Suitbert

ON SAINT SUITBERT, BISHOP OF VERDEN,

IN LOWER SAXONY.

AFTER THE YEAR 800.

Suitbert, Bishop of Werden in Lower Saxony (Saint)

By D. P.

[1] Concerning Saint Swibert the Bishop, Apostle of the Frisians and Boructuarians, buried at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, we have given a prolix Commentary on March 1; where §8 it was fully proved how wrongly by many writers he has been confused with him, the other Younger, Bishop of Werden on the Aller in Lower Saxony. These things there is no need to repeat here, since even the reckoning of times alone convinces that the distinction of each is necessary. For that former died in the year of the Lord 713, when he of whom we must now treat was probably not yet born: since the institution of the Saxon Bishoprics belongs to the end of the 8th century. We have a notable Chronicle, written by a certain Saxon writer, and as far as we could gather a Magdeburg monk, copied in parchment, and brought down to the year 1181, with singular care of matters pertaining to Saxony. In this for the year 781 the following are held: "King Charles, returning from Italy into the homeland, in the succeeding time," namely toward the autumn of the said year, after the year 781, "entered Saxony; and divided it into eight Bishoprics, that is, Bremen, Halberstadt, Hildesheim, Verden, Paderborn, Minden, Münster, Osnabrück: and established boundaries for the same Bishoprics."

[2] Thus he: and yet not so much the beginnings of the Bishoprics, as of the churches, to which afterwards their Bishops were assigned, must be understood to be indicated. For the most ancient Chronicle of Frankish affairs, reaching from the year 708 to 800 and published in vol. 2 of the Francica of Du Chesne, on the year 780 says only this: "The Saxons, leaving their idols, worshiped the true God … and built churches." Which another, reaching by writing up to the year 806, augments and explains in these words: "King Charles went again into Saxony … and divided the same country among

Priests and Bishops and Abbots, that in it they might baptize and preach." Where I think no other Bishops are to be understood than those of Cologne and Mainz; so that Saxony being divided in two by Charles into Westphalians and Ostphalians, with respect to the two banks of the Weser, cutting through the middle region, the Westphalians would look to the care of the Bishop of Cologne, the Ostphalians to that of Mainz; and the churches, which, attributed to Priests and Abbots, later themselves were made Episcopal, would be counted as under their jurisdiction; 785, when namely, the chief Duke of the Saxons and fomenter of rebellions Witikind being at length baptized in the year 785, the faith began to take firmer roots in those parts. But not even this immediately: for it was shown on March 26 that Saint Ludger, who first obtained the Bishopric of Münster, before the year 801 was not consecrated Bishop; and the people of Minden relate that their first Bishop Erkanbert received the ministry of consecration from Leo III, and therefore not before the year 799.

[3] and done in 800: However it may be, that the Werden Bishopric is not much older than either is easily apparent; and therefore its beginnings are distant by nearly a whole century from the death of the former Swibert: concerning whom, if few documents of undoubted credit survive, as was shown on the Kalends of March; fewer still are had about the later one, whom none of the ancient writers mentions at all; but in Krantz this elogium exists in the Metropolis book 1 chapter 6. in which Saint Swibert was made first Bishop of Werden, "The King ordered that the fourth Bishopric be in the place Konende, at that time sufficiently famous and frequented by inhabitants: but afterwards they translated it to a more convenient place, to Werden, and there by the King's command was consecrated as Bishop, a man of great sanctity, Swibert, by profession a monk, by nationality an English Abbot … who when he heard that his fellow-Gentiles the Saxons … were now listening to the Gospel, subdued by the arms of Charles; he afforded this to Christ, he afforded this to a nation whom he understood to be akin to himself and his own, that, the sea being crossed, he flew into a province needing preachers, because the harvest was great and few workers were seen. illustrious for miracles: Seeing this man's zeal, King Charles ordered him to be consecrated the first Bishop of the new Church of Werden. But the holy man, fervent with zeal of God, diligently traversed the province committed to him; and sowing the word of God in the field of the human heart, converted many to Christ; and so fulfilled the office of sacred religion, that he both daily multiplied the believing people of God, and himself by good examples showed the way of the heavenly kingdom; shining with many miracles while he lived; shining with more also, when he had now, the world and life being finished, migrated to Christ. The provincials keep the famous memory of a great journey, which they relate he performed for Christ and His religion in one day."

[4] So Krantz from the Annals: Thus far Krantz, who then in chapter 21 complains that "such was the simplicity of the Annals, that you will scarcely find in them noted the names of the Pontiffs; how long they presided, what monuments of sanctity they gave, what foundations of future things they laid, you will find absolutely nothing." He therefore had some Annals, which he was following, writing at the end of the 15th century, from which I willingly believe he received what we said above about Swibert; for it is not necessary to believe, that even the first in order, was noted by name only: since both in this chapter 21 and below in chapter 29, treating of other Bishops of Werden, he cites the authority of the same Annals, in those few things which he narrates, as he has here narrated about Suibertus: which same he does again in book 2 chapter 30, treating of others afterwards following. But that more was not noted about Suibertus than the name only, it was there so noted that concerning the cult and title of Sanctity both he himself and we after him can be sure.

[5] For when in the year 1630 Francis William, at the same time Bishop of Osnabrück and Werden and also of Minden and Regensburg, from which in the year 1630 it is known, that his and the relics of six others, was preparing to restore the Cathedral temple at Werden into a better form, and the pavement was being moved, "one tomb was found with the relics of several Bishops. That those were of Bishops, parts of sacred pontifical vestments, of the foot, mitres, sandals, and other signs denoted. The most ancient book of Saints of the church also had, that several centuries before the bodies of the first Bishops had been translated to there into one tomb: of Saints Suibert, Tanco, Patto, Cerilon, Cortyla, Nortyla, Erlulph the Martyr, and Harruch. The bones therefore being collected by Priests into a new tomb prepared for this, had been joined together; and sealed by His Highness, were placed behind the high altar for keeping." Thus far the words of the Werden Synod celebrated in the same year. In that Lesson which is now held concerning the Saint, the day of the Translation is noted to have been March 10. P. Mulman formerly wrote these same things in almost the same words, and added that "when in the same year 1630 the Swedish fury burst into those parts, the aforesaid Lord Bishop carried away those same bones with him and deposited them here, now they are held in Bavaria. at Osnabrück," as far as we gather by conjecture, then the usual residence of the Bishop: who then migrating to Regensburg, translated the same sacred Relics with him in the year 1659, and having deposited them in his Episcopal palace, placed them in a more honored place, for the private cult rather of his family than the public of the other diocesans. Thus to us the R. P. Benedict Painter, Rector of our college there, having asked and investigated much, in last November reported by the Most Reverend D. Gedeon Forster, advanced in age, and formerly General Visitor of the Diocese of Regensburg; asserting moreover that from the heir of the aforesaid Bishop and Cardinal, the Most Illustrious D. Ferdinand Count of Wartenberg, the aforementioned Relics were carried to Munich, and probably into that very temple which from its Patrons is called the Wartenberg church. Concerning these further it would have been lawful to seek a more distinct account from Munich, if, after the instruction brought from Regensburg later, the pressing press had allowed more time for seeking more: now our posterity will take care of this.

[6] Of Saint Patto we treated on March 30, of Saint Tanco on February 16. The Catalogue of the Bishops of Werden added to the aforesaid Synod, where it comes to the name of Harruch in the order of the eighth, says, "under this one by the Supreme Pontiff were canonized Saint Tanco and Saint Patto, illustrious for miracles." Cult of Saint Swibert April 30. Whence the Synod got this I do not know; and if it is true, I do not at all doubt that on the days already noted their cult was continued among the Werden people, as was Swibert's, with a special feast: although only the office of Swibert, as the chief Patron of the people of Werden, found a place among the propers of the Saints of the Osnabrück church and diocese, published in the year 1652 by the praised Bishop, under the rite of Semi-Double with the fourth lesson taken from Krantz, and the memory of the aforesaid Invention and Translation, and this on this April 30: of which day since Krantz nowhere makes mention, and the old Osnabrück breviaries printed in the year 1516, and even the other Breviaries of the other Saxon churches, pass over the name of Swibert of Werden; it must be thought that this feast was proper to the Werden church, and indeed on that very day which the Bishop noted.

[7] to him within the year 831 are given nine successors, Of Nortila and Cevilon Krantz found nothing except the names, and suspects that they were Angles or Scots, who came to these parts voluntarily out of desire of preaching the faith and of martyrdom. Of Cortyla, whom he himself calls Rortila, and probably more correctly, he says from the faith of the Annals that "he was of the race of the Angles or Saxons, and came from afar across the seas, to preach to the rude peoples of the Saxons as to his own progenitors." That none of them received any form of religious cult, I am persuaded from this, that not even the memory of the day of death has endured to posterity. Of Erlulphus we treated on February 2 on the occasion of the Martyrs of Ebekerdorp, among whom he is numbered: which we said could not be proved to us by any means, and judged that this could happen, because some of his relics, suffered at another time and place, came to the nuns of Ebekesdorp, and were joined with the others honored there: and so what the Werden Annals have, that he was slain at Hamburg by the infidels, can be retained. Now as regards that cause, which extinguished so many Bishops in so short a time at Werden; that in the year 831, when Saint Anscharius the first Bishop of Hamburg was to be ordained, that church already then numbered a ninth or tenth Bishop, Helingandus, named in the Life of the same Saint published on February 3; when Bremen still numbered only the second Willeric, and others only the fourth or fifth; Krantz thinks this happened in chapter 22, because, on account of the difficulty of the times and the ferocity of the Saxons: even after the baptism of Witikind and the dioceses ordered, "the savagery of the Saxons frequently grew hot again, with King Charles absent, so that they raged with fire and sword not so much against their own provincials (whom they could not so much hate, because they seemed unwilling to have undergone the yoke of the Franks) as against foreign preachers of the divine word, whom they called kindlers of evils"; and again in chapter 29 he blames the hard breasts of the Saxons, often growing hot again and agitated by frequent movements, when Emperor Louis, entangled in grave matters, less attended to this region; he appends and more fully proves that this church was placed in the middle of many enemies, so that more frequent tumult came to it than to others; and therefore offers the sanctity of all for conjectural estimation, because then no one was taken, unless conspicuous in sanctity, most patient in labor, and fearless in the face of death.

[8] But granting all these to be true, and not valid equally for other Bishoprics there, yet they would not remove the scruple for me, lest perhaps more names crept into the catalogue than Bishops who actually sat at Werden. Suspicion is augmented by the mention of the Amarbaricensis monastery repeated again and again by Krantz, but perhaps only Abbots of Amarbari were Saints Pato and Harruch, following the Annals, of which Patto and Tanco were Abbots, both Scots by nation; as also Harruch, eighth placed in the order of the Bishops, but perhaps only Saints Pato and Harruch were Abbots of Amarbari, whose relics also, and those of Lord Patto, together with the Dalmatic of Tanco, had been brought to the Werden church, at whose tombs many "virtues from the sick were seen," the same Krantz from the often-cited Annals noted; uncertain when it happened, because, as the same Annals speak, "the matter is ancient, and as it were abolished, and therefore the years of the Lord's Incarnation have not been added." From which first I gather that those Annals are not very old: but that very book on the Lives of certain Bishops of Werden mentioned above, whose bodies, brought from elsewhere to Werden, which was written after even the relics of Saints Patto and Harruch, which in the middle of the Werden monastery, not in one place, but separately had been placed, were brought into a common chest with the five other bodies aforementioned, namely after the 10th century. Then, since from elsewhere

the relics are said to have been brought to Werden, I do not immediately assent to him that at Konende, which was the first place of the instituted Episcopal church (of which elsewhere nothing is read), all the first Bishops lived and died, but that these two were buried in their very Amarbari monastery.

[9] from their aforesaid monastery, For I am not persuaded that that monastery, whose name plainly sounds something Saxon, is to be sought in Scotland; and thence successively those who were to become Bishops of Werden passed into Saxony: but I think plainly with Gabriel Bucelinus, that it itself was built within the limits of the Werden diocese, and perhaps not far from the city in the time of Saint Suibert; and that for Scottish monks, under their first Abbot Patto, as at the same times very many other monasteries of Scottish monks, under the Rule and form of the Hyan monks, were established throughout the Empire; which partly still exist, and indeed some retaining the name of Scots to this day; partly have utterly perished, which could have happened to this Amarbari monastery through the incursions of the Normans. Thence therefore I opine that not only the bodies of Patto and Harruch were brought, to be placed in their own tombs, because more illustrious for miracles and sanctity they had even their own feast in the monastery, Patto on the 3rd of the Kalends of April, Harruch on the Ides of July, likewise Nortila, Cevilo, and Rortila. on which they are noted to have died: but also of Nortila, Cevilon, and Rortila, whose names sound nothing Saxon; and whom I vehemently suspect to have been merely Abbots of Amarbari, not also Bishops of Werden; but added to them by error by posterity, believing that they were not distinguished in dignity and power, whose bodies they saw placed together. I would willingly also extend the same suspicion to Saint Patto; and thus Tanco would have succeeded Suibert; who because he was taken from the Amarbari Abbey to the Bishopric, therefore his Dalmatic, when he was now held as Saint at Werden, the monks more zealously preserved among the Relics. After the Tancos followed Isenger, whom from the name you might gather to have been a Teuton or Frank or even a Saxon; Isenger, Helinand or Erlulph, who are by no means to be numbered among the Scots; these, Walther or rather Waldgar, who in the year 847 was at the Council of Mainz; then Wigbert, tracing his origin from the blood of Duke Widekind, whose donation to the Werden church made in the year 890 was held; and Bernarius: all of whom equally to have been Saxon natives, or at least Franks or Teutons, I would willingly agree with Krantz.

[10] Thus far concerning the Werden church and its first Bishops, partly from old Chronicles, partly from Albert, let what has been deduced suffice. Elogium of Saint Swibert in the pretended privilege of Charlemagne: For I do not think it should be added to these things the diploma of foundation, which is displayed under the name of Charlemagne, written "in the name of the holy and undivided Trinity," and notable for many other defects: although it proceeds with the notable elogium of Saint Swibert thus: "But that this sentence of confirmation, and the donation of the offering, may remain ratified and unshaken and inviolable for every age, at the command of the Supreme Pontiff and universal Pope Hadrian, and also of Archbishop Lullus of Mainz, and of all the holy Pontiffs and Catholic Priests who were with me, and of Aloquin the distinguished preacher, by reasoned counsel, we have committed the aforementioned Church of the Mother of God, with all its appendages and gifts, to Swibert, a man of holy conversation and of immortal memory before God and among men; whom indeed laboring in God's field, we have appointed as the first good soldier of Jesus Christ for the same Church; that he may administer to a still rude people the seeds of God's word, a harvest thereafter to be brought, according to the wisdom dispensed to him, as a faithful and prudent servant, in the house of God; and with canonical ordination, and fitting and ecclesiastical institution, plant and water the Church delegated to him as a new plant, until the Almighty God, entreated by the prayers of His faithful servants, should give the increase."

[11] I know that this Privilege is still today displayed as genuine and original; as though endowing the Werden church and as such the Most Noble Lord Manderscheidt, formerly Canon of Werden, afterwards General of the Caesarean Militia, took care to have it transcribed under notarial faith, from whom our Nicolas Schaten had it, and communicated it to us in the year 1663. But when I compare it with another which is read in Adam of Bremen, as written for the Bremen church; I can hardly doubt but that this was fabricated in imitation of the latter, somewhat more ineptly than the Bremen one. This begins "In the name of the Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ," not indeed in the style of Charles himself, but yet in a more ancient one than that by which afterwards most commonly the Holy Trinity was invoked; then with a slight change of words and phrases, "Charles, by the divine mercy ordaining King" (omitted, which will never be found absent from the genuine diplomas of Charles, the title "of the Franks and Patrician of the Romans"), with the same introduction in each, "makes known to all the faithful in Christ," that "he had at length subdued the Saxons long resisting, and joined them to Christ; but reducing their land, according to the ancient custom of the Romans, into a province, and distributing it into Bishoprics with a certain boundary, he devoutly offered a certain northern part of it to our Lord Jesus Christ and His most holy Mother, and in the place called Fardium, on the river Aller, in the district which is called Sturmi, he established a church and an Episcopal cathedral, and subjected it to the Archbishopric of the Mainz church, by the intervention of Lullus, the Bishop of that Metropolitan church."

[12] and defining its boundaries Then he designates his endowment and liberties of the church: then, after the words above noted, "because the cases of past things render us provident and cautious for the future, lest anyone should at some time arrogate regal power to himself in the same diocese by usurpation in diverting, he orders it to be bounded by a certain limit, describing each boundary: and that the authority of this donation and circumscription in the name of God may obtain a firmer and fuller vigor; and in our times," says Charles, "and in future times may be more truly believed and more diligently observed by the faithful of Christ, we have subscribed with our own hand, and have ordered it to be marked with the impression of our seal.

Sign of the Lord ✠ Charles the most invincible King.

Place of the seal.

Lullus, Archbishop of Mainz, I have recognized.

Willebald, Archbishop of Cologne and Chaplain of the sacred Palace, under the recognition of three Archbishops: I have recognized.

Amalharius, Archbishop of Trier, I have recognized.

Given the 6th of the Kalends of July. Year of the Incarnation of the Lord 786, Indiction 12. But in the year of the Reign of Lord Charles 19. Done at Mainz. Amen."

[13] The Bremen one in Adam is signed in the same manner and sign, namely by a small circle and cross, extending its four horns outside the circumference of the circle: but only Hildebald recognizes Charles's subscription, which was fabricated in imitation of a similar Bremen privilege, with the same titles as above, Wildebald; and it is noted "Given the 2nd of the Ides of July, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 788, Indiction 12, but in the year of the reign of Lord Charles 21. Done in the Palace of Nemeten happily. Amen." In each first recognize the sign, most alien from the true Carolingian; such as I suspect Adam did not even find in the Bremen membrane itself, but as a note of memory, for the more difficult drawing of the Carolingian monogram and instead of the seal, placed in his Ms.: which the Werden impostor, not understanding, and wishing to distinguish the sign from the seal, with what face he expressed Charles, I would not indeed divine; yet I suspect, if the wax is at hand, that Charles is there seen notably bearded, as also in some Osnabrück monument of similar credit after the Paderborn records: contrary to which in the Propylaeum no. 49 we shall prove Charles was wont to be; who neither used the title "Lord" in subscribing, the same and other marks of its falsity it contains, nor numbered Indictions before taking up the crown of the Empire, nor even then took up the years of the Lord's Incarnation. But how ineptly are these years composed with the years of the reign? For Charles began to reign in the year 768, in the years of Christ and of the Indiction, in the month of September or October: therefore the month of July, for the 21st year of reign, should be composed with the year of Christ 789, when the 12th Indiction was truly numbered; but for the 19th year of reign, with the year of Christ 787, when the 10th Indiction was running.

[14] As to what concerns the Recognizers, I read "Hildivaldus, Archbishop and Chaplain," in Anastasius the Librarian in the Life of Leo III; but in the Royal or Imperial diplomas I have not hitherto read "Chaplain" for "Archchaplain," nor either with the added expression "of the sacred Palace." by the number and titles of the recognizers, But although it often happened that the Archchancellors and Archchaplains were also Bishops or Archbishops; yet nowhere will you find this expressed in the recognitions of diplomas before the times of the Ottos; and then too rarely; never however then or afterwards with the express naming of the See itself. But who has hitherto seen any Privilege of any King or Emperor, which was at the same time recognized by several? as is feigned, that the Werden one was recognized by three Archbishops at once, and indeed in the year of Christ 786 by Amalharius of Trier, when that See was held by Richbodus, between whom and Amalharius, scarcely at last about the year 810 brought to that chair, Wazo sat. Yet we more easily forgive the vices of history to that rude age, in which such things were feigned: as also that in the final clause some words, by the custom of a much later century, were truncated: but how could it fall into a man, that he should give to Swibert the title "of immortal memory," forgetting himself to write as of a living man. Werner Rolewinck the Carthusian, and other ineptitudes: On the situation and customs of the Westphalians book 2 chapter 8, makes this Swibert a disciple of Saint Boniface; thinking perhaps that he came with him from England, as he expressly asserts this of Saint Willehad, the first Bishop of Bremen. But as is clear from his Life, to be given on November 8, Boniface had been crowned with Martyrdom before Willehad thought of leaving England, namely in the year 755, when Boniface had come from England in the year 719, when probably Willehad was not yet born; so perhaps the same would be established about Suibert, if his Life also were extant. Certainly if he knew Boniface, he could not have known him except in Germany. With similar lightness it seems to be written by the same Werner, that "in the Church of Werden are held general Privileges of all the Bishoprics of Saxony, given at Mainz by Charlemagne in the year 776, with the Archbishop Electors being there present &c." For this, at the most he could have heard about the one Werden Privilege, since other privileges of other churches bear a different year and place. But that all are of empty faith, wherever they are held, is already sufficiently clear from what has been said.

[15] Far be it, therefore, that we should use the testimony of such tables for proving the sanctity and institution of the first Bishops, and therefore it merits no faith in history, or attribute the prerogative of antiquity to one church above another, as Krantz did, because in a membrane feigned under Charles and to be examined and rejected elsewhere, he is here fabricated to assert that "he built the Osnabrück church, the first of all in Saxony, in honor of Saint Peter the Prince of the Apostles and of the Holy Martyrs Crispin and Crispinian." Of Paderborn the very ancient chronicle, reaching up to the year 800, says that there

in the year 777 (three years before elsewhere throughout Saxony churches were built, and nine years before the baptism of Witikind) the Saxons came together for Christian baptism, "and many thousands of gentile peoples were baptized, and the Franks built a church there." In what order afterwards the dioceses were divided and the Bishoprics were established by Charles, I would rather be prudently ignorant than rashly divine. In the Council of Erfurt of the year 931 the first from the Saxons after Unno (who wrote himself not Bishop of Bremen but of Hamburg, with a more worthy title then not pertaining to Saxony) are named the Bishops of Werden, Paderborn, Halberstadt, Osnabrück, Münster, but the order of the Bishoprics will be better sought elsewhere, Minden, with Hildesheim omitted, which was not present. In the ancient notice of the Patriarchates, published by Charles a Saint Paul after the Sacred Geography from the MS. of the Royal Library, under the Archbishop of Mainz, with names corrupted not a little, are counted Werden, Ildemesensis, Alunstatensis, Palterburnensis; under Cologne Münster (so in the 11th century began to be called, which before was Mimigardifordensis), then Minden and Osnabrück. But in the other Notice, somewhat more recent from the MS. of de Thou, are named under Mainz, with the names similarly corrupted, Halberstadt, Verden, Paderborn, Hildesheim; under Cologne Minden, Osnabrück, Münster. Nor do I doubt but that the Saxon Chronographer praised at the beginning, listed the names of the Bishoprics in the order in which they were counted in the 12th century; but that therefore he placed Bremen in the first place, because already then the Archbishop of Bremen was said; although not Bremen, but Hamburg, had been raised to an Archbishopric, and to it the Bremen church was united, having been taken from the Archbishop of Cologne, as is explained before the Life of Saint Anscharius.