastery of Saint Gall (he cannot specify the time) publicly in the chancels heard about Saint Notker, where he said many things about his holiness, and among others related how Charles Emperor of the Romans placed great trust in the same Notker, and arranged many things by his counsel: whence when he once was in the town of Saint Gall, a certain one of his Chaplains perhaps bearing it ill, that he preferred to him that same monk Notker, said that he willingly wished to see the same Notker. Who when he was shown to him, and said that he always had his eyes directed to heaven; the same Chaplain wishing to tempt him, out of pride asked from him: what now God was doing in heaven: to which the same Notker responded: "God now does what he has done from eternity." And that one more broadly asking, what however he was doing, the same Notker responded: "He exalts the humble and humbles the proud." Moreover the witness himself says, and the Pope disapproving of the neglect of the feast. that in the church of Saint Peter he had seen a certain tablet: on which in the vulgar Alemannic it was written that in the years past a certain Abbot of the Monastery of Saint Gall rode to the Roman curia for confirmation. Whom then the Pope asked about that holy man, and how he celebrated his day. To whom when the same Abbot responded that he did not celebrate his day otherwise than that of another deceased monk; the Pope indignant against him cursed him that on his eve he should not institute a fast, and should not make his day to be kept festal. These things the witness from the same tablet read more than once: yet he does not know whether the same tablet still hangs in the said church or not, he says nothing else.
Witness 10.
[17] Anna Staberelin at Mars Tobel of the parish of Saint Laurence, having of her age 31 years and about, about umbilical swelling, legitimate wife of Bernhard Cunker, says that she had always heard of his holiness and miracles, whence she about eleven years ago had a certain little boy, whose navel was swollen to the size of a goose egg. But when she dedicated the same little boy to Saint Notker, she felt continuously improvement from day to day, so that at last he recovered fully and entirely, and from that time in the same Saint Notker she had singular hope and affection of devotion.
Witness 11.
[18] Henry Ruminer, citizen of the town of Saint Gall, of age 34 years and about, says that he was born in the town of Saint Gall, about dysentery and from his earliest age had heard of Saint Notker's holiness. Whence he himself, who also had singular affection of devotion toward the same, had a certain boy, then three years old, who suffered dysentery: from which perhaps or by another cause around the genitals he was so swollen, that all men who saw him, believed him to have been ruptured. Whom the witness dedicated with a quarter of wax to Saint Notker: and behold immediately the vow being fulfilled in the next three days he fully recovered, and both from the dysentery and the aforesaid swelling, as the witness believes, by the intercession and prayers of Blessed Notker was freed. He also had a certain little girl, who also had stabbings, and stabbing and endured inside such vehement pains, that they caused a flow of blood from the nostrils and mouth. Who also when she was led to the sepulcher of Saint Notker, was freed.
Witness 12.
[19] Anna Merkin widow and relict of the late James Merck of Saint Gall, of age 48 years, says, that before or around thirteen years ago she bore a son, about obstruction of the throat who in his neck or throat had a certain obstacle: so that sometimes he could neither speak, nor inspire, nor respire: whom she also dedicated to Saint Notker, and to his sepulcher. Who immediately after, as the witness believes, by the intercession of that holy man recovered, nor did he ever afterward feel such infirmity. Whence she in all her necessities has had special refuge to him, as to a singular helper.
Witness 13.
[20] e Fida Gemunderin, legitimate wife of Ulric Rochlin, citizen of the town of Saint Gall, 45 years old, says
that in the recent Swiss war, Of a most foul ulcer which took place in our territory, she herself had a certain little girl named Veronica, then five years old, who one night was covered over her whole body with ulcers, so that no one could have found a spot in her whole body, even with a needle, which was not full of pus and ulcers: whereupon the witness, terrified, consulted surgeons about it. and despaired of by the surgeons. But when she found no one who was willing to undertake her cure, she herself concluded that it must be awaited what nature would work. And so, after certain days, when the ulcers were departing, one most horrible ulcer or opening remained, and from day to day grew in depth and breadth, so that all who saw it were moved to compassion: for it was covering her legs and was in appearance very foul and horrible. And when she consulted various surgeons about it, and no one was willing to promise hope of recovery, she, set in such straits and not knowing where to turn, since the little girl passed the whole night sleepless and from the violence of the pain could take neither sleep nor food, it came into her mind how that St. Notker had helped many in various needs. And so she vowed the same little girl to St. Notker's tomb, with a waxen leg and certain prayers; she promised finally that she would thereafter keep his day as a feast all the days of her life, and that the next son whom she should happen to bear she would call by the name of St. Notker. And behold, as soon as the vow was made, the girl ceased from her cries, and her pain was eased, and from day to day she began to be better, and at last fully recovered, whence afterwards she bore a singular affection of devotion to the same saint.
Witness 14
[21] Heinrich Maurer, a shearer of the Parish of St. Lawrence, concerning a crippled boy; aged 70 years, says that about twenty-five years ago a certain neighbor of his, namely Johann Roler, had a certain young boy, perhaps five years old, who was both lame and so contracted in his hands and feet that he could not walk. When through his mother, at the persuasion of the wife of the witness himself, he was devoutly brought to the tomb of Blessed Notker; at once, and indeed on that very day, he recovered and was able to walk and did walk. The witness saw this, and never beheld a greater miracle. He says nothing else.
Witness 15
[22] Gretha Langulrichin, a citizen of the town of St. Gall, sixty-three years old, says that she herself, about ten years ago or thereabouts, of grievous pain, had such pains in her left thigh that she could take neither food nor sleep, nor have any rest: whereupon she, at the persuasion of a certain neighbor of hers, vowed herself, with certain lights and prayers, to the tomb of the same saint; and as soon as she fulfilled the vow, she began to feel better and recovered, as she believes, by the intercession of Blessed Notker.
Witness 16.
[23] Barbara Fiegerin of Riederholz, of the Parish of St. Lawrence, aged 42 years or thereabouts, says that nine years ago or thereabouts, of a boy hurled down the witness had a certain young male, who fell in a certain barn from the loft onto the floor g from a considerable height and dangerously, so much so that for nine weeks he could not raise his head, nor turn it around or look upward: and so the witness vowed him to St. Notker. As soon as he came to the chapel or church of the same saint, the young boy cried out, "Mother, I can look up." And so the mother, weeping for joy, ran up, and saw it was so, and thus he recovered, and lives today, feeling nothing of it. Afterwards the witness bore a little child, and of a 21-week birth; which she carried only twenty-one weeks, who when born was believed by all to be dead, whereupon she vowed him to St. Notker with a living burnt-offering. The same little child showed signs of life, and was reborn in the laver of baptism.
Witness 17
[24] Genoveva Sprollin of St. Gall, about forty years old, of an ulcerous boy. says and deposes that about or before thirteen years ago she had a certain little boy, then four years old, whom the witness put to bed indeed sound, but at daybreak when she took him up from the bed, she saw that his whole body was just as if it had been beaten with nettles: and greatly terrified she thought various things to herself. But the next morning she saw the whole body of the boy full of black and most foul ulcers, not without horrible swelling. When the mother of the witness herself saw this, she counseled the witness to vow him to St. Notker. When the witness together with her mother did this, and paid the vow; on the next and so on the third morning the boy himself completely recovered, and indeed miraculously, since she believes that according to nature it could not have been done: and on account of this she firmly believes without any hesitation that she obtained this by the prayers and intercessions of St. Notker, and from that time she has special confidence in him in all her needs.
Witness 18
[25] Heinrich Geiszburer of Beknow, a citizen of the town of St. Gall, being 64 years of age or thereabouts, deposed, that he, about or before seven years ago, fell from a certain wagon of hay, of a dislocated shoulder, and so the shoulder was dislocated from its joints: and straightway, when the vow was made, without any surgeon and without medicine he recovered, as he believes, by the intercession of Blessed Notker.
Witness 19
[26] Barbara Studerin of St. Gall, being fifty years of age or thereabouts, says that she had heard much of St. Notker from her early years, whence about a space of ten years ago she had a certain boy of three years, of a boy bewitched, whom as she put to bed, the boy cried out: O mother, a certain woman was with me. And in the morning, as she took up the boy, she found that the boy was mutilated in one arm; whereupon, terrified for him, she vowed two waxen arms, one to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the monastery, and the other to Blessed Notker, and thus in three or four days, after she paid the vow, he recovered, as she believes, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Blessed Notker.
Witness 20
[27] Gebhard Holtzmann, Herald of the town of St. Gall, aged 48 years, says that he himself for the last thirty years or thereabouts has dwelt in the town of St. Gall, of a wounded leg from whom he has always heard many and various things said about his sanctity, both at the chancels and elsewhere, but after his tomb was raised higher, greater recourse began to be had to him: whence the witness also began to bear a singular devotion to him. For it is now the tenth year since, when the Swiss besieged a certain castle in Lombardy called Locarno, where the witness likewise took part in the expedition, and thus a stone struck from the castle by a certain discharged bombard, lying not far from the witness, broke it into the smallest pieces, which rebounded upon the witness: and thus he was very grievously wounded in both legs: and when this was done, as the witness himself wished to withdraw, another archer pierced him through the leg with a quarrel. And although the witness was then treated by surgeons, nevertheless after he returned to his country, the same leg began to swell; and when he vowed himself to St. Notker, on that very day the fragments which had remained in the leg broke forth, and so from day to day he began to be better, and at last entirely recovered by the intercession, as he believes, of Blessed Notker.
Witness 21
[28] Ulrich Schlumpff, citizen of the town of St. Gall, being 43 years of age, says that he was born, nourished, and to this day has lived in the town of St. Gall, of the elevation of the holy body. and has always from his earliest age, and especially after he came to the years of discretion, heard many things of the sanctity of Blessed Notker, and in particular has read in his Life that he himself was the author of that sequence, Sancti Spiritus assit nobis gratia, and that he was illustrious in life for miracles and sanctity. Whence sixteen years ago, the witness and certain others of his fellow-citizens, on account of the sanctity of that holy man and the miracles which were daily being wrought, bearing a singular affection of devotion towards him, took it ill that his tombstone was not being renewed. Whence they agreed among themselves to make a new stone for his tomb, and wished to remove the old stone and place a new one over it, and the relics of that holy man were found in a hollowed stone, which the old stone placed over it had enclosed, and as the witness heard from his brother Caspar Schlumpff, now Burgomaster of the said town, his bones were so bright and white, that he had never seen anything whiter or brighter; they had been arranged in order after the fashion of the body, nor damaged or consumed in any part, whence a most sweet odor went forth. Adding that eight years ago or thereabouts, there was born to the witness a little child ruptured in both sides, and after he had been born fourteen weeks, of epilepsy and rupture cured. another disease came on, namely epilepsy; whence the witness, seeing and gazing on that wretched boy, thought within himself that he would implore the Blessed Virgin Mary in the monastery: and straightway as he came to her image, it came into his mind that he would vow the same boy to Blessed Notker: whence he straightway went to the tomb of Blessed Notker, invoking the same Blessed Notker, and promising him a waxen boy of three pounds, and that on each day, for the space of a year, he would visit his tomb, and there pray five Our Fathers and as many Hail Marys. And behold, as soon as he returned home, he found the boy sucking his mother's breasts; who presently turned himself from the breasts to the father and laughed, and on that very day was freed from epilepsy, and his ruptures were at that same hour so relieved, that they hindered him nothing or little. Whence briefly he concludes, that St. Notker has never abandoned him, wherefore he himself has a special devotion to him, and in all his needs he has him as a special helper, refuge, and recourse.
Witness 22
[29] Michael Haltmayer, citizen of the town of S. Gall, being forty years of age, says that for twenty years or thereabouts he has heard many things of the life and miracles of Blessed Notker, of a perjured debtor corrected. and on account of this has chosen him for his patron. For twelve years ago or thereabouts the witness had a certain debtor in the town of Feldkirch
and there another creditor, to whom namely the witness himself owed money. And the same creditor was content to receive from the debtor the sum in which the witness remained bound to him. But when the debtor denied the debt, and had taken an oath that he was in no way bound to the witness; the said creditor again summoned the witness, whence the witness had to summon his debtor. And when again the oath had been decreed, the witness invoked Blessed Notker, that he should be a help to him, lest he should thus be unjustly harmed. And behold, when the oath had been read to the said debtor, the same, with both hands lifted to heaven, publicly before the Justices of the town of Feldkirch, said and cried out: O what was I going to do? I confess the debt: thus confessing the debt, which before he had denied by oath. Afterwards, and indeed about or before two years ago, the witness began to feel pain in his right arm, of pain in the arm so much that he could no longer work. And when he had endured such pains for about half a year, and could not be cured, he vowed himself to St. Notker, and soon within three days he recovered. After this he had a certain boy, who had a latent infirmity, so that he could neither walk nor stand, and of an impotent boy: although he was already three years old. But as soon as he vowed him to the tomb of Blessed Notker, he began to walk and totally recovered, as he believes, by the intercession of Blessed Notker, whom he believes to be a holy man and powerful with God, and a singular helper of all who invoke him. There is a report, finally, that unless he is canonized, no Abbot of the Monastery of St. Gall will have bodily health. That also the town of St. Gall shall in a hundred years always be consumed by a devouring fire, and he heard many other similar things of him; he does not depose otherwise.
Witness 24
[30] Gallus Schlosser, citizen of the town of St. Gall, aged over 74 years, of pain in the leg, says that although he, about or before the last twenty years, had heard many things of St. Notker, and that he was to be canonized; nevertheless the witness himself did not much care about him, nor did he bear any devotion to him, until about a year ago: when the witness had in a certain leg such violent and pressing and intolerable pains that he well-nigh despaired. Whence at the prompting of his wife he vowed himself to Blessed Notker, and immediately after the vow was made, indeed within a quarter of an hour, he began to be better, and from that time has never felt such violent pains, as he believes, by the intercession of Blessed Notker.
Witness 25
[31] Nicholas Schnapperli, Chaplain of St. Wiborada, of the town of St. Gall, aged 35 years, says, that in the year 1512 just past, of internal prickings, he suffered such pains in his legs and knees, that by the excessive weight of the pain he could neither sleep nor rest, there being these internal prickings; and on certain days he walked about limping. At length there came into his mind the holiness and integrity of life of the holy man Notker, to whom, taking a certain confidence, he vowed himself together with one pound of wax, with certain prayers added, at his most holy tomb, established in the chapel of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, trusting, as was said, in his merits and suffrages. When these had been duly performed, he notably felt his help, so that afterward he could sleep and walk, as he was wont before. Therefore by his judgment and testimony, however unworthy, he deems him to be not the least, but among the foremost of God's elect. Whose life indeed is narrated in German and vernacular history: whom also Master William in the Rationale of Divine Offices, book four, as also the Lombardic History on St. Pelagius the first, Supreme Pontiff, commemorate as Abbot of St. Gall and author of very many Sequences. Who, as his holy history relates, while his life lasted, endured very many snares of demons, which he utterly overcame by the virtue of faith and the merit of holiness, and adorned his life with the study of letters and the best of morals, and concluded the term of his temporal life with a most happy end, in the year of the Lord's incarnation nine hundred and fourteen, on the 6th of the Ides of April, etc.
Witness 26
[32] Ennalina Grafin of St. Gall, a virgin aged twenty-two years, says that she has experienced St. Notker to be a singular helper in the needs of all who invoke him. of most grievous ulcers, Whence for the space of a year, her brother Sebastian laboring with two most grievous ulcers, so much that he could have no rest by day or by night, she, taking pity on her brother, vowed him to Blessed Notker, with a wax light measured to his body. And as soon as she did this, her brother began to be better: and from thence successively he totally recovered, as she believes, by the intercession of Blessed Notker.
Witness 27
[33] of pain in the head, Dorothea Schlatterin of St. Gall, aged 25 years, says that St. Notker wrought such a miracle in her, the witness. Because from her early age she has had a weak head, and has endured many headaches, so much so that often and often she had to lie in bed; and when eight years ago or thereabouts she heard so many miracles of St. Notker, she too vowed herself to his tomb, and at once began to be better, as she believes, by the intercession of Blessed Notker.
Witness 28
[34] of the fame of sanctity, Master John Weniger, perpetual Vicar of the church of St. Lawrence of the town of St. Gall, in his fortieth year, says, that he can depose nothing certain of his life, because the same St. Notker preceded us by a great distance, and was taken from our midst many years ago. But the witness himself, who was born in the town of St. Gall, from the time he had the use of reason, has heard from his elders and ancestors and the Fathers of the community of the monastery of St. Gall, that he shone forth in his life for holiness: that it is probable, that it is known for certain, that he is the author of many Sequences, which are sung to this day in the praises of the Most High, which surely he could not have composed unless illuminated by the grace of the Holy Spirit: hence he believes, as he has believed since the time aforesaid, that he was and is a holy man. Hence the Master witness, being asked whether he bore labors for the name of Christ, concerning humility and persecution, Answers, that from his history, which the witness has often read, it clearly appears, that he lived piously, endured many persecutions from the devil, and was profound in humility: and the witness has given undoubted faith to these writings, because the report of elders, men worthy of credit, has lent and lends support to these things. and by virtue of miracles. Being asked concerning his miracles, he says, it is contained in his life, that he shone with miracles even in his life, but after his death and especially in our times he has been resplendent with many miracles, and has shown himself a special helper of those invoking him in their necessities. Hence it is that great is the recourse of the people to him, and not only of the people, but the witness himself also bore and bears a special affection of devotion to him. So much so indeed that in his infirmities he does not hesitate to invoke him, as a holy man and powerful with God, and has sometimes felt through his intercession, not from the force of words nor any other unworthy way, to have obtained relief in his infirmities.
Witness 29
[35] George Tischmacher, citizen of the town of St. Gall, being forty years of age, says, that twelve years ago or thereabouts, of weakness in the arm the witness himself was so weakened in his right arm, that he could not use it for his craft, nor even lift a spoon for sixteen weeks: and as soon as he vowed himself to Blessed Notker, he recovered, and indeed within two days after the vow was paid, as he believes, by the intercession of Blessed Notker.
Witness 30
[36] Caspar Giller, citizen of the town of St. Gall and a shoemaker there, being fifty years of age or thereabouts, of a cured leg. says that as long as he can remember, Blessed Notker has been reputed for a holy man, whence when the witness, about or before eight or twelve years ago, had in his leg a very dangerous ulcer, and as he vowed himself to Blessed Notker, he began to feel better; so that out of the ulcer a certain little bone came out, and thereafter he recovered, as he believes by the intercession of Blessed Notker.
[37] But on the seventh day of the same month of April, and indeed at the Sixth hour or about noon, the venerable Brother Laurence Schab, Licentiate in Sacred Theology, Conventual of the Monastery of Seligenstadt, of the diocese of Mainz, of the Order of St. Benedict, at present Preacher of the Monastery of St. Gall of the same Order, before the venerable Master Heinrich Sadler, Doctor of Both Laws, Advocate of the Consistory of the Curia of Constance, and me, the aforesaid Notary or Commissary of this cause, assigned by our most reverend Lord of Constance, An oration is delivered on the Life of Blessed Notker, and me, the same Notary, delivered an oration, as he said, composed from most ancient books, and recited it in the following manner. "In undertaking to deliver an oration before your lordships, after I had long and much deliberated silently with myself what matter I should bring forth," etc. And when this oration was finished, there appeared before the said Master Doctor and me the Commissary, by virtue of the edict issued as aforesaid, the witnesses undersigned: whom likewise by force of my said commission in the presence of the aforesaid Master Doctor I received sworn and examined, as follows deposing.
Witness 31
[38] Master Brother Ulrich Herr, professed monk and conventual of the Monastery of Blessed Gall, thirty-six years of age, Custos, by the form of the commission, having given his oath, being examined and interrogated concerning the life of Blessed Notker says, There are heard that he cannot depose from certain knowledge about his life; except those things which he learned from his Life, which he has often read, to which he refers himself. From which, and likewise from other books of most ancient writing, it appears that he was the author of many Sequences, concerning fame of sanctity; notably noted below, namely of the Nativity of Christ, Natus ante secula; of Epiphany, Festa Christi; of the Holy Spirit or Pentecost, Sancti Spiritus; and of many others. And these are evident from the book, where his image is painted. Brother Ekkehard, a monk of the monastery of St. Gall, has also written about Blessed Notker in a certain booklet. And he has always heard, as long as he has been in the monastery, that he has been in the veneration of the Brethren, as long as the witness himself can remember, and indeed in greater veneration, especially of the community, than now. The same witness also brought a very ancient staff, having a fracture, concerning which mention is made in chapter 26 of the Life of Blessed Notker; which is said to be the staff of St. Columban, with which the same Blessed Notker is asserted to have struck a demon.
Witness 32
[39] Master Ulrich Stoss, professed monk of the Order of St. Benedict and conventual of the monastery of Blessed Gall, parish priest in Salmsach, of the Life read being sixty years of age or thereabouts, says, that for fifty years or thereabouts he has been a conventual of the monastery of St. Gall, from which time and through which time, he has often heard read and has read the Legend or history of Blessed Notker at table; wherein and in which the whole life of Blessed Notker is contained. Being asked about his miracles, he says that he himself heard from his elders while still young, and of a dart drawn from a wound and especially about thirty years ago, a certain John Studli of St. Gall related to the witness, that he himself had once been wounded at Augsburg with a certain dart, so much so that the dart was broken, and a certain part of it remained in him: and when he vowed himself to Blessed Notker, without any aid of surgeons it came out, and he recovered, whence he himself held him for a holy man.
Witness 33
[40] Master Brother Jacob Schurpff, conventual of the monastery of St. Gall, being 51 years of age, says, that he has been in the monastery of Blessed Gall for about forty years, from which time and through which time the witness himself has often read and heard read the Legend or history of Blessed Notker, and has heard several other things from Simon Gellfrandt, and from the Brother called the "long Hans," Fathers and Elders of the same monastery, concerning the sanctity of St. Notker, how Blessed Notker was always a holy man, and as a holy man was venerated and held, and is venerated as the third Patron, and special prayers are held concerning him. Being asked concerning the miracles of the same Blessed Notker, he says that he shone with miracles in his life, as appears not obscurely from his Legend or history. and of the concourse to him on account of miracles, After death also he wrought many miracles, and to this day performs them: hence there has been for many years a great concourse of Christ's faithful to him, who have felt themselves freed by his intercession from various illnesses, of whom he has seen many witnesses, and there is such great report of this through the town and round about, that the same holy Notker is very well known and held for a holy man, as he is held and reckoned.
Witness 34
[41] The honorable Master Heinrich Baumann, Priest, Chaplain of the Chapel of St. Peter of the town of St. Gall, of miracles recorded in writing by himself, being 67 years of age, says, that he was born, nourished, and brought up in the town of St. Gall, and has been for thirty-four years Chaplain of the said Chapel, from which time and through which time also there was a great concourse of the people to Blessed Notker, and many believed themselves freed from adverse illnesses by the prayers of the same Saint. And many and innumerable persons of both sexes came to him the witness, relating various and diverse miracles of this Blessed Notker, and asking him the witness, to inscribe them, as also the witness inscribed many miracles, brought and made known to him by persons thus flocking to him. The witness himself also had and today has singular refuge in the same Saint in his necessities, whence in the past year, about the feast of All Saints, a certain niece of the witness by his sister fell into a violent passion, so much so that the witness and others feared fire and greater evil: and so the witness fled to Blessed Notker, invoking the same for his said niece, together with Blessed Francis, under whose rule he serves: and she at once began to be better, as he believes, by the intercession of Blessed Notker.
Witness 35.
[42] Master John Sayler, Dean of the monastery of St. Gall, of the Order of St. Benedict, being 56 years of age, of constant cultus, says that he most firmly believes it to be so, as is contained in the legend or history of the same Blessed Notker, to which the witness refers himself. Likewise he deposed, that from his fleshly parents and from the elders and Fathers of the said Community, who preceded him, he has always heard, that Blessed Notker was and is a holy man, as for such he has been held and reputed as long as the witness can remember. The witness himself also has special prayers about him, and venerates him as the third Patron of this monastery. of the sweet odor in the opening of the tomb. Afterward the Master witness, being asked about miracles, says, that he can depose nothing more certain about his deeds, than his Legend of life teaches, to which he refers himself, and that a great concourse is had at his tomb. Moreover he added, that twelve years ago or thereabouts, certain citizens, on account of the singular devotion which they bore to him, determined to make for him a new tombstone, and when they wished to remove the old stone, the witness, as then Custos, was present; and saw, when the stone was removed, the bones of Blessed Notker lying in a certain hollowed stone, whence a most sweet odor came forth, at which the witness terrified, at once ordered the tomb to be again closed with the old stone: whence certainly the witness took a special argument of sanctity, and it has remained so closed to the present day.
Witness 36
[43] The honorable Caspar Schlumpff, Burgomaster of the town of St. Gall, of the same odor, aged 59, likewise says, how when they wished to remove the old stone, a stone sarcophagus was found, which, with the witness present, and with Ulrich Sayler a citizen and Conrad Hiller a stonemason, was opened. In which he saw bones entirely uninjured, lying together, not after the fashion of a human body; whence came forth a most sweet odor, and such as he had never smelled before: for which reason he believes him to be a saint, and worthy of all veneration.
[44] Leonard Altweger, Notary. And besides the said witnesses, still several others appeared before me the commissary, men of both sexes, offering themselves to depose and say what they knew concerning the sanctity and miracles of Blessed Notker: The Process is concluded. nevertheless, also relying on the counsel of the said Master Doctor, and with his consent, I at last in the name of God imposed an end to this examination. In faith and testimony of all and each of which premises, the aforesaid Most Reverend Father ordered and caused this present Register or present Process to be made therefrom, and to be subscribed by me the Notary written before and below, and to be fortified with the appending of his Pontifical seal by the piercing of each of the sheets. Which things were done and performed in the Year of the Lord, Indiction, Month, Day, and Places aforesaid, and in the Presence of those above.
ANNOTATIONS.
1463 Ulrich VIII, called Rosch of Wangen in Algau, 28 years minus 6 weeks. 1491 Gothard Giel of Glatburg, 13 years, 4 weeks, 2 days. 1504 Francis Geisberger of Constance, 25 years minus 13 days.
p Rather 912, 8 Id. April, as shown above.
q Namely, according to ecclesiastical custom, beginning to count the hours from dawn: otherwise not so, but it is clear from below, no. 49, that the hours were then reckoned by the Swiss from midnight.
r That oration is extant in Canisius after the diploma of the Bishop of Constance which we have related above in chapter 1: which, because it is taken verbatim from the Life, so that it is its epitome only, could be omitted without loss to the history.
s Canisius adds "verses": how this crept in here we do not know: unless the sense be that Blessed Notker also wrote verses: but concerning Blessed Notker, Ekkehard wrote in a certain booklet, which is the Life we have published.
t According to our division, no. 40.
u It is a village on Lake Constance, midway on the journey between Constance and St. Gall.
x That is, John the Long.
y Namely, after Saints Gall and Othmar.
* perhaps "town"
CHAPTER III.
The cult of Blessed is decreed and bestowed upon Blessed Notker.
[45] Hugh, etc., as above in the diploma of the Commission, inserted
afresh verbatim the bull of Julius II, after the tenor of which the Bishop, having testified that he had been duly requested for its execution, as above, The Bishop of Constance, thus continues. We therefore, desiring reverently to obey our superiors and especially the Apostolic mandates, as we are bound, have diligently inquired into the truth of the things therein set forth and other qualities and circumstances of such a matter. And because by this diligent inquiry previously undertaken by us by Apostolic authority, by the evident testimony of one hundred and fifty-four witnesses of both sexes worthy of credit, and of two ancient books, concerning the holiness of life and the very many miracles which Almighty God, by the merits and prayers of Blessed Notker, formerly, while he lived, a monk of the monastery of St. Gall of the Order of St. Benedict; whose body is honorably preserved enclosed in the chapel of Saints Peter and Paul, princes of the Apostles, situated within the precincts of the same monastery, has wrought, and daily works; and because many of the faithful of Christ are wont, kindled by the fervor of devotion which they bear toward the same Blessed Notker, all having been examined and ascertained assiduously to flock to the same chapel and to fulfill their vows to the Most High, and have felt and known their petitions to be heard, and themselves to be cured, snatched away, and relieved from adverse illnesses, dangers, and necessities: and because on that account the same Blessed Notker from a long time past has been wont to be held in great veneration, as he is held, it has lawfully appeared and appears to us. Therefore, considering that the petition of the aforesaid Lords Abbots and Convent is just and consonant with reason, and wishing reverently to execute the Apostolic mandate directed to us in this matter, as we are bound, he decrees the feast and cult of the Blessed. by the Apostolic authority aforesaid, which we exercise in this matter, we decree that free license and faculty should be granted to the aforesaid Lord, the present and future Abbot and Convent, and to any other persons, that on one day of each year to be chosen by them, or on the day on which the aforesaid Blessed Notker migrated from this world, they may and lawfully can solemnly celebrate and cause to be celebrated the feast of a minor Confessor and the Mass and Office of the same Blessed Notker, from first Vespers until second Vespers of the same day, in the said chapel of Saints Peter and Paul and of the same monastery, as well as in other churches and chapels subject to the same monastery, without the license of anyone being required; in the monastery and places subject to it. as by the aforesaid authority we grant by these presents, the Apostolic constitutions and other contrary things whatsoever notwithstanding. We will however, as the aforesaid Pope Julius II willed in his letters inserted above, that the same Blessed Notker should not on that account be reckoned canonized or otherwise approved. In faith and testimony of which premises, we have ordered and caused these present letters to be thereupon made and to be fortified by the appending of the seal of our pontifical office.
Given at Constance, in the province of Mainz, in our hall, in the year of the Lord one thousand five hundred and thirteen, on the fourth day of the month of October, in the first indiction, in the first year of the pontificate of the most holy Father and Lord in Christ, our Lord Leo, by divine providence Pope the Tenth.
Hugh, Bishop of Constance, subscribed with his own hand.
[46] May the grace of the Holy Spirit be present with us, Amen. b Since among the illustrious praises of the Prince of wisdom there shines forth with a purer light, as some star; Notker, illustrious in the praise of monastic life that which for love of faith and for fervor of Christian religion and reverence of the holy Roman See is venerated; and as the most sacred laws testify, the life of monastic conversation is so honest, so commends a man, that it wipes away every human stain, and declares him pure and suitable for a rational nature, and working many things according to the mind, and loftier than human thoughts. If therefore anyone is to be a monk, he needs to be perfect, both in the learning of divine eloquences and in the integrity of conservation, so that he may be worthy of so great a change. These and similar things, proposing to the Apostolic See, the Abbot, the most reverend Father and Prince in Christ, Lord Francis, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See, Archimandrite and Prelate of the monastery of St. Gall, immediately subject to the holy Apostolic See, concerning Blessed Notker brought to the ears of our Most Holy Lord Lord Julius, by divine providence the Second Pope. Which aforesaid Lord our Julius, as supreme Prince, and as true Vicar of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, moved by the divine command, as a most pious and vigilant pastor toward the flock divinely committed to him, with a perspicacious mind and with acumen of his mind considering, and with the eyes of his piety kindly gazing upon Blessed Notker, and perceiving that he had been formerly a monk of the monastery of Saint Gall of these conditions, found him such, that it can well be said of him, that he was made higher than all, and that he faithfully restored to the Almighty the talent entrusted to him, doubled.
[47] Nevertheless, according to the canonical sanctions of the Fathers and the Apostolic doctrine, namely, the requisite information having been premised, "Lay hands suddenly on no one," the holiness of his life and doctrine being to be examined and inquired into by due order and mature process, he committed to the most Reverend Father and Lord in Christ, Lord Hugh, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See, Bishop of Constance, as delegated by his Holiness in this matter, as in the Apostolic letters of his Holiness, in the form of a brief, under the fisherman's ring, is fully contained. 1 Tim. 5:22 Which delegate, weighing the mind of the aforesaid Holiness of our Lord, and desiring to execute this mandate with reverence and according to law, found by the sayings and attestations of one hundred and forty-four witnesses of both sexes, that the same Notker shone forth with doctrine and many miracles; as the process of the register made thereupon and subscribed by the hand of the discreet Master Leonard Altweger, public Notary and Scribe of this cause, more clearly teaches. So that, even without asking leave, we can rightly say in the person of Notker, "Lord, thou hast proved me and known me." Therefore it has been found worthy and thus the most Reverend Lord Apostolic Delegate decreed, that on account of the holiness of life and doctrine of the aforesaid Notker, he is and ought to be venerated in due manner. So that on some set day of the year, to be chosen by the aforesaid most Reverend Prince and Abbot, in the church of the aforesaid monastery, and in the chapels and churches united and subject to it, his office may be read and sung as of a simple Confessor, as is contained more fully in the process of his most reverend paternity. But since now we are to proceed rightly to the act, the divine power being invoked, let us begin with such an exordium, namely:
[48] In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. In the year from the nativity of the same one thousand five hundred and fourteen, about to celebrate the feast on the Sunday of Jubilate, in the second indiction, on Saturday, the sixth of the month of May, of which the following Sunday in the Church of God was the Sunday of Jubilate, at the vesper hour or thereabouts, in the second year of the pontificate of the most holy Father and Lord in Christ, our Lord, the Lord Leo, by divine providence Pope the Tenth, in the presence of us, the three undersigned public Notaries and of the witnesses, the most Reverend Father and Lord in Christ, Lord Francis, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See, Abbot of the aforesaid Monastery of St. Gall, immediately subject to the Apostolic See, of the diocese of Constance, revolving in his mind that saying of the sacred page, "The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom"; having premeditated such things, that to exalt this Patron and Advocate before the All-powerful—so pious, so holy, so illustrious, and (to epitomize each point in brief) so necessary to the whole fatherland—should not be neglected or disregarded, according to that, "Give not thy honor to strangers, and thy years to the cruel, lest strangers be filled with thy strength, and thy labors be in another's house." Ps 36:30, Prov. 5:9 Wishing according to the Apostolic admission, to spread and exalt the fringes of the glory of the praise and holiness of the once venerable and blessed Notker, monk of the aforesaid monastery of Saint Gall, according to that saying of sacred eloquence, "Thy dead men shall live, O Lord, my slain shall rise again"; with great solemnity and pontifical festivity, accompanied by the entire Convent of his most reverend Paternity and by all the Clergy, on the previous day he goes to the holy tomb, in and outside the town of St. Gall, with a great throng of people of both sexes, with religious and venerable men, the Lords Albert Miles, Ludwig Blarer, monks of that place; Heinrich Buman, and Lazarus Talmann, Chaplains of the office of the glorious Virgin and Mother of God Mary, standing by and ministering to his most reverend Paternity; with procession and solemn chant going out from the church of the aforesaid Monastery, and with great devotion he betook himself to the chapel of the Blessed Peter and Paul, in which the body of Blessed Notker rests: and there he reverently received the Apostolic letters, presented to him for the exalting and glorifying of blessed Notker with their process; with chant, responsories, antiphons, versicles, and collects serving for this, and concerning an act of this kind, with the conclusion of the joyful chant, Te Deum laudamus. Isa. 26:19
[49] These things therefore being accomplished, by virtue of the Apostolic admission, he instituted that the day of the aforesaid Notker should be celebrated yearly on the Sunday of Jubilate: and on that very day celebrates the feast, and thereupon through the organ of the honorable Udalric Bati, Chancellor of the aforesaid monastery, he solemnly and expressly protested, that his most reverend Paternity had with all humility received the Apostolic letters with their process, and according to their tenor had proceeded to the things contained in them, and that he willed to have done or to do neither more nor less than was contained in the Apostolic letters, offering himself always as a son of obedience to the Apostolic mandates. Of all which things the aforesaid Chancellor, by the mandate of the aforesaid most reverend Lord Prince given him by word of mouth, instantly requested us, the three undersigned Notaries, and asked that over all these things there should be made and delivered to his most reverend Paternity one or more public instrument or instruments, and thus the procession withdrew, and solemn Vespers were sung there of Blessed Notker by the aforesaid most reverend Abbot and the choir. And on the following day, namely the Sunday of Jubilate, in the morning about the ninth hour before noon, he solemnly sang with devotion the feast of Blessed Notker according to the aforenamed institution, with a solemn Mass in his pontificals, all the Clergy and a copious multitude of people of both sexes standing by. There were moreover present from the venerable Convent of the Monastery of St. Gall, before the monks at that act the reverend and devout Lords: Father John Sayler, Dean. Father Gall Ropff, Subdean. c
[50] These things were done in the Year, Indiction, days, hours, month, and Pontificate, as above. There being present in the same place religious, devout, and venerable, worthy and prudent men, Father Laurence Schab, Licentiate in Theology, of the Order of St. Benedict, from the Monastery of Seligenstadt, of the diocese of Mainz, then Preacher of the same Monastery. Father John Fabri, of the Order of Preachers. Father Matthias Stelke, of the Order of Minors. Father Sigismund Lang, of the Order of Blessed Augustine. and others, The Lords, Master Hermann Miles, Pastor of the parish Church of St. Magnus in the town of St. Gall, and Dean of the Rural Chapter at Rorschach. d Conrad Pachoffen of Turregum, Captain of the Monastery of St.
Gall; Caspar von Wiler, Master of the citizens of the aforesaid town of St. Gall; Caspar Schlumpff, former Master of the citizens, e and very many other trustworthy persons of both sexes, specially called and asked to this act.
[51] and the Notaries sign the matter by a public instrument And I Christopher Winckler, Rector of the parish Church of the town of Altstetten in the valley of the Rhine, of the diocese of Constance, province of Mainz, by sacred Imperial authority a Notary, because to this solemn procession of the Apostolic letters, as also to their process, presentation, exhibition, and acceptance, to the amplification of the praise and glory of Blessed Notker, to the institution of his festivity, to the protestation, to the subsequent celebration of the Divine Offices, and to the celebration of Pontificals, and to all and singular other things, whilst they were thus done and performed as aforesaid, together with my undersigned colleagues in this matter and legal Notaries and the aforenamed witnesses, I was present, and saw and heard all and singular these things to be so done; therefore this present public Instrument, written with my own hand, I made thereupon, subscribed, published, and reduced to this public form, and signed with the sign and name customary and accustomed, in faith and testimony of all and singular the premises, being asked and required, etc. f