ON ST. ALTFRID, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT HILDESHEIM IN LOWER SAXONY,
IN THE YEAR DCCCLXXV.
HISTORICAL COLLECTION,
CONCERNING HIS CULT, AGE, AND DEEDS.
Altfrid, bishop and confessor, at Hildesheim (S.)
BY J. B. S.
§ I. His cult is examined.
Hildesia, Hildesemium (Hildesheim), an episcopal city of Germany in Saxony, is rendered in Latin in various ways, Concerning his cult our predecessors as will appear from what is to be said: and it enjoys this singular prerogative, that its bishop today is the only Catholic one in all Saxony, and the city itself with the whole episcopal domain is imperial and free. A somewhat fuller description will be given by the anonymous Saxon Chronographer in Mabillon, some of whose observations we shall subjoin below. Here the chief question is whether Altfrid, fourth in order of the bishops of the said city, is to be numbered among the Saints; concerning which our predecessors once doubted, as is evident from what they noted on the Life of Bl. Rabanus Maurus on the IV day of February, volume 1, page 505, on this occasion, namely, that some would wrongly have Altfrid to be a disciple of Bl. Rabanus, whereas it is not beyond all controversy, as Mabillon testifies, whether he was truly a monk of Corvey in Saxony. However that may be, Henschen speaks thus of him in the cited passage of February:
[2] once doubting The third of Rabanus's disciples said to have attained the episcopal dignity is Altfrid, who was sent from Fulda to Saxon Corvey as schoolmaster, and afterwards was ordained fourth bishop of the church of Hildesheim. But we greatly fear that Trithemius has confused him with the monk Otfrid. Of him write Trithemius in On Illustrious Men of the Order of St. Benedict, book 3, chapter 207, and book 4, chapter 196, and in the Hirsau Chronicle at the year 847; Wion in the Bishops of Hildesheim; Letzner in the Chronicle of Corvey, chapter 9, where he is said to have been admitted to the monastic life in the year DCCCXXIX: by whom and by other writers no mention is made either of his being a monk of Fulda or of his being under the discipline of Rabanus. In Eggehard, abbot of Vraag, in the Chronicles published by Brouwer after the Life of St. Godehard, bishop of Hildesheim, among the stars of the illustrious holy men of Germany, we read, "The fourth bishop, Altfrid, being appointed in the year DCCCXLVII, sat twenty-nine years, and died on the day of the Assumption in the year DCCCLXXV"; on which day we have found his name inscribed in no Martyrology, although Trithemius, book 2, number 15, and Wion in the cited place call him a Saint.
[3] They afterwards recognized, on the XX of February among those Passed Over, afterwards recognized that the name of St. Altfrid, bishop of Hildesheim, was inscribed on that day in a manuscript Kalendar of the Order of St. Benedict, but that it is established that he died on the XV of August, or on this day, on which Greven records him, as it were somewhat timidly, in these words: Likewise, of Altfrid of holy memory, bishop of Hildesheim and confessor, resting in the monastery of Essen. Canisius rendered Greven's phrase in German; nor does our manuscript Florarium Sanctorum express the matter clearly enough. Ferrarius in his General Catalogue writes more roundly: At Hildesheim in Saxony, of St. Altfrid the bishop. Equally express is the announcement of Castellanus in his Universal Martyrology, when he speaks thus: In Germany, of St. Alfrid, bishop of Hildesheim, founder of the abbey of Essen, whose abbess they acknowledge as supreme lady. Let Mabillon follow, who seems to settle the matter when he inserts our Altfrid among the Saints of his Order in century IV, part one, from page 259.
[4] Not without a eulogy do Wion and Bucelinus record him, together with the Benedictine Fathers, the latter of whom I do not at all understand why he defers him to the IX of December; nor does it help to transcribe his longer discourse here — let those things suffice which Wion has in volume 1 of the Lignum vitæ, page 321, in these words: St. Altfrid or Alefrid, monk of St. Vitus at Saxon Corvey, a native of Cologne, born of a most noble family, a man conspicuous in learning and holiness, was created fourth bishop of Hildesheim in the year DCCCXLVII. He built three monasteries, that of Essen and that of Assuede for Virgins,
and that of Seligenstadt for men, under the rule of St. Benedict; and also a collegiate church in honor of God the Savior and of his most holy Mother, in which he ordained and appointed that all his canons, living under the profession and rule of the blessed Benedict, should serve God with the keenest zeal, no otherwise than monks, having all things in common. And he died full of good works in the year DCCCLXXV, the XXVIII of his rule, and was honorably buried in the monastery of Assuede. As we said above that Hildesia is variously inflected, so also is this monastery.
[5] Further, more recent testimonies concerning the cult of St. Altfrid were once furnished us by our Fathers, together with our Father Kritzradt more than once praised elsewhere, Kritzradt and Kloppenburg, of whom the letter of the former, given on the V of May in the year 1651, testifies in these words: From Essen the distinguished Master Arnold Tütmann, Licentiate in both Laws, agent and counsellor of the Lady of Essen, answered me: "Our founder is St. Alfrid, bishop of Hildesheim, whose body is entombed in the church. He erected a most pious foundation of XXXII canonesses, virgins, and twenty canons, namely twelve priests, four deacons, and four subdeacons, under the title of the Blessed Virgin and of Sts. Cosmas and Damian. The foundation has enclosure, but now it is changed into a secular state. His feast is not kept, nor that of the Patrons, except formerly in choir; but now it has been ordered by mandate to be celebrated." He adds that the relics are said to have been translated to Cologne, but that concerning this translation nothing is established.
[6] The other wrote thus from Neuhaus to Papebroch on the XI of January 1686: and Father Kloppenburg. I was lately, namely at the end of October of the past year MDCLXXXV, with our most exalted Prince at Corvey, that celebrated and imperial monastery which you know was founded on the Weser; at which time I saw in their elegant church, set upon the high altar, statues of full human size with the title of Saint: namely on the right side St. Charlemagne, on the left St. Louis the Pious: then in the choir the following statues of saints who at some time professed the monastic life in this house of asceticism, with the title of S. or B., as I subjoin: Bl. Heimerad (who however was not a monk), St. Ludolph abbot of Corvey, St. Warin abbot of Corvey, St. Altfrid bishop of Hildesheim, St. Hoger archbishop of Bremen, St. Rembert archbishop of Bremen, St. Stephen bishop of Uppsala in Sweden, Bl. Druthmar abbot of Corvey, St. Paschasius Radbertus, who lived for some time in this new Corvey, St. Adelard abbot of Corvey, St. Adelgar archbishop of Bremen. I pass over the rest; let it suffice me that from all these it manifestly appears that St. Altfrid was long ago celebrated with deserved glory, and is furthermore constantly celebrated today.
[7] Few things survive concerning his deeds. This seems to us most greatly to be lamented, that not a single man — at least none who has come to our knowledge — has been found, either among the canons founded by him or among the monks of Corvey, who would commend the Life or Acts of so illustrious a Saint to the memory of posterity; so that fragments have had to be gathered here and there, from which are drawn chiefly those things which pertain to the erection of the bishopric of Hildesium, otherwise Hildinesheim, and to the succession of the first prelates, as also to the building of churches and the foundation of monasteries; which, since they have been arranged accurately enough in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict in the place cited above, it has seemed to us worth the trouble to transcribe here Mabillon's whole commentary, to which we have judged that there should be subjoined the instrument of the most illustrious foundation of Assinde or Essen, hitherto unpublished except by our own Schaten among the affairs of Paderborn. Take then the commentary just praised, divided according to our custom into two parts, of which the first is:
§ II. The first foundation of the church of Hildesheim, from the Acts of the Benedictines.
The first origin of the bishopric of Hildesheim, Of the eight episcopal sees which Charlemagne erected in Saxony in the year DCCLXXXI, as we said above at the year DCCCLIII, where we treated of Haimo bishop of Halberstadt, one was the church of Elze, afterwards translated to Hildinesheim: the origin of which see the anonymous Saxon chronographer accurately describes at the year DCCCXV in these words: "The emperor Charlemagne, after he had at last, with a long war, softened Saxony — long unbridled and then untouched by the Christian name — and had stamped it with the seal of the Catholic faith, among the other places of Saxony which he determined should be exalted with episcopal sees judged the villa of Elze, so named from the king's hall which distinguished that place, and situated where the river Saale, small but full of fish, flows into the Leine, worthy of an episcopal see, both on account of the delicate pleasantness of the place itself and on account of the convenience of trade converging there. For since ships of Frisia coming up from the Weser by the Leine could enrich that place, the public and most frequented passage of the roads might also render it most famous."
[9] At Elze first by Charlemagne "By which decree Charles, himself laying the first foundation stone of the church of Elze, dedicated that same church — as it were the first fruits of Saxony and the title of the triumph sweated out for Christ — founded upon the rock which is Christ, to the key-bearer of heaven: and while the pious Emperor tarried there thereafter, the wall of that church rose to the height of a mason's first stature. But since Charles, as long as he lived, was hindered from advancing and ordering into bishoprics both this and the other churches which he built, both by the business of wars and by the scarcity of estates, the church of Elze meanwhile, governed by the priests directed and set over it by its founder, who had imbued Saxony — then by no means capable of solid food — with ecclesiastical milk; governed, I say, by these, it was to the adjacent province the mistress of ecclesiastical law and an evident pattern of the Christian religion: while the place which the church of Hildinesheim now adorns still suffered an unsightly situation, still covered with its own marshes, rough with woods, yet fit for hunting."
[10] "When Charles had attained the same end of his reign and of his life, Louis, heir as much of his father's religion as of his power, but afterwards by Louis the Pious being wholly bent upon advancing the church of Elze into the head and citadel of the bishopric, and dwelling rather frequently in that place for the sake of arranging this, it happened that, having crossed the Leine out of a desire for hunting, he pitched his tent in the place which the church of Hildinesheim now occupies, and there heard Mass, the relics of the royal chapel having been brought. And these same relics were, by God's providence, those of the holy Mother of God, Mary. But when the king afterwards returned from the hunt to Elze, and was about to hear the solemnities of the Mass there, the chaplain, being about to set the relics upon the altar, at length recollected that he had forgotten and left them where Mass had been celebrated the day before. He returns, driven by the goad of anxiety, and finds them where he had hung them, namely on the branch of a tree overshadowing a most pure spring. He hastens up joyfully, and — O the stupendous mighty works of God! O the deep abyss of the divine ordering! — those which he had hung there with an easy hand, by no effort could he take away. He runs back to affect the Emperor with the wonderful tidings. He, eager to test what he had heard, comes with all speed attended by many, and perceived that the relics would not be moved from the place to which they had once clung."
[11] "Being instructed therefore that this was of the divine will, he hastened a chapel there to the Mother of God, not without a miracle the altar occupying the same place as the hanging relics had. This place therefore, made illustrious by the novelty of the miracle, and proved to have so greatly pleased the Mother of God, king Louis undertook to advance with his whole affection, and granted to the chapel of the Mother of God the principal cathedral seat of the bishopric, which he had before determined to assign, in the church of Elze founded by his father and so greatly frequented by himself, to the honor of the Prince of the Apostles; and he set over it as first bishop Gunthar, of approved religion. Thus, the church of Hildinesheim obtaining the principal see, thus, the Prince of the Apostles giving place to the Mother of his Founder and Redeemer, the church of Elze obtained to be both mother and daughter: daughter, namely, of the episcopal church; but mother of certain churches beyond, and of all those situated with itself on this side of the Leine."
[12] "But the chapel of Hildinesheim built by king Louis and dedicated to holy Mary endured in the worship of religion worthy of it, with no other work joined to it, down to Altfrid, the fourth prelate of that church. translated to Hildesheim, whose pious bishop. For Gunthar, its first bishop, built the episcopal church, in which the principal clergy of the brethren should serve God, with two very lofty towers, somewhat removed from the said chapel, on its southern side, and dedicated it principally in honor of St. Cecilia the virgin. But the assembly of the brethren and the canonical religion did not inhabit this church save under three presiding bishops, Gunthar and Reinbern, who presided over that church for XX years, and thirdly Ebbo, formerly archbishop of Reims, afterwards bishop of Hildinesheim." These things concerning the origin of this bishopric it seemed good to relate at greater length, because they cannot easily be at hand to everyone.
§ III. Its first four bishops, among whom the most illustrious St. Altfrid.
Among them the famous Ebo of Reims To Reinbert, Gunthar's successor, Ebo, prelate of Reims, is substituted, not in the year DCCCXXXV, in which he was reduced to the ranks, nor in the year DCCCXXXVII, as is read in the Saxon Chronicle, where his death is wrongly placed in the year DCCCXLVII, but in the year DCCCXLV, as is established both from the synodical letter of the council of Troyes to Pope Nicholas, and from the narrative of the clergy of Reims concerning the deposition of Ebo. Since Ebo, after his return from his Italian journey to Pope Sergius, when "he refused to undertake the embassy into Greece enjoined upon him by Lothair," and the abbeys which he possessed by the emperor's benefaction had been taken from him, "obtained, by the bounty of Louis king of Germany, the vacant bishopric of Hildinesheim in the province of Mainz and the region of Saxony, not far from the neighborhood of the borders of the Northmen, to whom he had been destined as preacher by Pope Paschal: where also, by the authority of a privilege conferred upon him by the blessed Pope Gregory, he exercised the pontifical ministry to the end," as the Fathers of the council of Troyes, held in the year DCCCLXVII, write; and accordingly Ebo presided over that church until the year DCCCLI, in which his death occurred, as Hincmar testifies in letter 27 to Pope Nicholas, "in the XIV Indiction, on the XIII of the Kalends of April."
[14] whom St. Altfrid succeeded The clergy of Reims testify that he not only continued in the see of "Hildinesheim" until the end of his life, but among many other good things also performed various ordinations, "which were approved without any reprehension ever by all who are beloved of God." And yet in the aforesaid Saxon Chronicle Altfrid, the successor of Ebo in the see of Hildinesheim, is recorded to have "annulled the ecclesiastical sacraments administered by his predecessor, namely by repeating the consecrations of churches and the ordinations of clerics (if any seemed worthy)." And so, not in the year DCCCXLVII, as is read in the same manuscript chronicle, but in DCCCLI, Altfrid succeeded the deceased Ebo, having been (as Trithemius writes) a monk of Corvey. He means, as I think, Saxon Corvey, although in the catalogue of the monks of that place who lived there when Warin was abbot, no Altfrid is found in Meibom. Now let us take up the deeds of Altfrid again from the Saxon Chronicle. "He bestowed two manors of his own property, Seligenstadt and Essen, upon his church, in which he gathered together the abbeys of Seligenstadt for monks and of Essen for virgins." Thus at the year DCCCXLVII.
[15] "In the year DCCCLII Liudolf, duke of Saxony, with his wife Oda sought Rome, and from the Apostolic
See he obtained and brought back the relics of the holy prelates Anastasius and Innocent, and in their honor built, in the more ancient place of Gandersheim, a monastery and convent of virgins His first care, the building of churches, which had been begun four years earlier at Brunshausen. And then the lord Altfrid, bishop of Hildinesheim, began to build a church there, and ordained Hathumoda, the daughter of the same duke, as first abbess there. He also granted there, as a benefice, tithes from the property of his church, in return for service and rent to be rendered to him, and out of his fatherly piety provided the other things that would profit those serving Christ there." That Gerberga, sister of Hathumoda, succeeded her in the year DCCCLXX the Chronographer says; and that Christina succeeded Gerberga in the year DCCCLXXXIII, then Rotswinda, and after her Wendelgard in the year CMXXVI. To Wendelgard succeeded Gerberga, to whom Hroswitha, a nun of that place and an illustrious poetess, dedicated her panegyric of the Ottos. That poem is extant in Meibom, together with the diploma of the emperor Otto confirming the goods of the monastery of St. Mary, which Gerberga had built "in the upper quarter of the city" of Gandersheim. That most noble convent of Gandersheim in the duchy of Brunswick was, like many others, ruined by the heretics in the last century.
[16] "The same ecclesiastical prelate with his most religious clergy kept a three days' fast, especially of his cathedral. beating upon heaven with the constancy of prayers, entreating God that a place might be shown him in the city of Hildinesheim in which the Mediator of God and men would deign that a church be built in honor of himself and of his Mother. And when the fourth day dawned, there were seen marked out, and as it were traced for the digging of the foundation of a church, the boundaries of a skillful measurer's right angle, like a spring hoarfrost, drawn indeed from the primitive chapel of St. Mary toward the west, broad and long and distant from one another according as the thickness of the wall and the length and capacity of the church required. It was revealed besides to the same prelate, on the same night on which he had ended his fast, that in the crypt which he was to join to the chapel formerly built by the emperor Louis, he ought to dedicate two altars, one to John the Baptist, the other to Stephen the protomartyr. Presently the illustrious prelate, gladdened that the divine favor breathed upon his intention, having laid the foundation as had been revealed to him, built a church of as honorable as firm, but of skillful, workmanship." Thus the Saxon chronographer.
[17] In the year DCCCLXIV, when the bishops of Gaul, under the pressure of the storm of the Northmen, had assembled at Pîtres, which is a place in the diocese of Rouen, he too was present among them, "Altfrid, bishop of Hildinesheim," and subscribed the privilege of the monastery of St. Germain of Auxerre, as is read in volume 2 of the Spicilegium, page 592. His other deeds in councils and with kings. Then in the year DCCCLXX, when Charles the Bald had gone into Germany for the ordination of the archbishop of Cologne, "legates are sent from Louis, entreating that he would withdraw from the kingdom. Last of all he dispatches archbishop Liutbert and Altfrid, bishop of Hildinesheim, a prudent man, charging that he should either withdraw or know that he must fight with his brother. And these approached him with such art of wit and such constancy that without delay he retired and betook himself into his own kingdom." These things from the Saxon chronographer, as also what follows.
[18] "In the year DCCCLXXII, in the V Indiction, on the Kalends of November, the principal minster of St. Mary in Hildesheim was dedicated by Altfrid, bishop of that church, and by the bishops Rembert of Bremen, Liuthard of Paderborn, and Theodoric, He dedicates the minster of St. Mary. with the intervention of Adalgar, abbot of Corvey, under the title of Cosmas and Damian, of Tiburtius and Valerianus the martyrs, and of Cecilia the virgin."
[19] His pious death and his successors. "In the year DCCCLXXV Altfrid, fourth bishop of Hildesheim, full of days, passed on the XVIII of the Kalends of September into the fellowship of the Saints, and was buried at Essen in his own church, which he himself built and dedicated: where he becomes known by the powers of miracles through very many notable cures, as those dwelling there report. After him Liudolf, a monk of new Corvey, is designated; but being forestalled by a sudden death he is taken away. Thereafter Marquard succeeded as fifth bishop." A bishop of that see was St. Godehard, who is to be treated of in the sixth century.
§ IV. The diploma of the foundation of Essen.
The Saint's preface Alfrid, by the disposing providence of God prelate of the church of Hildesheim. Whereas among the immense mercies of God the Father, by which he deigns to relieve the human race with unearned kindness, I was chiefly calling to mind that one by which it is established that his consubstantial and coeternal Son was for us incarnate and crucified, and whereas I was weighing not without wonder the riches of his goodness specially toward myself, who, no merits requiring it, raised me from the mire and made me sit among the Princes of the Church and hold a throne of glory — lest I should appear ungrateful for such great benefits of his, I began long and much to consider with myself what I might render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me.
[21] to found a convent out of love for the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, At length therefore, by divine inspiration as I believe, it came into my mind that the most holy and ever Virgin Mary is, after God, the one and singular refuge of sinners; and I judged that if I should bestow any veneration upon her it would be pleasing to God and, by her merits interceding for me, profitable to my soul. And so, by the help of God's grace, on my own small estate which is called Essen, I built a church consecrated in honor of the holy and undivided Trinity and dedicated to the holy and ever Virgin Mary and to the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian, out of those goods which by the Lord's gift I possessed; in which church I have taken care to gather together a congregation of nuns for the offering to God of the immaculate sacrifice of holiness both of soul and of body, in contrition of heart and spirit, and to provide for it the necessaries of food and clothing; and also to set over it, from among themselves, a spiritual mother who should preside according to rule.
[22] But that after my decease no dissension may arise in future ages concerning the election of the abbess, it has been sanctioned by decree of Pope Sergius and of his successor Adrian, and confirmed by their privileges, that neither by prayer nor by price nor by any manner whatsoever shall a woman of another congregation of nuns ever be set over the said nuns; but whichever of these same is found both most excellent in the service of God and most fit for the just ordering of the affairs of that church, let her, by the common election of all serving God there, be set over her sisters according to the fear of God. But what customary law I have imposed upon the administration of their goods, and would have offered in perpetuity, I shall set forth in a few words. Let the abbess, with the counsel of God-fearing men, manage with the utmost diligence the possessions given or to be given to the church, whether within or without, movable as well as immovable, and let her distribute their revenues in equal measure to her own advantage and to that of the sisters, taking especial heed — as one who must render an account to God — that of their common goods she give to no one even a single least prebend without their counsel or advantage; lest, which God forbid, under the pressure of want in household matters, the reins of holiness being broken, they wander too freely this way and that without the fear of God.
[23] But if any nun there has a house of her own, which he confirms by holy laws, or another building either bought by herself or given her as a gift, or any goods justly acquired from whatever source, nevertheless of all the aforesaid let neither the abbess nor any other take anything from her, nor in any way persuade that it be taken; but let the same nun of her own free choice hand over that house and all that she possesses therein to her sister or to a friend belonging to that same church, without the contradiction of anyone, whether she be near to death or in life, in whatever way she shall wish.
[24] And this same we appoint also for the clerics serving there: also for the clerics. if any one shall have received any aforesaid possession of their church by the abbess's grant, let him receive it on this condition, that after his death the church may receive that same possession without anyone's contradiction, all things being first restored, movable as well as immovable, which appeared to be in it on the day on which he received it; or let the church while alive dispose of it as she shall wish, or let some one of his friends after his death distribute it for the health of his soul. We appoint also that no man nor any advocate have any jurisdiction in the aforenamed town, except the abbess of Essen, apart from the maiming of hands or the summoning to arms. In the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCCLXXVII, under the most pious king Louis, in the XXXVI year of his reign, at the city of Cologne, on the V of the Kalends of October, on the very day of the dedication of the basilica of St. Peter. I, Alfrid the bishop, recited this privilege in the presence of the lord Willibert, archbishop of the aforesaid city, and also in the presence of Liutbert archbishop of Mainz, and Bertulf archbishop of Trier, and Berhard bishop of Verdun, and Theoderic bishop of Minden, and Herolf bishop of Verden, and Liuthard bishop of Paderborn, and Hildegrim bishop of Halberstadt, and Adolf bishop of Münster, and Othibold bishop of Utrecht, and in the presence of Liutbert bishop of Osnabrück, and likewise in the presence of very many other men of sacred order who had assembled for the dedication of the aforesaid church.