ON SAINT WICTERP,
BISHOP OF AUGSBURG,
AND BLESSED HERLUCA THE VIRGIN.
YEARS 654 AND ABOUT 1142.
PrefaceWicterp, Bishop of Augsburg in Germany (Saint)
Herluca, Virgin, in Germany (Blessed)
By G. H.
Matthew Rader, volume 1 of Bavaria Sancta
page 49, in an illustrious picture exhibits
Saint Wicterp, Bishop of Augsburg,
and Blessed Herluca the Virgin;
and then subjoins a splendid eulogy of each,
in the earlier title calling Saint
Wicterp, "cultivator of Eptaticum," in which place near his sacred
relics Blessed Herluca is attested to have lived for about
thirty-six years, They are referred together by Rader. in his Life below n. 13 by Paul of Bernried,
who lived with her, and for more than twenty years
explored and investigated signs of her sanctity, and in the third year
of her deposition brought them into notice of posterity: Life of Blessed Herluca
as he himself declares in the Prologue. In chapter three of this Life, according
to our division, are indicated various apparitions
and benefits granted by Saints Laurence and Wicterp to Blessed Herluca;
on which occasion, in chapter four and last, Acts of Saint Wicterp from that
various things are indicated of the life and translation of Saint Wicterp: where Paul the writer
complains that he found nothing written about Saint Wicterp, except
what is written in the Life of Saint Magnus or Magnoald; and the Life of Saint Magnus, and
this, from the manuscripts of the monastery of Saint Magnus at the foot of the bridge
at Regensburg, Henry Canisius published in volume 1 of Antiqua Lectio,
where the author is prefixed as Theodore, a monk of Saint Gall and
disciple of Saint Magnus, but interpolated by posterity. The Life of Saint
Magnus is extant in Goldast, but emended and distinguished by Ermenric,
monk of Ellwangen.
We on January 16 gave the Life of Saint Tozzo Bishop
of Augsburg and successor of Saint Wicterp, with other collected pieces. taken from the said Acts of Saint
Magnus; where we have said much about the writers of the Life,
which our successors will be able to derive more broadly on September 6,
when Saint Magnus is venerated. But before indicating things from the Acts of Blessed Herluca
and Saint Magnus, there must be premised from various sources what Saint
Wicterp did, chiefly before the Augsburg Pontificate.
[2] Saint Magnus is handed down in the Acts to have died on the 8th day before the Ides of
September, Saint Wicterp died in the year 651, about the ninth hour of that very Lord's day,
in the year 655, when, with Cycle of the Sun 20 and Dominical letter
D, the said day September 6 fell on a Lord's day;
since in the same year or just before, Saint Wicterp the Bishop had died
on the 14th day before the Kalends of May,
as the Life of Saint Magnus indicates, and the day of death is confirmed
below by Paul in number 51, April 18 Gaspar Bruschius in the Bishops
of Augsburg, Peter Cratepolius On the Saints of Germany, the Author
of the eulogies to the images of the Augsburg Vindelic Saints
expressed in bronze tablets in the year 1601, whether that was
Mark Welser or another, and the before-mentioned Matthew
Rader, and others. But Bernardus Hartsfelder, in the Basilica of Saints
Ulrich and Afra, as if offering something indubitable,
asserts that the day of death is noted 16 (for 14)
before the Kalends of May. not April 16 or 8, Antonius Monchiacenus
Demochares, in On the Divine Sacrifice of the Mass, setting forth Bishops
of Augsburg, gives from the aforementioned Bruschius a eulogy of Saint
Wicterp, and where he asserts that he died on April 18,
he himself or certainly the copyist wrote "died on April 8";
and citing Demochares just mentioned, Arnold Wion referred
the death to April 8, and following him Dorganius,
Menardus, Ferrarius; indeed, what is more wonderful,
Bucelinus, preferring to snatch the errors of modern outsiders
rather than the antiquity of domestic sources. Whether however Saint Wicterp
was a monk before the Episcopate, will be inquired below.
[3] Rader joined Blessed Herluca to Saint Wicterp; and therefore
(and because the day of her Natal is not expressed, Blessed Herluca proposed on April 18, others likewise
referred her to this day April 18. Among these is
our Heribert Rosweyde, who in 1626 published
the Lives of the Holy Virgins who cultivated the sacred and chaste celibacy
in the world, to which is appended the life and image
of Herluca the Virgin, and everywhere she is honored with the title of Saint;
as he also did the same in the Legend of the Saints reprinted in Flemish
in 1629, in which, after the death of Rosweyde often reprinted,
the same Life is read. Also published at Lille
in Flanders was the Menology of Virgins in the French
language, in 1645, in which on the same 18th of
April the author Francis Lahier referred the Life of Herluca
the Virgin, adding to her the title of Saint, and marking her death on this
18th of April. The same Ferrarius in his General Catalog,
citing monuments of the Church of Augsburg, thus
refers on this day: "At Augsburg memory of Blessed Herulia (rather
Herluca) Virgin." The same things from Ferrarius are reported by
Arturus a Monasterio in the Sacred Gynaeceum: who referred Herluca,
as distinct from Herulia, before on March 18 in the first place
with these words: "In Bavaria of Saint Herluca Virgin,
who burned with the gift of prayer and tears, and March 18"
and afterwards in the Notations narrates much from her Life by Paul
of Bernried and Matthew Rader. Paul of Bernried
everywhere writes Herluca without any title, but in n. 1
of the Life he calls her "most blessed Virgin Herluca," in the Prologue
"Blessed Herluca the Virgin," in n. 36 of the Life "Saint
Herluca." By the ancients she is called Saint and Blessed. Rader in Bavaria Sancta
proposes her as Blessed Herluca, but in part 3 of the Viridarium Sanctorum chapter 3 on
Blind Saints n. 11 as Saint Herluca.
We prefer to give her only the title of Blessed: if, however, anyone
judges that greater honor is owed her, to him we do not wish to oppose.
As regards the age of Blessed Herluca, she flourished
in the end of the 11th century, and a great part of the 12th century. She had been
long called away from the vanity of the world, and trained in the spiritual life,
before she came to Eptaticum; where she lived for
about thirty-six continuous years, and afterwards in the place of Bernried
persevered until her death. The only character of time
seems indicated in the Prologue, when Waltharius Bishop
of Ravenna (who died in the year 1144) as a Saint
and decorated with miracles is compared with Herluca, died about the year 1142.
then in the third year of her deposition deceased: so that she seems
at least after the year 1142 to have migrated from the living.
[4] Of the place Eptaticum, in which Saint Wicterp was buried,
and Blessed Herluca long stayed, Charles Stengel in his Commentary