Hilaria and Her Companions

ON ST. HILARIA AND HER COMPANIONS, MARTYRS,

AT AUGSBURG.

In the year CCCIV.

Hilaria, Martyr, at Augsburg (S.)

Her Companions, Martyrs, at Augsburg

BHL Number: 2159

BY THE AUTHOR P. B.

These Martyrs the Roman Martyrology thus announces on this day: The announcement in the Martyrologies, and the Acts; At Augsburg, of St. Hilaria, mother of blessed Afra the martyr; who, while she kept watch at her sepulcher, was there for the pious faith of Christ given over to the fire by the persecutors, together with Digna and Euprepia and Eunomia, her maidservants. In almost the same words they are recorded today by Notker, Usuard, and Ado; except that these two put Eumenia for Eunomia; but Notker in the common edition expresses both names, the first in the margin, the second in the text. We think, however, that the text is the sincere and genuine one of the author, but that the marginal note was drawn from a more recent manuscript: for in Notker's time the bodies of our Martyrs with their inscriptions had not yet been found; and so their other names had not yet become known besides those which Ado had taken from ancient copies of the Acts. Certainly we know that not before that invention did the names Eunomia for Eumenia, and Eutropia for Euprepia, prevail among the people of Augsburg, which they now alone use, with the approval of Welser in his Commentary on the Conversion of St. Afra, note 28. In this too the aforesaid Martyrologists differ from the Roman, that instead of "her maidservants" they have more expressly, according to the Acts: Who had been the maidens of St. Afra. When we say the Acts, we mean those which were common to them with St. Afra, and which we have already given illustrated at the day V of this month; to which we refer the reader.

[2] the feast among the people of Augsburg: There he will discover that this day, the XII of August, was not the birthday of Sts. Hilaria and her Companions; as was shown in the Preliminary Commentary, number 47. But why it was first chosen by Ado we conjectured in the same place, number 49. It seems nevertheless that his announcement, and that of his followers Usuard and Notker, afterward gave occasion to Egino, who presided over the monastery of Sts. Udalric and Afra from the year of Christ 1109 to 1122, to consecrate that same day in perpetuity to their yearly celebration. For to him Udalscalc, the companion and a little after the successor of Egino, refers the beginnings of this peculiar feast, in his Narrative in Canisius, Ancient Readings, volume 2, page 216, when he asserts of him: He appointed that the twenty-four aforesaid Martyrs (of whom we shall treat separately on this day), who suffered together with holy Hylaria, should none the less be venerated on one day. So certainly Corbinian Khamm interprets it, in the Augsburg Hierarchy, part 3, page 32, and elsewhere; nay, before him, from the XV century, Sigismund the Religious in Pistorius, volume 3, page 605. But although Udalscalc does not express a certain day, nor make mention of the Companions of St. Hilaria, it nevertheless appears most likely that this feast and Office were so instituted by Egino, as it was celebrated in the year of Christ 1548, in which the Cathedral church of Augsburg is said to have taken up both, to be performed with a singular cult on the day XII of August, in memory of the Augsburg Clergy restored in that year, on the day sacred to St. Hilaria, after a ten years' exile endured for religion's sake. See the Augsburg Hierarchy, part 1, page 62. The day XII of August was therefore then sacred to St. Hilaria. But the Office and feast which that church observes on that day is not of Hilaria alone, but of Hilaria and her Companion Martyrs; as it is in the Augsburg Proper of the year 1638; in which their names are also said to be recited in the Litany of all the Saints, and their common commemoration with St. Afra, as Patronesses of the whole diocese, is to be premised to the common Suffrages as often as these are said in the Office at Vespers and Lauds.

[3] I said in the Preliminary Commentary on the Acts of St. Afra, number 49, that the occasion for instituting a peculiar feast and Office of Sts. Hilaria and her companions was most probably given by the invention of the body of St. Hilaria, The invention and relics of St. Hilaria: which happened under that same Egino. In which opinion (though of very slight moment) I do not know whether I have touched the matter with a needle; because Udalscalc, the contemporary of Egino, when he had mentioned the aforesaid feast instituted through Egino's zeal at the place cited in Canisius, adds these things: Nor is he defrauded in such zeal (namely the same Egino), since he is repaid with a most precious treasure, namely with the head of that same martyr Hilaria, found in those days. He hints therefore that the institution of the feast came first; and that thereupon, as a kind of recompense, there followed the invention of the head; if indeed that author has here spoken accurately enough, of which you may deservedly doubt; since here too he mentions the invention of the head alone, whereas Khamm from the ancient monuments of the monastery of Sts. Udalric and Afra affirms, Augsburg Hierarchy, part 1, page 62, that Egino found besides the head of Hilaria many bones of hers as well; concerning which indeed he adds in the same place: The chief parts of the body of St. Hilaria are exposed for veneration at Augsburg in the cathedral church. But that the head is not comprised in these parts he indicates in the same place in these words: But the aforesaid head came to Rome. The emperor Charles IV also asserts, in the year 1354, in Pessina, Phosphorus Septicornis, page 434, that he transferred to the metropolitan church of Prague the front part of that same head, received from the Augsburg monastery of Sts. Udalric and Afra. And what now remains of it is still preserved in that monastery, on the testimony of Hertfelder in his description of the basilica of Sts. Udalric and Afra, page 73 and the following. In the same basilica Sigismund the Religious, in part 2 of the Augsburg Chronicle in the appendix, assigns an entire shoulder-bone of St. Hilaria. Beyerlinck also, at the word Reliquiæ, says that there is I know not what of hers among the people of Andechs. There were therefore, besides her head, many things found which Udalscalc passes over in silence; and perhaps found earlier than Egino had thought of her feast. Here meanwhile you have the chief things which have occurred to us concerning this Saint, and her relics and cult.

[4] Concerning the invention of the three Companions of St. Hilaria, Welser gives these things at the end of his Commentary on the Passion of St. Afra, transcribed, as he says, from ancient codices: The invention of her three Companions in the year 1064: At that same time (treatment had been made before of the invention of St. Afra under Embrico, bishop of Augsburg, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation MLXIV), in the aforesaid building of the church (of St. Afra), on the day before the Ides of August, there were found the bodies of the holy Digna, Eunomia, and Eutropia. And the stone placed over the tomb of St. Eunomia, while it was being cut by chance by the stonemasons, sent forth a fragrance of wonderful odor. But the little body of St. Eutropia was found in a leaden sarcophagus. The greatest part of it was given to the monastery of St. Stephen the protomartyr, which blessed Udalric built not far from the city. But another part, with relics of St. Paul the Apostle, was laid up at its dedication in the altar of the chapel of that same Apostle, built by the noble counts buried there and endowed with many revenues from estates. But the bodies of the holy Digna and Eunomia were placed for the time in separate little coffers made of wood. But the most distinguished commentator errs when he notes in the margin: It appears that these things happened about the year one thousand; and that on account of the words following in that same ancient codex of his: After these things, more than sixty years having elapsed, in the times of bishop Embrico, etc.: for what precedes and follows most manifestly indicates that it should have been read "from the times of Embrico." And the year 1064 is confirmed by the Catalogue of that time cited by us in the Commentary on the Acts of St. Afra, number 62; from which also you may convict of falsehood the day

and month of the invention noted in Welser's document as the day before the Ides of August: for there the body of St. Eutropia is read to have been found on the day before the Calends of May. For the same year makes the old Augsburg Chronicle in the writers of German affairs published by Freher, volume 1, page 348, although it does not recount by name all the bodies (which it relates were many) then found, but only those of St. Afra and St. Eunomia. Sigismund the Religious, in the Augsburg Chronicle, part 1, chapter 11, attributes to Embrico the invention of these three maidservants, whom he names each by name. Now a few things in detail.

[5] The second invention of St. Digna in the 12th century: To Digna alone pertains the second invention, which is thus joined to the text already produced from Welser's codices: After these things, more than sixty years having elapsed, from the times of bishop Embrico, when all these things had through the neglect of those then living passed almost into oblivion, while Udalscalc the abbot of pious memory presided over the government of this place (he presided from the year 1126 to 1151), that very martyr of Christ Digna willing and deigning to be made manifest, she was found on the V of the Ides of July in a wooden chest, which is still placed above the tomb of St. Dionysius, in a most excellent and rare purple cloth, which afterward, a border being placed around it, is hung above the doorposts of the church at the entrance on feast days. But she was found without the indication of any writing. Whence, while the abbot and the convent were smitten with exceeding sadness, a certain lay brother by name Gerung, of good manner of life and repute, diligently searching the chinks and joints in that chest, found at length between the wall of the chest and the cloth which was stretched within a leaden plate on which was engraved: The body of St. Digna the martyr. Which with great joy he brought to the lord abbot Udalscalc. And he, kissing it and with great faith applying it to his molars, was freed from the toothache from which he had long suffered. After these things, a stone sarcophagus being prepared, he replaced her behind the principal altar with great honor and devotion. And with her he laid up many other precious relics of the Saints. And he adorned the principal altar with those arches and gilded panels, as is still seen.

[6] There is recounted also a third uncovering of that same body, made in the fifteenth century, a third uncovering of the same St. Digna in the 15th century, and thus described by Sigismund the Religious in the same century, part 2, chapter 4: About this time, when behind the high altar the boards placed above the tomb of St. Digna were rotting and were teeming with dusty scurf, the abbot, at the request of the Brethren, having removed them, brought forth the holy relics of the Martyr in a leaden coffer with the plate of which we spoke above (it is the same as that of which mention was made here in the preceding number); and after a lapse of time, a sarcophagus and a fitting image having been made, he enclosed them crosswise behind that same altar in due manner. The bones indicated that the holy Martyr had not been of very great stature. Such an epigram is inscribed above:

"A sarcophagus was placed here, much time having elapsed, In which are laid the bones of the venerable martyr Digna, who was one of the companions of Afra, By whose example she sought the heavenly kingdom. One thousand four hundred and sixty Years being brought round and completed, with five joined to them, The present sarcophagus had been renewed again."

Presently the holy mother of God appeared clearly in a vision at the town of Friedberg to a man with a swollen foot, and also to another suffering from pleurisy, commanding that they should visit with a vow the sacred bones newly brought to light: and when they obeyed, the sores being driven off, a barrier being set to the flowing hollow limbs, the stream is stopped; and, in the other, the matter of the abscess in his side being dried up within, health follows. Many other miracles are then wrought through her. These things were done under John Hochenstainer. Khamm, however, in the Augsburg Hierarchy, part 3, page 81, reports that these things were done under Melchior of Stamham, John's successor as abbot; as also Stengel in the Ecclesiastical Chronicle of Augsburg published in German, book 1, chapter 6: where he narrates these miracles somewhat differently, and adds two others concerning the ulcerated arm of a woman, and the foul disease of another's eyes, healed straightway through a vow conceived to the same Saint.

[7] Thereafter the cult of St. Digna always grew among the monks of Sts. Udalric and Afra through the notable display with which they raised her sacred body, with very many remains of other Saints, into a magnificent altar in the year 1619, and her honorable placing down to this time. which may be seen elegantly engraved in copper in Hertfelder, in the Basilica of Sts. Udalric and Afra, between pages 62 and 63. The pomp and solemnity of this Translation Khamm describes in the Augsburg Hierarchy, part 1, page 87 and following. Again, before the century had turned, a new altar and a new chapel, both more august than the former, are built, for the more honorable exalting of the bodies of those same Saints. An illustrious engraving of the work is exhibited to be seen in the same place in the Augsburg Hierarchy, part one, between pages 88 and 89; but the triumph and order of the translation it represents at length from page 108. There is also a silver case in the treasury of that same basilica bearing the effigy of Digna, and enclosing two of her half ribs with a finger joint: it is set forth to be seen in Hertfelder, page 76. Nay, elsewhere too fragments of her relics are held in great esteem; as those which Pessina at this day assigns at Prague in the Phosphorus, page 515; and those which report says, in Hertfelder page 62, St. Udalric while he lived carried as a gift to the Swiss Hermitage. And so in the aforesaid monastery the body of the Saint is not entire, much less on the altar; but as it were, or nearly, entire. Hence Sigismund in the appendix of his Chronicle numbers, among the relics preserved in the Udalrician basilica, The bones of the almost entire body of St. Digna the martyr, maidservant of St. Afra.

[8] The relics of Sts. Eunomia and Eutropia. Concerning St. Eunomia there is something singular which the Augsburg Chronicle in Freher narrates as having happened in the year 1064: The stone also, it says, placed beneath the buried St. Eunomia, when it was by chance being cut by the stonemasons, sent forth a fragrance of wonderful odor. Sigismund agrees in the Chronicle, part 1, chapter 11. Hertfelder in the Basilica of Sts. Udalric and Afra, page 78, bringing forward her silver shrine, adds these things: The divine Eunomia, another of the maidens of St. Afra, is buried in this place: in whose silver image these relics are held enclosed: a notable part of the jaw, another of the skull, likewise a tooth, likewise another particle of the bones of St. Eunomia. Likewise at the silver treasury of St. Eutropia, sketched on page 80, he adds these things concerning her bones preserved in the same basilica: The greater part of which was translated to the monastery of St. Stephen the protomartyr, once built by the divine Udalric; the rest were laid up in a certain chapel of this church. In this her silver image are these: a notable part of the skull, two fragments of the jaw, four molar teeth, likewise six other teeth of St. Eutropia. He assigns besides two of her teeth in the preceding case, page 79. Whoever desires more about the present cult and adornment of our Martyrs, let him consult, if it be at hand, the work of the Reverend Father Roman Kistler, whom Khamm, part 3, page 194, says published in print the basilica of Sts. Udalric and Afra historically described and illustrated with copper figures.

* read: from the times

* nay: the holy woman

* read: Martyr feminine