ON ST. CONRAD OF NANTWEIN
AT WOLFRATSHAUSEN IN BAVARIA.
In the year 1286.
A Collection concerning his cult, age, and miracles.
Conrad of Nantwein, at Wolfratshausen in Bavaria (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
This Saint, under the name of Nantwein alone, had been suggested to me only by Claude Castellan, canon of Paris, praised and to be praised rather often in this work, in his additions on this day to the Universal Martyrology, in this formula rendered from the French into Latin: A pilgrim Saint In the diocese of Freising, of St. Nantwein the pilgrim, born at Wolfratshausen near Munich, where there exists a church dedicated to his name. The name of the place is thus rendered into Latin somewhere by Aventinus. That the Saint was born there to heaven through a most unjust execution can be admitted; but whence he came, of what country, of what house, or of what ancestors he was born, those who have made mention of him testify that nothing has been handed down. That a church was dedicated to him, in which he is religiously venerated even now, renowned for very many miracles, the monuments of Wolfratshausen proclaim, to be produced below, which our Matthäus Rader illustrated and corrected in the order of time in his Bavaria Sancta, volume 2, from page 308 — no longer under the appellation of Nantwein or Nantouinus alone, but under the forename of Conrad, whence this came I nowhere find expressed: if we believe Aventinus, in the place itself he is known no otherwise than under the name of Antwein.
[2] Here are his words, book 7, page 718: In the same year (1286) Conrad Nantouinus, burned in Bavaria, about to set out for Rome bound by a vow, came to Wolfratshausen: there he is accused of having attempted to violate a boy. By Ganther the praetor, on the seventh of the Ides of August, bound to a stake, he is burned. The common people believed him innocent, and declare that Ganther laid snares for the Man's money; a church is founded there, he is venerated as a martyr, the people come together in throngs to make supplication, the inhabitants venerate him still, and call him the divine Antwein. Here by Aventinus the epoch of the martyrdom is corrected, wrongly expressed in the monuments of Wolfratshausen, since they mark the year 1208 and combine it with Rudolf, duke of Bavaria, whom it is most certainly established was at that time not yet in the nature of things, as the praised Rader also demonstrates at greater length — for the rest our sole source, from which whatever can here be said must be drawn. This alone is to be noted, that the kind of execution differs here a very little from Aventinus, in that he asserts the Saint was burned on a gridiron, whereas you have just heard that he was bound to a stake. Let it be enough for us that both confess he was consumed by flames. Thus Rader begins:
[3] he has been illustrated by Rader. The Life of St. Conrad of Nantwein has been transcribed from the Ritual of the parish of Wolfratshausen. Wolfratshausen, which Aventinus calls Veliphorathusium, is a town or market in Upper Bavaria on the river Loisach or Libusa, a little above where it mingles with the Isar; more or less twenty miles distant from Munich, the seat of the Bavarians. There even today is a church sacred to the divine Lawrence and to Conrad of Nantwein. Nantwein or Nantwinus had turned aside to Wolfratshausen in the habit and dress of a pilgrim, about to seek Rome for the sake of religion and of a vow, or returning thence: whence he came, of what country, of what house, or of what ancestors born, nothing has been handed down. Whether his little store of money was from his paternal inheritance or gathered from alms is not established. Ganther, the governor of that place, a foul and avaricious man, cast his eyes upon the Stranger's money, and charged the wretched man with the crime of pederasty, as though he had solicited a boy for defilement. And so, as though he were acting by law, against the laws he binds and condemns the foreign man, destitute of all patronage for his cause, and inflicts the last punishment, and casts him alive, after the manner of St. Lawrence, upon an iron grate, roasts and burns him. The innocence of the Man was soon attested by various prodigies, by which God both purged the reputation of Nantwein and won for him also the opinion of sanctity. Here now are the monuments of Wolfratshausen:
Let those reading hear, who inspect this document
[4] It is to be noted that in the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred and eight, The monuments of the place in the times of lord Rudolf, duke of Bavaria, who then had his bodily residence in the castle of Wolfratshausen, there came a certain pilgrim to Rome, by name Nantwinus, a man faithful in body and in mind, who had been seized by a certain judge of his, called Ganter, and presented for judgment, and by the same was condemned against justice, and, on account of the money found with him, was placed upon a gridiron, in the place where now a church has been built by the faithful of Christ. Whose anniversary day is performed at all times on the Sunday next before the feast of St. Lawrence the martyr. But it is said that the same brother Nantwinus died by martyrdom and received the reward of eternal life on the day of blessed Afra, which is venerated on the seventh of the Ides of August. Then, the parachronism being corrected, he thus pursues the Saint's cult:
[5] Thereupon a small chapel was founded for the Martyr, the kind of execution being expressed on a painted panel placed above the altar, testify concerning his cult which is seen even today: whose panel's wings show the things which followed a little after his death. For Ganther, prefect of the lordship of Wolfratshausen, when not long after the murder of the innocent man he was riding past that place with his retinue on the way elsewhere on business, and the ashes lay there scattered with the remains of the bones, his horse, blinded, stuck fast and stood still, until a servant of the company, taking notice, lifts up the Martyr's remains and applies a little bone to the eye of the beast, which at once saw again. A man and a woman, blind, also received light through vows sent to the Saint. The sacred pledges of the holy Man, then gathered and placed in an urn, are preserved in his chapel, in marble which has the inscribed effigy of Nantwein, and which is inserted into the wall on the left side of the altar, where the votive offerings of vows hang suspended, and there it lasted up to our own century — up to the year, I say, 1624.
[6] By Boniface VIII of the Roman name, Supreme Pontiff, in the twelfth year after the killing of Nantwein, when the wonderful deeds and miracles of the Martyr were being commonly published abroad, tablets were sent to Wolfratshausen through Basil, archbishop of Jerusalem, and other bishops, approved by Boniface VIII. by which pardons of offenses were given to those praying and venerating the holy Man; which for a long time lay hidden, as though they had been buried together with the sacred relics.
At last in the year 1604, namely at the prompting of St. Nantwein, a certain man of the family of St. Francis and of the Munich community, summoned to Wolfratshausen by the magistrate for the ash-rites, having drawn these out of the darkness, published them to the people in a sermon, and thus renewed the nearly buried memory of Nantwein. Whence a wonderful concourse of people was made to his burial-place, wonderful deeds and benefactions of Nantwein toward his venerators and those bound by vows were shown, the treasury was increased, the worship of the church thence restored and cultivated, and the very narrow chapel grew into a proper church. Other things are subjoined about the miracles, which are most frequent and almost daily.
[7] A diploma is cited. After these things there is transcribed by Rader the said diploma of seven Bishops, who, desiring that the church of St. Nantwein of the diocese of Freising be frequented with fitting honors and be continually venerated by all the faithful, to all who are truly penitent and have confessed, who shall come to that church … on the feast of St. Nantwein and on the others there written below … for the sake of devotion … each of them severally mercifully relax in the Lord forty days each of the penances enjoined upon them, provided that the consent of the diocesan be added thereto. The clause displeases, in which, without any note of the day, it is thus roundly stated: Given at Rome in the year of the Lord 1298, in the fifth year of the pontificate of the Most Holy Pope Boniface the Eighth. The error is manifest; Boniface the Eighth, elected on the twenty-fourth of December of the year 1294, could not mark the fifth year of his pontificate in the year already said, 1297 — so that I strongly suspect that in the original itself the year 1299 is expressed.