ON ST. GEROLD THE HERMIT, AND BLESSED UDALRIC AND CUNO HIS SONS,
OF THE ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT IN RHAETIA.
10TH CENTURY.
CommentaryGerold the Hermit, of the Order of St. Benedict, in Rhaetia (St.)
Udalric, son, of the Order of St. Benedict, in Rhaetia (Bl.)
Cuno, son, of the Order of St. Benedict, in Rhaetia (Bl.)
BY D. P.
The borders of the Diocese of Chur in Rhaetia and the County of the Tyrol in Alemannia or upper Swabia are divided by Mount Arula, In the Provostship of his own name, commonly called der Arlbergh, and it is the last part of the Rhaetian Alps, running down towards Lake Constance. Under this mountain St. Gerold led an eremitic life, from whose name there still remains even now there a Provostship of the Benedictine Order, most accurately depicted in the Geographical Tablet of the aforesaid Alemannia, described by Christopher Hurter in tom. 3 of the Blaeu Atlas; in the Geographical tablets of Helvetia, it is designated only with the generic name of a little monastery, commonly Closterlin. This Provostship today is administered by six Religious, drawn from the Einsiedeln Abbey among the people of Zurich, to whose property the place itself pertains by the voluntary cession of St. Gerold himself, duly made by him through the offering of a turf, He himself is buried along with his two sons, before he ended this mortal life in that monastery of his; which also his two sons Udalric and Cuno inhabited, as hermits while their father lived, professed afterwards the cenobitic life among the Einsiedeln monks, and at last were buried with their father, one in the same church as the father, the other in the chapel of St. Antoninus.
[2] Their death-day is neither celebrated annually, nor even known; these are honored as Blessed, yet they are commonly named, painted, sculpted, and honored as Blessed: therefore we place them on this day, on which the father died and is honored with annual cult: with whom they can be considered to obtain common veneration. For on the principal altar of the new church, where the statue of St. Gerold occupies the supreme place, expressed in Ducal habit, the wings on either side are occupied, on the right Saint Cuno, on the left Saint Udalric, their heads girt with large rays: and the sepulcher of each, or rather the traces of the sepulcher, thirty years ago in their respective place was raised up in the manner of a tomb by the one who even now remains Provost, without any other honor of bodies or relics. We do not wonder that their names were omitted in the monastic martyrologies of Wion, Meynard, Bucelinus, or rather ignored by their authors; he himself is venerated as a saint with a Double office indeed they did not even mention St. Gerold, although he is venerated with Ecclesiastical Office not only in his own church and in the Einsiedeln monastery, but in the whole Diocese of Chur, and indeed under the rite of a Double with proper Lessons. He indeed did not profess the Benedictine Rule, as his sons did, nevertheless he was to be enumerated among the Saints of the Order on account of the aforesaid offering of his place. Afterwards Bucelinus published in the year 1666 the Chronology of Rhaetia sacred and profane: where at the year 978 he briefly proposed the history of St. Gerold: and placing the place called Friesa, within which the noble Provostship of which we treat is situated, in the Dominion of Blumenec, he adds that there to this day the sepulcher and sacred bones are seen elevated. The reviser of the German Martyrology, after the death of Henricus Canisius, reported Gerold, I know not from what cause, on April 16, although his anniversary feast among the people of Chur and Einsiedeln has always been kept on this April 19. That Martyrology meanwhile was followed by Philip Ferrari in the Catalog of those who are not in the Roman, in these words: At Campus of the church in Rhaetia (He would have written more correctly Church of Campus: for this is what the name of the nearby town of Feldkirch sounds, from which the place is distant by a few miles) of St. Gerold, Duke of Saxony and Hermit.
[3] The history of his Life was first collected in the year 1404 from a narration handed down through hands, or from more ancient and now perished monuments of letters or pictures, Life written in the year 1404 by Albert of Bemstat, Dean of the Einsiedeln monastery, and he took care to have it sealed with his own and the Palatine seal, and left it dedicated to Ernest Elector and his brother Albert, Dukes of Saxony, Landgraves of Thuringia, and Margraves of Meissen. Thus at the end of the same History, and often reprinted translated by him either from Latin into German or given in a more recent German phrase, and published among the Lives of the Saints and Patrons of Einsiedeln, in the year 1603, the Abbot of the said monastery, Augustine XXXIX, testifies: under whose auspices also in the year 1610 the Annals of Einsiedeln were published by Christopher Hartmann, page 88 of which contains a synopsis of the same history: but the same had earlier been published integrally in Italian with the Life of St. Meinrad in the year 1605: but again in the year 1648 Henricus Murerus the Carthusian caused the same to be reprinted in German and almost verbatim in his Helvetia sacra. The first author (whose original phrase, especially if it is Latin, we would wish might survive) ascending from the year in which he was writing, 1404, to the death of St. Gerold, gathered about five hundred years: which number the Lessons of the proper Offices diminish by almost a whole century, indicating the year about which the Saint died as 978: which also Hartmann and Murerus expressed. Indeed Benno, Canon of Strasbourg, under whom the Hermitage, previously sanctified by the blood of St. Meinrad, first began to become known, did not come there before the year 906, and the first Abbot Eberhard was only created in the year 935. However, since it does not appear on what foundation that year which we have said is noted, we prefer simply to ascribe Gerold's death to the 10th century of the Christian Era, if perhaps it had happened under Benno's successor Eberhard about the year 950.
[4] How ancient are the Lessons of the Breviary of Chur we do not know: we hardly believe them to have been composed long before the century in which we now live: yet we give these alone, Lessons about him from the Breviary of Chur. as containing the substance of the whole history, the German narration being omitted; whatever further could be said from that we shall note below: and they are as follows. Gerold, sprung from the stock and family of the Dukes of Saxony, and the thirty-eighth Duke of that nation, having despised the vanities and enticements of the world, proposed to lead an eremitic life in that place, in which the little ass led with him would have sat down with its burden. Which when it had come into the valley of Drusiana, as far as the place called Friesa, to an ancient oak, there resting under its burden for its Lord, so that he might complete his undertaking, it showed the place. Whom afterwards his two sons, Cuno and Udalric, remaining there, led by the supreme desire of seeing their father again, after a long interval of time sought long and much, at last found him renowned for miracles and sanctity of life; and this to their great good. For provoked by the holy example of their father, they imposed upon themselves the same manner of living, and there, with all the cares of the world banished, they devoted themselves entirely to vigils and prayers. These three, so dedicated together to the service of God, Otto Count of Jagberg, from the family of the Counts of Montfort, once found in hunting by the indication of dogs, greatly admired and most amicably embraced, thenceforth held in singular veneration. By whose liberality also Gerold founded a little monastery there, today called from the Saint's name the Provostship of Saint Gerold. Moreover when St. Gerold perceived the end of his life approaching, having pulled up some clods of the earth which he inhabited and cast them into his satchel, with his sons accompanying, he went to the house of the Divine Virgin, commonly Einsiedeln; and at the Altar of the Mother of God he gave and dedicated himself, his children, and the land from which the clods had been carried, and the seat: and shortly having returned to Friesa, whence he had come, there he ended his life about the year nine hundred seventy-eight, on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of May, buried in the same place. His sons afterwards in the hermitage, having taken the habit of St. Benedict, died not without fame of sanctity, both buried at Friesa, Udalric indeed in his father's church, but Cuno in the chapel of Saint Antoninus.
[5] He is said to have been born of the Dukes of Saxony; Concerning these Lessons I first observe that the origin derived from the Dukes of Saxony seems altogether uncertain; and much more uncertain is the order of succession of this kind, by which Gerold would have been the 38th Duke of the Saxon nation. No Saxon Chronicles, no other writers know of a Duke of this kind: whatever may be of that lineage which can have been drawn from the ancient Saxons, he does not seem himself to have dwelt in Saxony, when he betook himself to the service of God. For although this is said by the first author of the Life, Albert, and others after him, yet Gerold, who following the leading of the ass, had decreed to dwell there where the weary animal would have laid itself down with its little bundle, does not seem to have come from so far away: but rather to have had a neighboring Dominion, and only one day's journey distant from Friesa. But in this distance the geographical tables offer a double Sax; one towards the south, in a lower situation at the bank of the river Lanquart; the other on the western side of the Rhine above a high rock, thence surnamed Hohen-Sax. Both, I should believe, like many other similar appellations, owe their name to the Saxons scattered under Charlemagne through all the provinces of the Empire, and the popular tradition, accustomed to augment the family titles of the Saints, could the more easily prevail, about the Principality of St. Gerold among the Saxons: which I shall conjecture he held in this latter one on the Rhine, or was it because he possessed the Dominion of Sax? since it is both now and of old most famous, and in the very age of St. Gerold had Lords named from itself.
[6] Bucelinus in the Stemmatography of Rhaetia exhibits a genealogical fragment of the most ancient family of the Barons of Hohensax, in which the first place is held by Frederick, who under Henry the Fowler became famous in the Hungarian war in the year 936, one of the decemvirs, institutors of the first games: the other
Wolfhard, with a similar title of Dominion, was present at the second games celebrated at Rottenburg in the year 942: both of whom could have been from the sons of St. Gerold; and from him descended the families named from Sax? sticking to the chronology of Dean Albert, if we consider that he wrote in a round number for 460 or 470, about five hundred years, which flowed from the death of St. Gerold up to the year 1404. Matthew Merian in the Topography of Helvetia page 17 uses only the title of free Lords, where he sets forth the various fortune of the castles of Sax and Forstek. Further below from Hartmann we shall name some Abbots from the Counts of Sax, Lords of Mesaucum: to whom when he prefixes the same insignia, which Bucelinus does to his own Barons, he makes us believe that the origin of both Barons and Counts is common: and that both can be deduced from St. Gerold by equal right of conjecture.
[7] closest to this castle the Lord of Jagberg, As for the Counts of Montfort, from whom the founder of the little monastery of Friesa drew his origin; they had their name from a castle, midway between Friesa and Lake Constance, in the same tract of the Arulensian ridges, near the place called Ranck Weiler. he could have indicated the father to his sons: But Jagberg itself (whence, by anticipation of the title, as I suppose, Otto is called Count) Murerus says is the same which is otherwise called Werdenberg: and by this name is expressed in the tables the castle on the western bank of the Rhine, closest to the aforesaid castle of Sax. That Otto could have been an old and familiar friend of Gerold, if our conjecture is true, and the more readily favored him, nay even indicated to Gerold's wife and sons in what place he lived: and so it will be nothing marvelous that two of those same sons joined themselves to their father as companions; who if they had otherwise dwelt in more remote Saxony, would hardly have easily come to knowledge of him. To the same Otto, Lord of Werdenberg, Albert attaches as companions for piously visiting Gerold (and from him Murerus) Benedicta his wife and two sons: and that matter is thus expressed among the people of Gerold, among the other paintings which adorn their church, the argument taken from Albert's narration, according to which in the Office of the Einsiedeln people the 6th Lesson of this kind is recited.
[6] on occasion of a bear found by his hunters, He began afterwards to build a little dwelling, in which he lived so holily and innocently, and in such penury of external things, that he merited to enjoy not only the sight but also the beneficence of the Angels, often receiving from them the necessities of life. Moreover he believed such an illustrious lamp to lie hidden under a bushel, but he unexpectedly shone forth to Otto Count of Jagberg, when he had been informed by his hunters, that a bear driven by dogs had run to the feet of the holy man; and only by the sign of the staff which he used had been safe in a moment from the biting and barking of the dogs. Wherefore the Count running up, embraced him most tightly and followed him with great veneration, having given him no small portion of his land, for raising a dwelling for the man of God; which Gerold erected, chiefly helped by the bear, which thenceforth he used as a servant for conveying and carrying wood and stones. But all these things are expressed in paintings and statues, as I said, made about the year 1490. One of these, representing the visitation and ministry of the Angels, once adorned the altar of St. Gerold: now in the choir above the great altar it is seen, where the Saint is depicted in old age, with a long and hoary beard, on bended knees and with hands folded gazing at heaven. Under it is a little statue, sculpted at the same time, who also was renowned for miracles: of him sitting within a hollow oak; to whom a bear reclines, with head and forefeet inclined into the bosom of the blessed man. The same is expressed in a certain glass window of the year 1517, where Gerold is seen, with his left hand holding the paw of a bear fleeing to him, but with his right hand raising the staff against two puppies barking at him.
[9] There is preserved in the same place a certain little cup, called of St. Gerold, from which, Albert and Murerus say, it is customary that drink be offered to those suffering fever, and that by that means health frequently returns to them and others variously ill. They also add that it is carried about in popular speech, that the blessed man was accustomed to drive out impure spirits from the possessed, and to restore hearing to the deaf, speech to the mute, sight to the blind. But that he offered his place to the Einsiedeln monastery is an argument to me that he had no other companions of eremitic life than his two sons; who after their father's death betook themselves there to keep the regular discipline, and so lived, that one merited the office of Dean, the other of Treasurer, as the Einsiedeln Lessons have. and offered the place with his sons to the Einsiedeln monastery; But why did Gerold betake himself to that rather than to the closer Sangall monastery? I think it was done because of the similarity of the eremitic profession, and the sweet odor of recent discipline: also because of the fame of the Marian chapel, which in the year 948 was believed to have been divinely consecrated, on account of the testimony of St. Conrad Bishop of Constance invited to make the dedication; and copious miracles certainly confirmed this, by which the place was made most famous, which Gerold must have learned from the Count of Jagberg and others coming to him, if indeed he died about the year 950. But if he prolonged his life further, he could have himself known the same things while still secular, supposing that in the castle of Sax he led his life (as seems to us altogether probable), and thence have remained piously affected toward the aforesaid place, and have wished to provide for its increase even by the addition of his place, which after his own and his sons' death he could otherwise fear would be desolated by unworthy successors.
[10] The Abbots of Einsiedeln in turn held the place of St. Gerold most dear after his death, and raised it into a Provostship. Among these were from the Counts of Sax, Rudolph III, 31st in the order of Abbots; and Gerold, Abbot 33rd, who by his name reminds us that the name of Gerold was not infrequent in the family of the Counts of Sax. His successor Conrad III, in the year of the Lord 1491 appointed as curator and Vicar in the Hermitage Barnabas, from the Counts of Sax, he himself retired to St. Gerold, on account of the conveniences of hunting, Some Abbots of his here to be mentioned, by which he was affected and exercised above the dignity of his order: and there he remained until the end of his life, tares meanwhile growing up, and the followers of Zwingli mixing all things according to their pleasure, with almost the extreme desolation of the place once most holy: until Joachim, 36th Abbot, elected in the year 1544, obtained the Prelacy, who eminently repaired the collapsed affairs of the Hermitage, and restored the Provostship of St. Gerold almost from the foundations. To Joachim there was given as successor Adam, who when he had seen the entire monastery consumed by a miserable fire in the year 1577, was able in some measure to repair its ruins, but could not resist the power of the Swiss, too much prevailing against the liberty of the monks; and so he retired into the Provostship of St. Gerold, and finally in the year 1585 resigned the Abbey, reserving to himself only the Provostship already mentioned: in which in the same year, above the body of the Holy Founder, he took care to have built an elegant Mausoleum of cut stone, which for the sake of devotion people could enter.
[11] especially he under whom the translation of the body was made in the year 1663, Finally after seven centuries from the death of Bl. Gerold, his body by Placidus, first of this name Einsiedeln Abbot, was raised from the old sepulcher and carried into the Hermitage, and decently adorned with gold and gems, in the year of Grace 1663, on the very anniversary day of this Saint, April 19, with notable pomp and the greatest concourse of the surrounding people, was carried back into the new church of the Provostship, as is said at the end of the Lessons printed for the Einsiedeln people. But soon the venerable pledge began to shine with new miracles, of which two attested by tablets hung there, and thence written to us, are in these words. and some miracles. There was a certain boy, afflicted with the greatest pains from a rupture of the body, two months old: nor could he take food. With the parts of the body around the genitals swelling, and blackened because of the magnitude of pain, there was despair concerning his safety: but with the parents making a vow, the little boy was restored, nor did the rupture thereafter appear, in the year 1663. In the following year 1664 a certain woman felt the gravest pains in her feet, so that she could neither stand nor walk: but with a vow made, at the sepulcher and venerable relics of St. Gerold, she recovered her pristine health. And these things are taken from the instructions which the most studious Dom Joseph Dietrich, professed of the monastery of the Blessed Virgin of Einsiedeln, sought and received from the inhabitants themselves of the Provostship of Gerold, for this work of ours: who also sent to us an image expressed after death of the aforesaid Abbot Placidus, from whose epigraph we learned that he died in the year 1670, the 41st of his rule, and the 76th of his age, on the 10th day of July.