Amor or Amator

ON ST. AMOR OR AMATOR, FIRST ABBOT OF AMORBACH,

IN FRANCONIA,

In the year 767 or 777.

HISTORICAL-CRITICAL COMMENTARY.

Amor, abbot of Amorbach in Franconia (St.)

BY G. C.

§ I. Notice of this Saint kindly communicated to us; the situation and etymology of the monastery over which he presided.

The most reverend, most illustrious, most ample, and exceedingly gracious lord Engelbert, present abbot of Amorbach, not long ago liberally sent to us an elegant history of his monastery, This Saint, which was published at Frankfurt in the year 1736. This the Reverend Dom Ignatius Gropp, a Benedictine of the monastery of Würzburg, wove together diligently from domestic documents and other approved authors, and dedicated it to the most worthy abbot of Amorbach on occasion of the jubilee of the thousand years which have flowed by since the foundation of the monastery of Amorbach, and which was solemnly celebrated in the year of Christ 1734. The praised abbot Engelbert added to this most welcome gift a most courteous letter, in which he earnestly asks that we insert St. Amor in our work on the XVII day of August, on which the yearly memory of that Saint is celebrated.

[2] We frankly confess that we have hitherto doubted concerning the lawful cultus of this first abbot of Amorbach, concerning whose lawful cultus although in the Menology of Bucelinus on this XVII day of August we had read the following: In the monastery of Amorbach, blessed Amor, first abbot of that place, who, most fervent in charity, worthily of his name, kindling exceedingly the fervor of his subjects, laid those foundations of his monastery and built up thereon so great a mass of building that it was a wonder to the whole world; from which, as from a singular storehouse of the divine goodness, there afterwards came forth a whole cohort of apostles and champions of the Christian faith; very many of whom, as for the most part they toiled in the tillage of the Lord's field, so most of them watered and made it fruitful with their own blood as well. Bucelinus alleges Cratepolius and Krantz as witnesses of this eulogy. But these testimonies of more recent writers were not sufficient for us to insert him in our work, unless we had been informed from another source concerning the immemorial and public cultus of that holy abbot. Wherefore the solicitude of the most reverend abbot Engelbert is deservedly to be praised, who through his historian instructed us in good time concerning the lawful veneration of St. Amor, and to whom we most gladly acknowledge our debt for this information. Would that this example of a most vigilant abbot were imitated by those who now and then complain without cause that the Saints of their country or of their religious order are passed over by us or not sufficiently illustrated.

[3] Besides, we feared lest St. Amor the abbot might perchance have been confounded with another Saint of the same name,

who is honored on the VIII day of October in Belgium, and of whom our Fisen, in the Flowers of the Church of Liège, page 448, writes thus: St. Amor the confessor, an Aquitanian by race, [and about his distinction from another Saint of the same name we at first doubted,] was a deacon in rank. He cultivated Hesbaye with many labors, and in great part reclaimed it from impiety and from the thickets of vice. He passed many years at the tomb of St. Servatius, given to the contemplation of divine things. At last he removed to Belisia (now a convent of Canonesses in the diocese of Liège, commonly called Munster-Bilzen), where he led a life notable for singular integrity and made remarkable by many miracles wrought, and closed it with a blessed end; in what age is uncertain, save that he seems to have preceded blessed Landrada, who left this mortal life about the year six hundred and ninety-three. For the college of noble Canonesses, which glories in him as its founder, venerates St. Amor as its patron. His sacred body, brought forth to the light from the tomb, is honored with special honors.

[4] Ferrari, in his General Catalogue of the Saints, on the VIII day of October announces both these St. Amors in these words: was the first abbot of Amorbach At Belisia among the Tungri, St. Amor the priest. At Amorbach in Germany, St. Amor the abbot. Although Ferrari by this twofold announcement seems to distinguish those two Saints, yet he blends both into one, when in the notes on St. Amor the abbot he there advises thus: But this is the same as the former; for he was the first abbot of Amorbach, and died at Belisia. Molanus, in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium on the VIII day of October, more probably distinguished both those Saints, when, after the eulogy of St. Amor of Belisia, he advised the reader in the notes with this brief observation: There was also another Saint of that name, the first abbot of Amorbach, a disciple of St. Pirmin, whom Germany celebrates. This distinction of the two St. Amors will be proved more fully below from the historian of Amorbach. Meanwhile we shall report certain things concerning the situation and the etymology of the monastery of Amorbach.

[5] John Latomus, in his Catalogue of the Archbishops of Mainz, the situation of which monastery is described, which Mencken not long since published among the writers of German Affairs, in vol. 3, column 445, asserts, with others everywhere agreeing, that the monastery of Amorbach was founded in the year of Christ 734; which Ignatius Gropp, in his History of Amorbach, part 1, chapter 1, §1, describes thus: The monastery of Amorbach is situated by the Odonian forest (commonly Odenwald) between the rivers Neckar and Main, on the borders of the two dioceses of Mainz and Würzburg, of the first of which it is today a dependency. It is distant from Würzburg seven miles, from Aschaffenburg five, from Mainz twelve. Nearest to it is the not ignoble town of Miltenberg, lying upon the Main, likewise of the domain of Mainz, one mile distant from Amorbach. To the monastery itself, moreover, there adjoins another town, not indeed large, which, as it drew its origin from the monastery, so also received its name from it. The place itself two brooks flow past — one from the south, called by the inhabitants Muda (die Mud), the other from the east, commonly called Billbach — which, meeting close by Amorbach, pour themselves into the Main near Miltenberg. Round about it is hemmed in with mountains. On the north a very lofty mountain overhangs it, today called Sankt-Gothardsberg, formerly der Frankenberg. Upon the mountain lies the burned church of another monastery of former days. Count Ruthard, the founder of the monastery, once had his castle and dwelling established upon that mountain. Toward the west, between two mountains, scarcely half an hour's space from Amorbach, stands a little chapel sacred to the most blessed Virgin Mary and to St. Amor, called from the health-bringing spring which continually gushes there zu Sankt-Amors-brunn. On the opposite side toward the east another church sacred to the same most blessed Mother of God is seen, together with a village, to which the name of Mount of the Snows, commonly Schneeberg, has been given. But of these more in their place. Toward the south, over lofty mountains, the Odonian forest comes into view, from which we call this whole region by one name Odinsylvania. This is the description of the monastery of Amorbach, clear knowledge of which has hitherto been hidden from us and from other foreigners.

[6] and the origin of its present name The praised Gropp, in the fifth paragraph of the chapter just cited, discourses thus concerning the etymology of that same monastery: The name of the place is variously written, read, and derived by various writers. We have said above that both monasteries, the first as well as the second, were consecrated with their church in honor of the Virgin Mother of God; whence also "the monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary," commonly Mariae Munster in Odenwald, is very frequently read in ancient documents. That it drew its present name from St. Amor the first abbot has ever been the constant and most ancient tradition and the common sense of all, and we hold it as true and undoubted. Megenfrid the chronographer and monk of Fulda, who flourished in the year 990, writes that St. Amor was the first abbot and gave the place its name. From this it obtained various appellations, which are variously written and pronounced: AMARBARICUM, AMARBARACUM, AMARBACUM, AMERBACUM, AMERBACHIUM, AMMERBACUM, AMENBACHIUM, &c. Most commonly and most certainly AMORBACUM, the origin of which appellation we have been taught by continuous tradition from the most ancient times. This one thing we confess we do not know: whether our monastery received such an appellation while St. Amator was still living, or when he had already been translated to the blessed above. Some think that this name was given to the monastery by Suibert, St. Amor's successor in the abbacy, in memory and honor of his master. St. Amor was famous while yet alive for great holiness of life and for miracles, on account of which the common people, thronging to his monastery, perhaps named it from the holy abbot's name.

[7] against the opinion of Eckhart Nevertheless John George von Eckhart, in his Commentaries on the Affairs of Eastern France and of the Bishopric of Würzburg, book 21, chapter 34, or vol. 1, page 361, doubts the truth of this tradition and proposes another etymology of the monastery of Amorbach in this way: Trithemius, in his Compendium of Annals, book one, mentions that St. Perminius further gave origin to the monastery of Amorbach, still flourishing in the Odonian forest and indeed in the diocese of Würzburg, between Aschaffenburg and Heilbronn, and left there his disciple Amator or Amor as first abbot. But this tradition is very doubtful; nor does it seem to me that Amorbach took its name from this Amor, but from the stream flowing past, which now with changed appellation is called the Mudt: for bach denotes a brook, and amer or ammer a certain kind of cherry, so that thence Amerbach would designate a brook of cherries. This monastery, meanwhile, is most ancient, and had Scots as its first inhabitants, who under Charlemagne converted to the faith of Christ the region situated about Saxon Werden, and there laid the foundations of a bishopric, as we shall afterwards set forth more distinctly.

[8] from ancient testimonies But, saving the peace of the most learned Eckhart, we say that Trithemius was not the first to hand down that opinion, but that he found it in the Chronicle of Megenfrid, who flourished at the close of the tenth century, as the bibliographers everywhere testify. For Trithemius, in Ignatius Gropp's Proofs of the History of Amorbach, page 189, answers thus among other things to the queries of Peter, abbot of Amorbach: To the fourth: from what annals I have that which I formerly wrote to thee concerning the foundation of thy monastery of Amorbach and of Schlüchtern, that is, "solitary," and of certain others by the divine Pirmin, which are not found in his Life; and likewise concerning St. Amor the first abbot — I answer that it is from Megenfrid the chronographer, a monk of Fulda, who wrote quite diffusely of the foundations and abbots of nearly all the monasteries of our Order in Germany which preceded him. He says that blessed Amor, a disciple of St. Pirmin, was appointed by him as first abbot in thy monastery, presided forty-three years, shone with many miracles, and gave his name to the place, &c.

[9] With this testimony of Megenfrid two ancient instruments agree, it is more probably defended. which Gropp exhibits in the Proofs of his History, page 188, and in the first of which, toward the end, we read the following: St. Amor, the first abbot, a disciple of the already named Pirmin, presided over the aforesaid monastery forty-three years, and gave the place its name. And in the other like things are found in this phrasing: But the first abbot of the said monastery was St. Amor, a disciple of the said Pirmin, from whom the place received its name, and he presided over the monastery forty-three years. These arguments prevail over Eckhart's conjecture, and therefore we more probably judge that Amorbach drew its name from this St. Amor. We shall now go on to another question of greater moment, which is debated concerning the distinction of this St. Amor from another Saint of the same name. In this controversy I embrace the opinion of the Reverend Dom Ignatius Gropp, and in the following paragraph shall transcribe his arguments, since better ones do not occur to me.

§ II. The historian of Amorbach proves that this St. Amor is to be distinguished from another Saint of the same name.

The praised Gropp — often hereafter to be praised — in his History of Amorbach, page 32 and following, endeavors to demonstrate that distinction of the two Saints in this way: Ignatius Gropp As well known to us, he says, and as much sung in the mouths of all as is the name of St. Amor, so obscure are his life and deeds. Time, the devourer of things, and flames and wars have so snatched from us the monuments of his deeds and life that scarcely a few of them survive today. His affairs have been rendered most perplexed by the Legend or Life of a certain St. Amor first buried at Maastricht and thence translated to Belisia. This was brought to us from Belisia about the year 1446 by one John Keck, a secular priest, and has hitherto been preserved in manuscript codices. It did not come to us pure, but interpolated by Keck himself with a prolix panegyric, with many explanations, interpretations, and moral digressions. There is no leisure to inquire into its author with much and perhaps fruitless labor. In past years one of the Amorbach monks brought out the pure text of it, all the additions being cut away; and thus at last cleansed, it showed clearer than light how very far all those have swerved from the truth, as many as have interpreted it of the first abbot of Amorbach, or have wished it so interpreted. For indeed we show by arguments taken from that very Legend that this Legend of Belisia in no way suits our St. Amor, nor can be adapted to him with any semblance of truth.

[11] shows from the Legend itself of St. Amor of Belisia, It is said in it, first, how that St. Amor of Belisia (whoever he may be), when in his youth he gave himself without ceasing to prayers, to the mortification of the flesh, and to vigils, fearing the talk of the people, resolved to migrate elsewhere; and when he hesitated in doubt whither he should go, he was instructed by nocturnal visions to go to Rome, to the thresholds of the Apostles; that there he should understand how he ought to proceed. Secondly. The young man obeyed the vision and sought Rome. When once by night he was praying rather fervently at the barred doors of St. Peter's church, and was overtaken by sleep, he saw St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, standing before him beneath the opened doors, by whom, as by a sure messenger of heaven, he was bidden, having crossed the ridges of the Alps, to seek Maastricht, and there to spend the remaining course of his life under the merits and patronage of St. Servatius. Thirdly. He set out for unknown regions; on the journey, through the territory

of Milan, he healed Count Hugbald of a fever. Fourthly. Pursuing the journey he had undertaken, having overcome divers perils of places and of treacherous hosts, he came at last to Maastricht, and there holily fulfilled the remaining time of his life. Fifthly, it is narrated how, when at Maastricht he was wont to visit the church of St. Servatius in the night season, there was once shown to him, by a light poured from heaven, what he had seen at Rome in sleep, and that he was confirmed thereby in his coming to this place. Sixthly and lastly, besides other signs and miracles of this kind wrought there, his continual zeal for prayer in the church of St. Servatius is related; and there he is said to have died on the eighth of the Ides of October, the year of his death not being recorded. In what year and on what day likewise the translation, which is described last, was made from Maastricht to Belisia, is no more expressed. From this Belisian Legend of St. Amor a little book was composed in the German tongue, printed for the nourishing of the people's piety first in the year 1683, secondly in 1698, and thirdly in 1712. In it is said, among other things (which seem fabricated), that St. Amor died in the year 690 on the III day of October. Thus far from the Legend of St. Amor of Belisia: which, if it has any credit among the people of Maastricht, of Belisia, and others, let it have it with our leave. With us it deserves none.

[12] that he is different from the abbot of Amorbach of the same name, Understand that this Belisian Legend deserves no credit among the monks of Amorbach in so far as it is wrongly fitted to their first abbot, as is gathered from the same writer, who goes on to argue thus: That St. Amor whom it depicts, departing from Rome by a command received from heaven, sought Maastricht, and thereafter carried out all the rest of his life at Maastricht. That he might not waver concerning the divine command, he was there taught of its certainty by a new light from heaven. At Maastricht he was assiduous in frequenting the church of St. Servatius. At Maastricht he closed his last day, and (if the popular booklet may be believed) died holily in the Lord in the year 690. But all and each of these things — how wilt thou fit them to our St. Amor and the first abbot of Amorbach? If this man passed the chief part of his life at Maastricht, how then did he act as abbot at Amorbach for forty years and more? But if the first abbot spent so many years upon the monastery of Amorbach, how did he consume the same at Maastricht? One of two things must necessarily follow: either that St. Amor of Belisia is to be distinguished from ours, or that the Legend is false, if thou contendest that it must be understood of our St. Amor and abbot. We grant it credit, if it deserves any among others. But on that credit we distinguish our St. Amor, the first abbot of our monastery, from the other St. Amor, confessor of Belisia, whose recounted chapters of the Legend can in no way suit our Amor.

[13] From the Belisian Legend a popular booklet was patched together, Then he refutes from chronology and several times, as we have already said, given to the press. Yet certain things have been added to it which thou wilt by no means find in the other. That booklet says that St. Amor, when according to the command of St. Peter the Apostle he was journeying to Maastricht, passed through our Odinsylvania, and there turned aside to a little chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary (which we today call the spring of St. Amor), and by his prayers obtained health-giving power for the spring that gushes in that sacred shrine. Of these things the Latin Legend of St. Amor sent to us by the people of Belisia makes not the least mention. Whence who does not see that these are mere arbitrary sayings — not to say fabrications? If St. Amor departed this life at Maastricht in the year 690, at the least twenty years before, that is, about the year 670, he made his journey to Maastricht through this our region, when St. Kilian had not yet come into our Franconia. But who could persuade himself that before that Saint's coming a public church of Christians was raised in this uncultivated wilderness, under a duke still given over to idols? Truer are the things which constant and most ancient tradition, the common sense of all our people, and other monuments elsewhere adduced by us teach concerning the origin of that same sacred shrine raised at the spring of St. Amor. It is plain, therefore, that St. Amor of Belisia is to be distinguished from ours, and that he never came into these parts, nor consequently could have obtained for our spring of St. Amor the power of healing the sick.

[14] It is said moreover in the preface of that same booklet that it was in part collected from the Breviary of the Benedictine Fathers of Amorbach. an objection of his opponents, In this again not the slightest semblance of truth is discovered. Our ancient Fathers and predecessors, since they had no proper Lessons of their holy abbot Amor, used the common ones. After the aforesaid John, a priest (who is falsely called in that same booklet parish priest of Amorbach), had brought in the year 1446 the Legend of St. Amor of Belisia, it was held of so little credit and esteem among our people of Amorbach that it was by no means acknowledged as the genuine Legend of their St. Amor. If any of them, more given to piety than skilled in history, composed for himself, out of his private devotion, Lessons from this Legend, these are of the same stamp as the Legend; and they deserve as little credit as the Legend itself, nor were they ever inserted into the Breviary of the monks of Amorbach: which therefore thou wilt in vain call to the aid of the said booklet (which neither can nor ought to be understood of St. Amor, our first abbot).

[15] It pleases me now to teach the same Keck, or those who favor him, out of Keck's own notes, by which he thought he had illustrated the Belisian Legend of Amor which he brought, and turns it back against them, how far he swerved from the truth while he labored to substitute the other, the Belisian, for our holy abbot Amor. He notes upon the feast of St. Amor on the eighth of the Ides of October that it is celebrated by the people of Amorbach, and by a vow moreover, for reasons of this sort: first, because he is the patron of all, both of those in the cloister and of those in the town and in the whole march of Amorbach. Secondly, because both the cloister and the town and the whole march bear the name received from him. This Keck noted with the intention of showing that the St. Amor whom the people of Amorbach have hitherto honored is that man of Belisia. But in fact he must, whether unknowing or unwilling, conclude quite otherwise from it. That the feast of St. Amor on the eighth of the Ides of October, on which likewise the Belisian is honored, has hitherto been celebrated by the people of Amorbach, does not prove that that St. Amor of Belisia concerns us, as we shall demonstrate a little below.

[16] and from the Saint's patronage, That the feast of St. Amor should be celebrated both in the cloister and in the town was formerly ordained by the abbots of the monastery. But that they, in an ordinance of this holy kind, had regard not to that man of Belisia, of whom they knew nothing, but to their own first abbot St. Amor, no prudent man will doubt. For this was the opinion of all, derived to them from the most ancient times by continuous tradition, and was so even after the new Belisian Legend had arrived — never acknowledged by them as legitimate, never received, but for two hundred years hitherto rejected. The Fathers and abbots of Amorbach knew then nothing of any other St. Amor who should be patron of the monastery than of him who was its first abbot. Him for many centuries past they honored as their patron, whom before those times they had venerated as their father and as the planter of the monastic life in this their very monastery. From that same St. Amor the monastery received its name, who first had the care of it.

[17] from the name of the spring, One and the same is the patron of the cloister and of the town; one and the same is also the author of the name given to both. Keck therefore cuts his own throat with his own sword, when he says, or strives to prove, that the St. Amor who is honored in the chapel zu Sankt-Amors-brunn and in the town and in the cloister of Amorbach is the Belisian. He whom our people honored of old, whom the townsmen of Amorbach honor to this day as patron, from whom the monastery received its name, was St. Amor its first abbot. Since therefore the town of Amorbach honors that same St. Amor whom the monastery honors; since the town and the whole march of Amorbach received its name from that same St. Amor from whom the monastery drew its own, it rightly and necessarily follows that that St. Amor who is honored in the chapel zu Sankt-Amors-brunn, and at whose patronage so many and so wonderful benefits of health are obtained by the faithful, is no other than our St. Amor and the first abbot of the monastery of Amorbach.

[18] with whom many benefits are conferred upon the sick, There is added, on the testimony of Keck himself, that both from the spring and from the chapel of St. Amor the faithful obtained various and plainly stupendous benefits of health at the invocation of that Saint, before he brought his Belisian Legend and set it before the people of Amorbach. But before that time, that is, before the year 1446, neither we nor any of the men of Amorbach either knew of St. Amor of Belisia or thought of him in their prayers or vows. All with unanimous voice and mind called to their aid in their necessities that St. Amor whom they had once had as master of the Christian faith, and at his invocation obtained such benefits as they also obtained afterwards and obtain to this very day. But to whom would it be credible that this our St. Amor had ceased to succor those who prayed to him and invoked him here, and that on the contrary the other, the Belisian, had succeeded him in this office of beneficence and meanwhile taken up his part, after his Legend, with certain particles of his sacred relics, came to us? The signs, therefore, which have long been wrought among us and are wrought daily, make for our St. Amor, and show that he is even today the same who was honored by us three hundred years and more ago, when St. Amor of Belisia was not yet known among us in that age.

[19] And indeed, to establish the distinction of the two St. Amors, from the age of the other St. Amor, arguments (besides those already brought forward) of no light weight, as we judge, convince us. The popular booklet cited above says that St. Amor of Belisia died in the year 690. The venerable Bede in his Martyrology celebrates the memory of St. Amor the confessor on the VIII of the Ides of October. Bede died (on Mabillon's testimony) in the year 735. Therefore St. Amor the confessor must also have died before that year, whom otherwise Bede could not have inscribed in his Martyrology. But our St. Amor only in the year 734 undertook the care of the newly erected monastery, and bore it for thirty-three years more, so that he lived until the year 760 and beyond. It must therefore have been another St. Amor who is said to have died before the venerable Bede, that is, before the year 735, or in the year 690, and who was inscribed by him in the calendars of the Saints. Gropp here argues rightly ad hominem, as they commonly say; but the argument which he draws from the death of the venerable Bede would bind his adversaries more strongly if the pure text of Bede were established, and if we knew for certain that the Martyrologies published under the name of the venerable Bede had not been augmented or interpolated by other later hagiographers.

[20] Meanwhile let us hear Gropp's remaining arguments, which he goes on to set forth thus: by the diversity of the Office and the Mass The same thing is hinted by the difference of cultus and of Office with which that St. Amor of Belisia and ours are celebrated in either place. At Belisia he is honored with the Office and Mass of the Common of a confessor not a bishop, with the Gospel SINT LUMBI VESTRI. The feast of our St. Amor, before the Belisian Legend came to us, was from the most ancient times always celebrated by the people of Amorbach with the Office and Mass of Abbots. After more than two hundred years from the receiving of the oft-named Legend, it was now and then proposed by one man, out of his private devotion, to the rest, that they should conform themselves to the people of Belisia. But when others more rightly observed that a rite of Office of that Belisian kind did not suit our St. Amor as an abbot, laying it aside they retained the most ancient custom and rite, which is kept to this day by the people of Amorbach, with the celebration of the Office of Abbots and the Mass with the Gospel: Behold, we have left all things.

[21] That among the people of Amorbach the feast of St. Amor has hitherto been celebrated on one and the same day he solidly proves, on which the people of Belisia honor their St. Amor, namely the eighth of October, does not prove that there is but one St. Amor. It is very frequent in Martyrologies that on one and the same day there is now and then the memory of two or more Saints of the same name, whom you would ill confound, or call one, on account of the identity of name. Certainly it does not follow that Saints of the same name and commemorated on the same day in the Martyrologies can be confounded into one: for on the XIV day of February our predecessors distinguished among themselves six or seven Saints of the same name, called by the name of Valentine. So also on the XV day of March they exhibited the Acts of three different women who were called by the proper name of Matrona. So finally, on the XIX day of August, God favoring, we shall illustrate three Saints, great in name and in fact, whom we judge to differ from one another. The curious reader will easily find in our work many other distinctions of Saints of the same name.

[22] that the Saint of Amorbach differs entirely from the other of Belisia. For us in this place it is enough to have confirmed by these few examples the opinion of the most learned Gropp, who at length thus puts an end to his preliminary Disquisition: Since through the injuries of time the most ancient deeds and monuments of the first abbots of Amorbach had perished, the memory of their death also at last fell away. Yet the fame of their sanctity endured, which the books of other writers preserved. But after it had been resolved by our people to venerate St. Amor, their first abbot, with public cultus and Office, and on that occasion they had read in the martyrological and other writers of a certain St. Amor on the VIII day of October, they believed (knowing nothing at all of the Belisian) that he was theirs, and willed the aforesaid day to be his feast. Finally Keck was led into this opinion from the surname of our St. Amor, so as to believe that St. Amor of Belisia was honored among us. He had perhaps read that our St. Amor was a PEREGRINUS, and thence from one Amor he made two, one an abbot and the other a pilgrim, such as that Belisian also was called on account of the pilgrimages he undertook. But the good man had not read the privilege of bishop Widegern granted to St. Pirmin, in which the companions and disciples of that same St. Pirmin (from whose number he will not exclude our St. Amor) are called PILGRIM MONKS, as we have already said elsewhere. Our St. Amor, therefore, was both abbot and pilgrim, and one and the same; nor is it necessary on that account to summon another from far hither to bear such a name of PILGRIM. All these reasonings of Gropp being maturely weighed, we judge it most likely that St. Amor, abbot of Amorbach, is to be distinguished from the other, the confessor of Belisia, as will also be confirmed from the following paragraph.

§ III. The praised writer sets forth the present veneration of St. Amor, and shows that it was always paid by the more prudent to the first abbot of the monastery of Amorbach.

The historian of Amorbach explains, Here again I freely transcribe the most learned Gropp, who, because of the documents of Amorbach which he examined and because of his nearness to the place, is worthy of great credit, and who carries out both matters proposed in the title at page 47 and following of his History, in these words: Since St. Amor, while yet living in this mortal life, already shone with such holiness that very many asked and obtained help from him in their necessities, after his death also he was called to their aid by the same with so much the greater confidence and devotion as they were now more certain of his eminent merits and glory. From his very death the holy abbot began to be honored by the people. That already three hundred years ago it was an immemorial custom to make pilgrimage to the spring of St. Amor and there to offer little children to God, the monuments of the writings of Amorbach teach. Devotion of this kind is observed to this present day with great religion. Not only the neighbors, but those dwelling farther off, from fourteen miles and more, make pilgrimages for their vows to this spring and chapel of St. Amor. At every season of the year such pilgrims come; in summer they are most numerous, who bring their children with them, that they may either obtain health for them through the merits of the holy abbot, or render him thanks for health already received, paying their vows.

[24] Among other things the common people observe in this chapel of St. Amor a wonderful custom and rite of devotion. by what rite Those who suffer in head or neck, in breast, hand, or foot, in order to obtain health, or, having obtained it, to show themselves thankful, put such members into the bell-ropes which hang down in the middle of the chapel before the sanctuary. Some entangle a foot in the ropes, some their arms, some their neck, some finally their breast, and with these members, with the help of the hand, they draw the bells, so that they sound several times. The children, who are unequal to pulling the bells, are helped by their parents or others of their household: which ringing in the summer season, when the people come more thickly, is heard on feast days and Sundays almost all day long. The offerings which are made by the faithful to God and to St. Amor are various and abundant. Very many votive Masses are provided throughout the year both by the natives and by strangers. Among the other days, the townsmen and those nearer for the most part observe Friday, on which they are wont to visit the chapel and there to give themselves to their devotion. Every other week also the community of Amorbach goes to the said chapel on whatever day it pleases; where, one officiating at the altar, the rest recite the lesser hours, namely Sext and None. That the feast of St. Amor should be celebrated both in the town and in the monastery was of old ordained by the abbots. Whether it has hitherto been rightly celebrated on the VIII day of October, on which another St. Amor of Belisia is honored, I would have you determine from what I said above at number 9 concerning the distinction of the two St. Amors.

[25] But now by ordinance of the most reverend archiepiscopal Vicariate of Mainz it has been established, and at what time St. Amor is honored in Franconia, and promulgated at the celebration of the jubilee of Amorbach, that the feast of St. Amor, first abbot of Amorbach, be henceforth celebrated yearly on the XVII day of August. In the monastery indeed it will be celebrated under a double rite of the second class. In the chapel of Amorsbrunn the sacred rite has hitherto been celebrated by the parish priest of the town, the inhabitants and neighbors flocking in great numbers. When that feast has fallen on a Sunday, a sermon is moreover preached there. In the same chapel also public and festive divine worship is performed in the morning by the aforesaid parish priest on the second day of Easter and of Pentecost (before, on this last day, the processions of the neighboring places come into the church of the monastery), the divine service otherwise customary in the parish church being omitted on those days. The same is done on the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, when there is always a great number of those who confess and communicate. On the second day of Pentecost there have hitherto been plenary Indulgences there, which any one who is then hindered may gain on any other day whatever, when he first visits that chapel. St. Amor is honored and invoked as patron in various necessities and afflictions, as is plain from the benefits recounted above as obtained through him: namely in fevers, in pains of the head, of the teeth, of the eyes, &c., in contractions and other infirmities. He is invoked also by pregnant women, by those drawing near to childbirth, and by those laboring in childbirth itself; by the barren, very many of whom, drinking from St. Amor's spring, have obtained fruitfulness and offspring from God.

[26] Moreover that all these tokens of public veneration which have hitherto been reported are paid there by the learned to no other Saint than to the first abbot of the monastery of Amorbach, and he discovers the cause for which this holy abbot the said Gropp endeavors to establish by the following reasoning: We have proved effectually enough in the preliminary Disquisition the distinction of the two St. Amors, of Amorbach and of Belisia. Another doubt remains, not for us, but for the unlearned: which of them is honored today in the chapel of Amorsbrunn, and is henceforth to be honored. That our St. Amor and abbot is in fact honored there we have said hitherto. But if thou shouldst inquire of the unlearned crowd, unskilled in these matters, concerning this St. Amor, not a few of them will name the Belisian. This ignorance of the crowd would have to be borne with equanimity, were it not that even those who wish to seem sounder go off into that most false opinion, or feign to go off into it. But how erroneously such men judge, and how far they let themselves be led away from the truth by false rumor, we have thought must here be demonstrated professedly (as it is said); which likewise we have elsewhere set forth more fully in the preface to the Life of St. Amor of Amorbach published in the common tongue.

[27] is confounded by the unskilled populace with another Saint of the same name, The occasion of the error was of this kind. When St. Amor had passed his life in holiness, after his death also he was honored by the people with the veneration and cultus due to the Saints; and him whom, while he lived with them on earth, they had found a most pious father, afterwards, reigning in heaven, they likewise called to their aid. This devotion of the people toward St. Amor was propagated through seven centuries, according to the variety of times and circumstances. The Legend of his Life, which the people of Amorbach had composed, was meanwhile lost through various chances and the injury of time. It seemed to conduce to the increase of the people's devotion if some description or Legend of St. Amor's Life were had, to be offered to the people. A certain clerk, John Keck, staying about the year 1446 in the monastery, while with his own eyes he took in the people's devotion toward St. Amor in the chapel of Amorsbrunn, in the town, and in the cloister, began to search out the life of this Saint. And when he had found none at Amorbach, he did not cease to inquire among foreigners, until at last among the people of Belisia he found a certain St. Amor and his Legend. This he presently brought with him to Amorbach, that he might have thence more and newer things to tell the people of Amorbach concerning St. Amor. But he depicted St. Amor, hitherto honored at Amorbach, in such colors of eulogy that he plainly fashioned quite another Saint than in fact he was. For he told the inhabitants and neighbors that their St. Amor, whom hitherto they had not known, rested at Belisia and was there honored. And since besides he had brought some sacred relics of him along with the Legend,

he easily persuaded the people (who are wont rather to believe simply than to examine sayings of this kind) that their Saint Amor, whom they honored, was buried at Belisia.

[28] and imputes it to a certain good clerk, But would that the devout man had examined the Legend as carefully in the scales of truth as he drew from it pious exhortations for the people! Truly he would have omitted what he did inconsiderately. For indeed the Legend of that St. Amor of Belisia, surveyed again and again with attentive eye and mind, does not fit St. Amor of Amorbach to a jot, as we showed above at numbers 1 and 2. But if so great a discrepancy was known to Keck, I know not with what face, with what boldness, he dared to interpret it of our St. Amor and to transfer the veneration of the latter to another hitherto unknown. To the Belisian Legend itself I here appeal, with the learned reader, if some day it should be given to the light. We have consulted several manuscript copies of the Belisian Legend, which we have laid up in our chests for the VIII day of October. But in truth that St. Amor of Belisia is never called abbot, and is nowhere said to have been in Franconia, or there to have obtained by his prayers a wondrous healthfulness for a spring — all which things are handed down of St. Amor, abbot of Amorbach.

[29] Hence we easily persuade ourselves that Keck wrongly applied the Acts of St. Amor of Belisia to St. Amor of Amorbach, who applied the Acts of one Saint to another (as often happens) and that others afterwards mingled the Acts of the two Saints of the same name — as not seldom happens, when the deeds of one or the other Saint are unknown: for the Acts of St. Tatiana the martyr are circulated as like the Acts of St. Martina, and the Acts of St. Ephysius are confused with the Acts of St. Procopius, as Bolland warned on the XII and XV days of January, pages 720 and 997. So also on the XVIII day of the same month the Acts of St. Prisca are confused with the Acts of SS. Tatiana and Martina, as was said in vol. 2, page 183. In our work, vol. 2 of February, page 742; vol. 4 of May, pages 144 and 304; and elsewhere, like confusions of Acts are noted. We say nothing here of St. Eugenius, whose Acts we discussed on the XXIX day of July: for since two abbeys in Germany had some years ago obtained the body of a certain St. Eugenius, an unknown martyr, from the Roman catacombs, the monks of those monasteries attributed the Acts of St. Eugenius or Eugegius, a known martyr, to their unknown Saints, as we ourselves observed in vol. 7 of July, page 31 and following.

[30] Yet we do not on that account charge Keck with bad faith, and whose error we excuse by a certain example. who seems innocently to have applied the Legend of St. Amor of Belisia to St. Amor of Amorbach, in order to increase the veneration of one or the other Saint and to satisfy the common people, who desire to know the deeds of the Saints whom they honor. Perhaps that Keck was not altogether unlike another good man, whose wondrous simplicity in this matter I shall now briefly indicate. When a pious religious of a most holy Order had some years ago received the body of a certain unknown female Saint from the Roman catacombs, he thought the hagiographers of Antwerp should be asked to compose for him an elegant Legend of that Saint. And he was so liberal that he gave them the choice whether they preferred to present her under the title of virgin, or of martyr, or of widow, provided only they adorned the whole matter with beautiful episodes. Those hagiographers suspected that they were being mocked by some unknown person under a feigned religious name. Wherefore they consulted a friend dwelling in the same city from which that simple man had sent his letter, and prudently inquired whether such a religious of that Order really dwelt there. The truth of the matter being ascertained, that friend went to the man himself and reproved his imprudence, in that he had asked a fabulous Legend to be made by those who were wont to condemn the fables occurring in the Acts of the Saints. But the man, by no means bad, frankly answered that he had done this only to this end, that he might render the cultus of this unknown Saint more illustrious and propagate it farther.

[31] These things being observed in passing, we go on with the learned Gropp, Then that writer learnedly dissolves certain slight arguments, who then dissolves thus certain objections perhaps to be raised against his opinion: Meanwhile, he says, we discuss the man's slightest little reasons, from which he seduced himself and others into a most false opinion. First, he seems to have reasoned thus with himself, which some do even today: "The people of Amorbach know nothing of their St. Amor whom they honor, nothing of his deeds, life, and burial. At Belisia there rests a St. Amor whose Legend is had. Therefore this is he whom the people of Amorbach honor." A wonderful conclusion indeed — such as a beginner in Dialectics would scarcely have framed! We grant that the people of Amorbach did not possess in Keck's time exact knowledge of St. Amor, of his life and death, which we grieve was lost through the unfairness of fortune and of the times. But they knew nevertheless that he had been their apostle, their master in the faith, the abbot of their monastery; that he had shone with miracles in his life, that he had passed it in holiness, and that on that account they had called him their patron, had hitherto honored him so earnestly and religiously, and had obtained through him very many benefits, &c. — all which things assuredly I know not what sane man would assign to St. Amor of Belisia. Suppose the people of Amorbach had not known even these things; is St. Amor of Belisia on that account to be reckoned as honored by them, because it is known that some St. Amor rests at Belisia? What forbids that two or more St. Amors, in fact distinct, should be honored in different places?

[32] which can be objected to his opinion, Nevertheless, in proof of a false opinion of this kind it is inferred, secondly: "On one and the same day the feast of St. Amor is celebrated at Belisia and at Amorbach; therefore it is one and the same Saint in both places." Whoever argues thus is plainly ignorant of the history of the Saints. Let a Martyrology be inspected even cursorily, to see whether in many places on one and the same day two or more Saints of the same name are not read, of whom one is honored in this place, another in that; whom to confound or to call one and the same no one assuredly will dare, save one who should wish maliciously to pervert the histories of the Saints. How it came about that the people of Amorbach have hitherto celebrated the feast of their holy patron Amor on that day on which another St. Amor is honored at Belisia; and likewise whether this has hitherto been rightly done, we have said above. Thirdly it is said: "St. Amor, who is honored in the chapel of Amorsbrunn, is called PILGRIM, such as that Belisian was; therefore he is honored in the said chapel." Again a most false inference. The Belisian St. Amor was called PEREGRINUS, that is, in the common tongue ein Pilgram, from his pilgrimage to Rome. St. Amor the abbot also was called PEREGRINUS, not indeed such and in the sense in which the Belisian was, but so called from his journeys into these distant lands, undertaken for the love of Christ and for the sake of preaching His Gospel. Nor was our Amor alone, but his master St. Pirmin also, and all his companions, called PILGRIMS. Let what we have said elsewhere on this matter above, at number 10, and likewise in part 1, number 10, be seen. But from all these things nothing is drawn out in favor of the Belisian St. Amor.

[33] [and demonstrates that this cultus is paid to the first abbot of the monastery of Amorbach.] Another devised an argument seemingly more effective, which was inserted into the popular booklet on the Life of St. Amor. He says that St. Amor (he means the Belisian), when he was going from Rome to Maastricht as he had been bidden, made his journey through Germany and the Odonian forest, and here in the valley which we today call that of Amorsbrunn visited a chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and, having performed his devotion, by giving a blessing to the spring gushing in that same chapel obtained from God its health-bringing power. By this most false little tale very many have been deceived, as many as hitherto believed that St. Amor of Belisia was honored in the said chapel of Amorsbrunn. For it is most false that St. Amor of Belisia visited a chapel in that place, or obtained that power for the spring gushing there. For by what reason, by what way could he visit a chapel which in that age did not exist there? Before the times of St. Kilian (I speak to those skilled in the history of Franconia) the Christians — of whom there were scarcely any, and those very few, in Franconia — had no public church. But the journey of St. Amor of Belisia through these lands preceded the coming of St. Kilian by nearly twenty years. But not even the Legend of this St. Amor reports anything of this journey of his through Germany and Odinsylvania, nothing of the visitation of this chapel, nothing of the power obtained for the spring, although it diligently recounts his other deeds; so that the author of a little tale of that sort is deservedly to be convicted of fiction and falsehood. From which it is plainly evident how enormously they have been deceived who believed that heavenly power of the spring to have been obtained by the Belisian St. Amor.

[34] That the spring gushing there has a healing power we do not deny, [and demonstrates that this cultus is paid to the first abbot of the monastery of Amorbach.] to which the so many restorations of health brought back from it bear witness. But no other than St. Amor the abbot obtained it for that spring from God by his prayers and merits; on account of which and of other miracles wrought by him he was honored with constant devotion by the people of Amorbach and by those spread about through Odinsylvania, and called to their aid, as has been narrated above. This St. Amor the people of Amorbach chose as their apostle and doctor of the faith, and as patron of the monastery, of the town, and of the whole march, and willed to be distinguished by his name. To him the faithful at all times directed their prayers and vows, never thinking of, never knowing anything of, another St. Amor of Belisia. Through this their Amor, whom from the first and most ancient times hence they have honored, they have obtained so many benefits of health and other graces, no other St. Amor being implored for the same. We must persist, therefore, in the first and most ancient veneration, and by it St. Amor, abbot of the monastery of Amorbach, must be perpetually honored in the chapel of Amorsbrunn, in the monastery, and in the town. Let the people of Amorbach venerate St. Amor, their apostle, doctor of the faith, and patron, with constant devotion; nor will St. Amor of Belisia envy them, who knows full well that it is not due to him. There is no doubt that the people of Belisia attend him with all devotion; and so each St. Amor will enjoy among his own that veneration of which each is worthy for his merits before God. To us this seems a fair arrangement, with which we trust the people of Belisia will be content. Now further we shall discourse, without any partisan zeal, concerning some uncertain or controverted matters pertaining to this holy abbot of Amorbach.

§ IV. The Saint's uncertain country, the probable manner of his life, and the doubtful year of his death.

Some think that St. Pirmin and St. Amor John George von Eckhart, in the words reported in §1, number 7, hints that St. Pirmin, founder of the monastery of Amorbach, and St. Amor, its first abbot, were Scots by nation. Nay more, afterwards, in book 27 of his History of Franconia, chapter 10, or vol. 2, page 23, he repeats the same opinion or tradition more clearly in these words: They say

as we have already said above, that it was founded by St. Pirmin the Scot, and that its first abbot Amator was a Scot. Therefore it is likely that at this time also Scots were still living there. Let no one wonder that Scots journeyed to lands so far distant from their own country, since our Bolland, on the [ ] day of February, in the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of Bl. Marianus Scotus, vol. 2 of that month, page 361, has shown that already for ten centuries many Scots dwelt in various monasteries of Gaul and Germany. Certainly Wolfgang Lazius, in his work On the Migration of Peoples, book 7, mentioning certain apostles of the Bavarians, indicates that St. Pirmin was by nation an Englishman or a Scot, when in that place, at page 231 in our copy, he writes thus: And so Wigbrod, a certain Englishman or Scot, pitying this fall of the tottering Christian commonwealth, set out to lead the Bavarians back once more to the fold of Christ. But when he accomplished little with Duke Hugobert, father of Odilo, he induced his own countrymen — who were strong in greater authority of speaking and persuading, and in a more illustrious continence of life — Pirmin, Corbinian, and Emmeran, to set out to lead the Bavarians back to Christ and to lay out their labor in the Lord's vineyard.

[36] were Scots by nation; Lazius, in the same book 7, at page 233 in our copy, gives this Pirmin the title of blessed, and declares him the founder of various monasteries in Germany, in these words: We have adduced these things concerning the church of the Bavarians at some length, that the fair reader may understand of how great a task it was (as he says) to found it; to which work blessed Pirmin, who built the monastery of Niederaltaich about the year of salvation 742, and a certain Rasso, count of Andechs, whom the Germans called Sankt Gaffrat, lent their labor and zeal, as the family annals show. Hence Thomas Dempster reckons St. Pirmin among his own countrymen, and announces him thus on the third day of November in his Scottish Menology: Among the Bavarians and Avars, Pirmin, the first apostle of that nation. He, the first abbot of the rich Reichenau, labored much for the conversion of the unbelievers, and drove the serpents from the island of Reichenau; another than the bishop of Meaux. Whether that St. Pirmin was the bishop of Meaux may be inquired on the third day of November, along with Mabillon, who in the Benedictine Century III, part 2, page 136, illustrated his Life with preliminary observations.

[37] but Gropp judges them to be Aquitanians, Meanwhile let us hear Gropp discoursing, who in part 1 of the History of Amorbach, chapter 1, §6, denies that St. Pirmin or St. Amor were Scots by nation, and rejects Eckhart's opinion just mentioned in this manner: That the first inhabitants of the place (namely of the monastery of Amorbach, of which he there treats) were brought by St. Pirmin, at the invitation of Count Ruthard of Frankenberg, to this woody and mountainous solitude, is plain from what has been said. But from what country each of them came, who shall divine? That some were Scots we do not deny to Eckhart. That all were sprung from Scotland we do not believe. That St. Pirmin himself was a Frank by nation is certain to Mabillon. That this Saint chose companions for himself, some at least, from that same country of his, it is most natural to believe. That St. Amator, Pirmin's disciple and the first abbot of the place, drew his origin not from Scotland but from Aquitaine, even the name alone of Amor or Amator indicates, just as Amandus, Amatus, and other names of this kind are Aquitanian. That others besides from the same kingdom were present we do not doubt. But after (if Frisius speaks truly) some of the companions of St. Burchard were directed to the Odonian cells, it is exceedingly credible that Scots were among them. But it is also established that afterwards, in the times of Charlemagne and Louis, several of the Scottish nation inhabited the monastery of Amorbach, and were thence summoned to the conversion of the Saxons. Saints Patto, Tanco, Nortylas, Harruchus, and other abbots of Amorbach and first bishops of Verden were all from Scotland, the chronicle of that church and Mabillon agreeing. Thus far Gropp, whose reasoning must now be briefly examined.

[38] In the first place we do not understand how it can be certain to Mabillon which opinion seems contrary to Rabanus Maurus, that St. Pirmin was a Frank by nation, since Mabillon himself, in the Benedictine Century III, part 2, page 137, in the preliminary Observations to the Acts of St. Pirmin, number 3, notes the following: The writer of the Life is silent concerning Pirmin's country; nor does Rabanus Maurus sufficiently indicate it, who affirms that Pirmin forsook his country, his people, and his kinsfolk and sought the nation of the Franks. We have no leisure to guess. Nor does it please us to divine. But if it were permitted to make a conjecture, from the words of Rabanus Maurus just reported we should infer, not altogether improbably, that St. Pirmin was not a Frank by nation: for if that Saint forsook his country and his kinsfolk and sought the nation of the Franks, as Rabanus Maurus testifies, how can he be called a Frank by nation, and be called a pilgrim among those among whom he had been born? How did St. Pirmin, having left his country, seek the Franks, if he had his birth in the kingdom of the Franks? These and like things may be more fully discussed and brought back to the anvil on the third day of November, when the Acts of St. Pirmin will come up to be illustrated.

[39] Perhaps some one with Gropp will cite against these my words the Benedictine Annals, and this dispute can be decided neither from Mabillon's Annals, in which Mabillon at the year of Christ 724, book 20, number 65, or vol. 2, page 73, afterwards wrote this concerning St. Pirmin: That he was only a Frank is certain to me. But first we ask whence it is certain to Mabillon that St. Pirmin was a Frank by nation. Why did he not prove that origin of his from ancient monuments? Why does Mabillon say in this very place of the Annals that Pirmin's country and rank are uncertain? Nay, concerning his rank that learned writer doubts whether and where he was a bishop, although by the not very accurate author of his Life he is said to have had the seat of his bishopric in the castle of Meltis. Then, on the authority of Hermann Contractus, he admits that St. Pirmin was more probably a chorepiscopus; but not daring to divine in what place he discharged the office of chorepiscopus, he at last immediately subjoins this: That he was only a Frank is certain to me; and, if he was only a chorepiscopus, certainly it was with the episcopal character. To us Mabillon seems to be so explained as though he wished to signify that St. Pirmin's chorepiscopate was certainly Frankish, or situated in France. Thus we interpret it, that we may reconcile Mabillon with himself. But if any one contends that this must be understood of St. Pirmin's country, he will have to confirm this assertion of his with solid arguments.

[40] Besides, the Gropp praised above infers from the name of St. Amor or Amator nor can it be decided from St. Amor's name. that he was an Aquitanian by race. But this slight reason moves us not at all, or little: for in the Scottish Menology of Dempster and Camerarius are found very many names of Scottish saints which are very like the Latin and the Aquitanian. Wherefore we frankly confess that the country of St. Amor the abbot is unknown to us. If, however, this Saint could from some quarter be proved by solid reasoning to be a Scot, an Englishman, or an Irishman, we should have a new argument by which to distinguish him from Amor of Belisia, who in various copies of the Acts is also recorded to have drawn his origin from Aquitaine. Finally, on that hypothesis the name of pilgrim will suit our St. Amor and his companions excellently, concerning which Gropp there reasons thus: By a common word all were called PILGRIM MONKS, because, namely, for the love of Christ, leaving their native soil, they had set out abroad into foreign regions to undertake the preaching of the Christian law. An example of such an appellation occurs in the Life of St. Kilian (he was a Scot by race, as we said in vol. 2 of July, page 600), where Geilana, after the murder inflicted upon the holy man and his companions, being asked by her husband the duke concerning their absence, answered that the holy men had departed again ACCORDING TO THE MANNER OF THEIR PILGRIMAGE. Widegern, bishop of Strasbourg, in the privilege which he granted to St. Pirmin and his monastery of Murbach, constantly calls all the companions and monks of St. Pirmin, dwelling in whatever monastery, by no other title than that of PILGRIM MONKS. You would also most deservedly call them missionaries, who, discharging in fact most skilfully the office of such an apostolic mission, not only sowed the word of God in a region so rough and bristling with woods and mountains, and made it, together with its inhabitants, gentler, but also planted with poured-out blood the church of Verden among the Saxons.

[41] The Saint's probable manner of life is reported, Now we shall treat briefly of the probable manner of life which St. Amor professed, and which the oft-cited Gropp explains at page 36 of his History of Amorbach in these words: That St. Amor was sprung from Aquitaine the name itself indicates. Amator, Amatus, Amandus, Amantia (who was the mother of St. Amandus) are Aquitanian names. Where he embraced the monastic institute we have not yet ascertained. It is likely that he was a monk with his master St. Pirmin in the monastery of Fossatum (which afterwards took its name from the relics of St. Maurus translated thither). Being enlisted by that same St. Pirmin, when he was preaching the faith of Christ in Odinsylvania, along with some other monks, or setting out to him of his own accord, he spent his labor upon him in that apostolic office. Thence he drew the name of PILGRIM, as did the rest of his fellow-laborers. That he was a priest, the functions of that office prove: for it was not enough to preach only, that the faith of Christ might be planted in those parts, that peoples might be gathered into the Roman Church, and that the faithful might be fed; it was necessary besides to consecrate and administer the Sacraments, to lend ear to penitents, to say Masses, to distribute the sacred Eucharist, to anoint the dying with holy oil. And these are the offices of priests.

[42] which is wanting in proof from more ancient instruments, How diligently St. Amor labored in promoting the Christian faith the manuscript Chronicles of Würzburg testify. It is established from them that St. Amor with his companions toiled at the conversion of the people of Odinsylvania at the time when St. Burchard was spending his own labor and that of his followers upon the people of Würzburg; also that a great friendship and familiarity existed between the two, and that with united forces they wonderfully propagated the Christian cause throughout Franconia. That Amor shone with singular holiness of life, and that it was moreover confirmed by God with miracles while he was yet living, Meginfred, the chronographer of Fulda, testifies; but what those miracles were he did not express, nor has knowledge of them anywhere hitherto been handed down. We believe that the chief of them was this, that he obtained from God for the spring gushing in the sacred little chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary zu Sankt-Amors-brunn the power of bringing health to the sick. That he moreover frequently brought help in various sicknesses, and especially to sick children, we conjecture from this, that to this day he is invoked as patron against various infirmities. What benefits the faithful obtained through him in the first years and centuries after his death have all perished. Of the later ones we shall report some in their place. We do not deny that most of these things are likely; but we could wish to see them confirmed by ancient testimonies. Would that the most learned Gropp had at least published the manuscript Chronicles of Würzburg, which he here cites, among the Proofs of his History, along with the other instruments, and had indicated approximately their antiquity!

[43] Now must be reported the chronological disputation concerning the year and concerning the uncertain time of his death, in which St. Amor the abbot is believed to have died, which Gropp sets forth at page 37 in this manner: In what year our St. Amor passed from this mortal life to the eternal we have hitherto nowhere ascertained. Bucelinus in his Menology and Benedict Cherle in the Benedictine Martyrology celebrate the memory of St. Amor on the XVII day of August, on which, according to these writers, he seems to have died. The St. Amor whom the venerable Bede inscribed in his Martyrology on the VIII of the Ides of October must needs be the Belisian. That we may ascertain the year in which our St. Amor probably died, other traces must be sought out. The inscriptions which we have exhibited elsewhere concerning the foundation of Amorbach say that St. Amor presided over that monastery forty-three years. The same thing we also read elsewhere. If you should wish to reckon these years from the foundation of the present monastery (which the inscriptions also seem to hint), namely from the year 734, in which we have said that St. Amor was set over it by St. Pirmin, you will carry his life down to the year 777, in which the forty-three years of his rule were completed, and in which the holy abbot must have died.

[44] But this reckoning of years does not please, because it advances the holy abbot to that old age which no one will easily believe he attained amid so many and so great labors and sweats. about which Gropp disputes, From all the circumstances and indications I gather that St. Amor, when in the year 734 he was appointed abbot of the new and second monastery erected in Odinsylvania, was at least forty years old. Since already long before the year 724, when St. Pirmin was going to Reichenau and thence to Rome, Amor filled his place both in the monastery and in the apostolic mission in these parts, as we have said elsewhere, it must be believed that already then, namely in the year 724 or earlier, he had reached the thirtieth year of his age: for a lesser age does not seem to have been admitted by St. Pirmin for the discharge of such functions among men already mature in apostolic labors. Add to these thirty years ten others following, up to the year 734, in which he was made abbot of the new monastery, and you will now reckon forty years of his age. To these again add the remaining forty-three years of his rule, and you will carry his whole age to eighty-three years. But who would believe that a man wearied by various labors, journeys, preachings, and countless cares reached so many years? That he could have reached them we do not gainsay; but we think that an age must be granted him which does not easily exceed the belief of men, nor our own tradition concerning his rule. Both these we think we accomplish in this way.

[45] It has been said often that St. Amor bore the care and rule, as abbot of both, not only of the present monastery of Amorbach from its foundation, but also of that first one, and which he fixes at the year of Christ 767, already from the year 724, when St. Pirmin departed to Reichenau. The inscriptions cited above and the authors who attribute forty-three years to St. Amor in the abbatial rule do not distinguish between the presidency of the two monasteries, as they ought to have distinguished. We too concede to St. Amor, according to the sense of the inscriptions, forty-three years; but of these he spent the first ten in the rule of the first and ancient little monastery from the year 724, and the remaining thirty-three from the year 734 in the rule of the new monastery, which at last in the year 767 he ended together with his life, when he was in the seventy-third year of his age. We judge therefore, so far as it is permitted to judge from the reasons and indications hitherto adduced, that St. Amor died about the year 767 on the XVII day of August, in the seventy-third year of his age, having holily presided over both monasteries of Amorbach for forty-three years. And in accordance with this I wish recalled and amended what I said in the preface to the Life of St. Bilhildis published in the year 1727, page 16, concerning the death of this holy abbot; likewise concerning his successor St. Patto, and the latter's elevation to the see of Verden, in the notes there: for I had not then the means and occasion, as now, of inspecting more deeply the documents of the men of Amorbach.

[46] nothing certain is established. Since an old age of eighty-three years, even in a most laborious man, is not so prodigious that from it anything certain concerning the year of St. Amor's death can be established, we do not dare deny that this holy abbot lived until the year of Christ 777. There is added that the ancient inscriptions of Amorbach hint that St. Amor presided for forty-three years over one and the same monastery, which was built in the year 734. Certainly in Gropp, at page 10 of the History of Amorbach, in a very ancient inscription these words are read: In the year of the Lord's Nativity 734, in the second Roman Indiction, Leo III and Constantine V reigning as emperors, and Gregory III presiding over the Roman Church, the monastery of Amorbach was founded by St. Pirmin … St. Amor, the first abbot, a disciple of the already named Pirmin, presided over the aforesaid monastery forty-three years, and gave the place its name. Since it is here expressly said that St. Amor presided forty-three years over the aforesaid monastery, it seems that one and the same monastery is meant, that which was founded in the year of Christ 734. But because Gropp's contrary reasons are not without probability, we establish nothing certain concerning the time of his death, and at the beginning of this Commentary we have affixed it in the margin to the year 767 or 777.

§ V. The Saint's chief deeds from the tradition and documents of Amorbach.

This Saint's country and profession, Since we have not from any other quarter instruments from which we might draw out the Acts of this St. Amor, here again we follow the oft-praised Gropp, who at page 38 and following of the History of Amorbach, from domestic monuments and other writers, narrates them thus: St. Amor, the first abbot of the monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Odonian forest, was a disciple of St. Pirmin and an Aquitanian by nation. In the monastery of Fossatum (as seems likely) he put on the monk's habit as a young man, in which St. Pirmin also had previously embraced the regular institute. Setting out to him, as he was preaching the faith of Christ in the Odonian forest, together with some other monks, he rendered him strenuous service in that apostolic office. From that office of preaching, which, having left his country, he had undertaken for the love of Christ, journeying abroad into this distant region, he acquired the name of PILGRIM together with the rest of St. Pirmin's companions. And St. Amor so strenuously and holily fulfilled the parts of such an office that after his master St. Pirmin, when the latter was elsewhere, he stood forth as the first and chief promoter and head of that apostolic mission. In regular observance also and in zeal for a holier life he so excelled that he deserved to be preferred to the rest.

[48] When St. Pirmin before the year 724 was going to Reichenau; his apostolic zeal, and when, driven from Reichenau, returning in the year 727, he departed into Alsace, he committed to St. Amor his disciple the office of the preaching he had undertaken, to be strenuously promoted by himself and his companions, and moreover the care of the monastery in the wilderness of Odinsylvania, and willed him to be its abbot. Meanwhile Count Ruthard and Duke Charles, at the repeated prayers of St. Pirmin and the monks, found for them a new monastery, whose rising fabric St. Amor chiefly cared for. The work being at length completed, St. Amor was appointed and confirmed abbot of this new monastery also. But that St. Amor might the more happily carry out the province committed to him, and might extend the Christian religion farther in Odinsylvania, he was now most zealous. That our St. Amor cultivated close friendship with St. Burchard, who among the people of Würzburg was greatly promoting the Christian cause, the manuscript Chronicles of Würzburg testify. That these holy men often took counsel together concerning so great a business as each was carrying on, there is no doubt.

[49] St. Amor, for the strengthening of the Christian religion among his people of Odinsylvania, his industry in establishing the Christian faith, and thence for propagating it more widely, used a means most apt for this matter, when he cared above all for the instruction of boys, and to that end opened schools in his monastery. The holy man knew that the age of boys is waxen and most apt for receiving whatever forms. Therefore that they might be imbued in their still tender age with the precepts and the sacred things of Christianity, he applied all care and diligence. He himself busied himself first with calling boys and girls to him, coaxing them, and winning their minds. Then he taught the first elements of the Christian faith, prayers, and finally the higher precepts, and formed them to all honorable behavior. When they were grown and more fit, he instructed them in letters, applied them to studies, and trained them in the holier sciences. So great a love of Amor toward the boys called forth their parents also to a love of the holy abbot. They vied in offering their sons to the holy abbot, leaving them to his care and instruction, and at last receiving them back from him well trained in Christian manners and sciences.

[50] Others also sought from the holy man bodily health for their sons when they were sick. his mercy toward the sick, When newborn infants seemed in peril of life, they were offered to the holy abbot for baptism, that with holy baptism he might confer health upon them besides — which very frequently came to pass. Meanwhile the fame of St. Amor is spread more widely; the concourse of people flowing to him from every side and awaiting his help increases. And so the holy man, since he was of great merits before God, brought aid in various infirmities, but chiefly to those laboring under fever. But that, once dead, he might leave behind him a perpetual and ever-present remedy against various sicknesses, he obtained from God by his prayers and merits a wondrous power for the spring gushing at the church of the earliest monastery, sacred to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The man of God was wont, together with his companions, after they had received the new monastery, frequently to go to the church where they had dwelt at the beginning, and there to venerate greatly the Mother of God; so that deservedly that sacred little chapel, on account of St. Amor's frequenting it and the health-bringing power obtained for the spring, was called by posterity the Spring of St. Amor. Afterwards in many and various sicknesses the holy abbot, now taken up among the citizens of heaven, showed and still shows his help to those who invoke him in this sacred shrine, as will appear from his miracles or benefits of this kind to be recounted below.

[51] his care for his monastery, As solicitous and zealous as the holy abbot was, with his companions, in promoting the faith and the Christian cause in Odinsylvania, so beneficent and liberal was he in relieving the necessities of the inhabitants and of others in need. The founders had endowed the newly erected monastery with ample and many estates, but for the greatest part still wooded and untilled. The monks, who bestowed their chief labor upon instructing minds and winning souls, had not much time to spare for tilling the fields. Meanwhile there were not wanting those who continually sought help from the monks. That they might satisfy their prayers and their need, they handed over to them some of the monastery's estates, that they might till them for their own support, under yearly rents to be paid to the monastery. Those who had received such goods in the neighborhood of the monastery moreover built houses in that same neighborhood, that they might be nearer for tilling them. Imitating these,

others followed, who took their living either from the daily alms received from the monastery or from other work bestowed upon that same monastery. And at length by that means it came to pass that in the following centuries, the brambles being cut away here and there, the region, tilled into fields, grew gentle, and a more numerous people dwelt in it. But of this by design elsewhere.

[52] and other deeds are reported from more recent documents, For the rest, although the holy abbot undertook so many and so great labors in advancing the Christian cause, in helping his neighbors and succoring their necessities both of body and of soul, so that he seems to have devoted himself wholly and solely to such business, nevertheless he instructed his monks in the cloister by word and example, and moreover with those precepts of a holier life and that doctrine which after ages and the whole Church looked up to in them with eternal praise. So that the monastery of St. Amor was held a storehouse of doctrine and of sanctity, from which teachers were summoned for the conversion of nations, and rulers and bishops for the establishing of churches; who, having obtained such dignities, adorned them with the glory of sanctity and the palm of martyrdom. In this one thing we, the successors and sons of such holy Fathers, are unhappy, that the knowledge of such great virtues and illustrious deeds has not come to us entire, being for the most part blotted out by the injuries of times and of wars. The other benefits which in the last ages down to our own the faithful have obtained through St. Amor — a few out of very many have been noted, which we shall report a little below. At length the holy man, full of days and of merits, about the year of Christ 767, when from the morning to the evening of his life he had labored unweariedly in tilling the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth, bearing the burden of the day and the heat, was called through a blessed death into heaven, that he might receive from the divine Householder the penny of eternal blessedness.

[53] From Meginfred of Fulda in Trithemius we know in general that St. Amor, first abbot of the monastery of Amorbach, shone with singular holiness of life and with many miracles. since his ancient Acts perished by wars and fires. Would that his particular deeds, which we have here transcribed, were confirmed by like testimony! But we wish this in vain, since the ancient monuments of the monastery of Amorbach perished by wars and fires, as Gropp testifies at page 19 in this narrative: Amorbach had scarcely stood two hundred years from its cradle when it was set on fire and reduced to ashes by the Huns or Hungarians, who were laying waste almost all Germany with fire and sword. In the year 910 the barbarians miserably devastated the diocese of Würzburg. In the year 915, breaking in again, they penetrated as far as the monastery of Fulda and set it on fire, on Trithemius's testimony. Finally in the year 923 the same men harassed Eastern France, Alsace, Swabia, and Saxony with slaughter and fire. One of these storms fell upon our Amorbach, which, some monks being butchered and the rest driven into flight, stripped it of all its goods and at last consumed it with fire. A most grievous loss indeed, which the loss of the charters and of the first privileges, burned at the same time, made the more bitter. Then the historian of Amorbach goes on in the same place to narrate at length how in the following centuries that same monastery was more than once utterly devastated. If, finally, anything of the literary furniture escaped the hands of the enemy at that time, or was afterwards written, we suspect that it perished for the most part in the sedition of the rebel peasants and in the Brandenburg and Swedish war, as may be seen in Gropp at the page cited above and following. And so we leave the credit of the particular deeds of St. Amor, which we have reported above from the tradition and domestic documents of the men of Amorbach, with the narrator.

§ VI. The Saint's posthumous glory, from the spring for which he is said by his prayers to have obtained a wondrous healthfulness.

In the chapel of the Mother of God, The oft-mentioned author of the History of Amorbach can render a surer testimony concerning the posthumous glory of St. Amor, which endures to this day, and which he describes at page 40 and following thus: That St. Amor, while he lived among mortals, shone with miracles, Meginfred of Fulda and others testify. We have said above that he obtained from God, by his prayers and merits, health for very many sick, and moreover a healing power for the spring in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary called zu Sankt-Amors-brunn. When the fame of his holiness and of his works had spread far and wide, both that spring and the monastery in which the holy man dwelt were wont, by the voice of the people, to be surnamed from him Amorsbrunn and Amorbach even to this present day. After his death God declared the sanctity and merits of His servant by very many benefits granted in that place at his invocation, where he is honored with a great concourse of people and with religion. Of both we shall here discourse, for the glory of so great a father of ours: of the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the spring of Amor, commonly zu Sankt-Amors-brunn.

[55] This sacred little shrine was consecrated first to the most blessed Mother of God, afterwards to St. Amor. which is half an hour distant from the monastery of Amorbach, It is half an hour distant from Amorbach toward the west, received into the bosom of the mountains rising round about. That it took its origin through our monks of Amorbach is more than certain. That in that place St. Pirmin, when he had been summoned with his companions to this wilderness, established his first cells or little monastery and raised that church, we have said elsewhere. That it has been several times restored since so long a time and claimed from antiquity is beyond doubt. At last it was added by the monastery to the parish of Amorbach. After the new monastery arose under St. Amor in the place where it now stands, the holy abbot with his monks frequently visited that chapel out of love for the divine Mother. The common people, following their example, preserve with great religion this most holy custom of such pilgrimage even to these times.

[56] the sick piously approach the spring, That in the following centuries again some of our brethren from time to time dwelt at that sacred shrine, the ancient monuments of writings teach. Under abbot Louis there occurs a charter in which a certain monk of ours, the noble Henry of Rosenberg, is read to have lived at the aforesaid church of St. Amor in the year 1273. At length the report of St. Amor and of his spring has been so spread through almost the whole region that even from far distant parts they come hither in great force, who through the merits of the holy abbot seek and carry back from his spring relief, each for his own infirmity. That spring gushes in the sacred shrine itself, on the north side, with a most limpid and rich vein. The stone with which the pavement is laid so closes the spring that it is a hindrance or stumbling-block to no one. It is, however, hollowed with a round opening of about one foot, to which a cup, by which the water is drawn, is attached by a little chain. The water flows by an underground channel into a cistern prepared before the doors of the sacred shrine, where the sick wash themselves, dip themselves in the water, and, frequently rejoicing in the relief received, return to their homes. Those who wash or dip use the invocation of the most holy Trinity, saying: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[57] here celebrated in verse, Then Gropp testifies in the same place that there is preserved at Amorbach, in an ancient manuscript codex, a metrical description of this spring, which runs thus:

I will not hold thee in suspense with long preambles, Reader, nor use labyrinthine windings As to what this song regards. There lies outside the walls of our Town of Amorbach, a full thousand paces off, Before the sloping hills and pleasant green places, Bursting into leaf with orchard, with plum and pear, A shrine of small building indeed, and very old; Founded of old to Amor, yet great with great miracles. To this, mark well, there lies beneath, in the mid vault of the temple, And bubbles up a stream more pellucid than glass, A sacred spring, washing its midway course through dripping rocks To the places bordering the shrine, with sweet murmur; Soon, easy, it splits its force into two parts: To the right toward Weilbach, where the vineyard swells With ample fruit, walled foursquare on every side With squared stones; for the left points out the brethren's House, of him who abides there, who to one that would see hidden things With serene mind lays them open, and keeps the fountain-water,* A modest bearer of this water. Wondrous to tell! There has been placed in it a power and a heavenly origin, A godhead plainly divine, and a divine virtue, Restoring dulled joints and dying limbs. Let thy mind waver not at all: the impious throng proves The deed, and eyes prove it, the facts themselves compel belief. For when a sickness comes, unwholesome, and dries the bones Of their soft marrow, when for sucklings their mothers' breasts, The breasts avail nothing, nor the healing herb of the physician; And when they fill every place with querulous torments, Their parents fear and desire and grieve, Astonished; and at last, remembering, they consider Their elders relieved thence (a thing amazing to all and to sight); Piety conquers the hard road and the inhospitable meal; It conquers rains and snows and white hoarfrosts, Nor do their steps falter or fail upon the hard ground; With panting breast, frequently, to the temple with pious gifts, And holding all their other lights with pressing hands, They go; and when they have given the sacred hymn in choir, They bathe the limbs of their infants in the liquid, and dip their sick Bodies in the waters poured over them, twice and thrice invoking Before all things the help of the holy Trinity. And lo, Straightway the wasting itself flees, the pallor flees from the face, And their exhausted strength returns at once to its former state. The ignorant will not trouble further to search out the cause. God grants this, for love of Amor's power. Now, now let the impious man redouble his cackling with wrinkled nose Over this, let him bend stoutly the bow of his mockery* With his mouth: far hence be such profane men. Do thou turn hither thy twin eyes, look upon this spring: This is the spring, this is it, which thou hearest so often to heal. Go then, O Amor, the ornament of our fields, and patron, Go, glory of the spring, glory of our people, The people of Amorbach: grant that the channel of the stream which Shows itself to us, grant that it stand ever moist with moist mouth, And that, dripping, it dry not in any harvest; Nay, that running more and more along its long-lived path, It may pour forth health-bringing nectar, ambrosial, Upon the Eastern and the Western shore. This we pray: be Thou our help.

[58] I suspect that the anagram was composed by the same poet, and by an anagram, which is there addressed to little children in this manner: Fons sancti Amoris peregrini salutifer & dos ("The health-bringing spring of St. Amor the pilgrim, and a dowry"). Then by transposition of the letters it is changed into this sentence: Morsus infantis ægri fano; certe prodest, fili ("The bite of a sick infant in the shrine; assuredly it profits, my son"). Finally the poet alludes to that anagram of his in the following little verses:

While the sickness of a sick infant gnaws its breast, And gnaws the thin skin that covers the bones, I am here, a great dowry, and straightway with my sacred And wholesome liquor I heal those bites (assuredly it profits). Come then, beloved; come, my pretty little son. If thou thirstest for a healing draught, drink hence.

[59] After the learned historian of Amorbach has reported these verses, whose health-bringing power Gropp he returns to the thread of his narrative in this manner: That from times long most ancient the faithful in various sicknesses and infirmities drew help from the spring of St. Amor and carried it back from his chapel, was already three hundred years ago known and plain to all, and approved by the mouth and the sense of all. When after the year 1440 the aforesaid priest John Keck, staying in the monastery of Amorbach, beheld the great throng of peoples coming, and the cultus toward St. Amor, and the helps which they obtained from God at his invocation; and when besides the feast of St. Amor

he saw celebrated both in the cloister and in the town, desiring to furnish fuel to such piety, he began to inquire concerning the Life and the relics of that Saint (of which the men of Amorbach possessed no knowledge and no portion). At length, being informed of a certain St. Amor resting in the convent of virgins at Belisia, he set out thither, and obtained from the abbess the Legend and some sacred relics, which he brought to Amorbach. The man, otherwise good, was deceived in this, that he thought must be attributed to that St. Amor of Belisia what the arguments adduced by us above prove to be owed to the first abbot of Amorbach.

[60] attributes to the prayers of St. Amor the abbot. But this one thing we here draw out and note from those matters: that already at that time, namely about the year 1440 and before, there was a great flocking of the people to the chapel and spring of our St. Amor, and that very many benefits were obtained from him, before that St. Amor of Belisia became known among us, or certain sacred relics of his, with the Legend of his Life, were brought to us. But since benefits of this kind granted from heaven through St. Amor had not been noted by our people, or at any rate, having been noted, had long since perished, the oft-cited Keck, who excellently promoted the cultus of St. Amor, began to commit to paper those which various persons obtained during the time of his lodging among the men of Amorbach. After him others, but very few, were set down in writing by our people, very many of those who had obtained them neglecting to make them known. Of others there are witnesses in the many votive tablets and other offerings hung up in the chapel of St. Amor; of which nevertheless very many have been frequently torn, gnawed by moths and worms, and consumed by the very dust and by age. Of the remaining signs and benefits of this kind, let it suffice to have brought forward a few here, for the glory of our holy father Amor.

perhaps servans.*

for subsannandi*, that is, of mocking.

§ VII. Miracles which befell at the spring of the holy abbot from the year 1446 to the year 1712.

Already for nearly three hundred years The most diligent Gropp, at page 42 and following of his History of Amorbach, exhibits certain miracles or benefits conferred through the intercession of St. Amor the abbot, as he had promised above. Although these are not arranged with sufficient exactness in the order of the years in which they were wrought, yet doubtless that historian followed the chronological order in which he found them set down in writing. Wherefore we follow the same series, and give them in the very words of the narrator: In the year 1447 John Losse, sprung from the village of Rüdenau, related that his mother had once honored St. Amor with great fervor, and had been wont every year at least once to make pilgrimage to his chapel and spring. When once upon his brother Conrad, then five years old, five very burning ulcers had grown in his throat, and had opened with great pain into as many holes which ran with continual matter, and could be cured by no medicine, the mother brought her son on the pilgrimage she had undertaken to the spring of St. Amor, and washed his wounds from the spring. Presently the boy recovered, scars nevertheless remaining, which he afterwards showed to very many in the rest of his life as undoubted testimonies of the health received through St. Amor. In the year 1446 a woman in the town of Amorbach, suffering violent pain of the eyes, promised to offer yearly to St. Amor a living oblation, that is, a cock or a hen. The vow being made, she recovered shortly after.

[62] When in the year 1446 the wife of Peter Lützel, a citizen of Amorbach, named Anna, was with child, women in peril of childbirth, she carried the offspring more than a year, and could not bring it forth. The woman, hence greatly dismayed, goes to the chapel of St. Amor and calls him to her aid. To her prayers she adds a vow that if she should bear a boy happily she would give him the name of St. Amor, and would moreover, at the end of the time of her lying-in, carry him to the altar with a waxen image. After a few days the woman revisits the same chapel and brings with her the promised wax. Nor does she cease from such daily frequenting of the chapel, in no wise retarded by her heavy womb, all marveling. At length she feels the pains of childbirth. The women who chanced to be present, when they ought to have helped her in this peril, flee away, one alone remaining with her: for a fear had seized upon them all that she who was in labor would either perish or bring forth I know not what monster. In these straits the woman, falling again upon her knees, implores the help of God through the merits and intercession of St. Amor. The prayers of the sufferer are heard. The woman gives birth; she brings forth a boy comely and sound; and after the space of one hour another, all being amazed and congratulating her. The first is called Amor, the other Nicholas, and both are offered by the mother, according to her vow, to God and to St. Amor in his chapel. In the same year a woman in the village of Schneidtberg labored in childbirth day and night, so that her life and that of her offspring seemed given up for lost. The imperiled woman in such pains piously invokes St. Amor, together with those present, that he might obtain by his intercession from God that the child, happily brought forth, might come to baptism. The prayers are confirmed by a vow. The birth is loosed, and comes happily forth into the light. A like benefit three other women in the same necessity obtained through the merits of St. Amor in the years 1446 and 1448.

[63] In the year 1447 there was in the village of Rüdenau a laborer called Peter Losse. and other sick people oppressed with various diseases, He, when once he had heard of St. Amor and of the benefits obtained through his merits, being sick implores his help, and promises a pilgrimage to the Saint's chapel. The sick man recovered; but he neglects to pay the promised pilgrimage. He is seized with a new and heavier infirmity. The same vows are repeated, and health is restored a second time. The man, not yet made wise by a second blow, since by his daily work he sought a living for himself and his household, again neglected to render what he had promised. The disease returning seized him a third time and so violently that, now in peril of life, he was anointed with holy oil. At last the violence of the disease deranged his mind: the sick man cried out, broke forth into curses, rolled his eyes, tore himself from his bed, lay in wait for his wife and children, refused all food and drink, and now and again loosed his tongue in these words: ich musz gen Amors-brunn; ich musz gen Amors-brunn. These German words I so understand that they signify: I must go to the spring of St. Amor; I must go to the spring of St. Amor. Meanwhile, being visited by his brother and admonished to pray God for help, he said that he could not invoke God before he had been at the spring of St. Amor. His wife, conscious of the former vow neglected, perceives the divine vengeance. And so, withdrawing into the garden, having entreated God and St. Amor, she added a new vow of pilgrimage to be paid for her husband. Returning to her husband lying abed, she found him better. At length, when he had recovered his former health from God through the merits of St. Amor, both paid the vow of their pilgrimage, giving thanks to God and to St. Amor.

[64] or afflicted with misfortunes, In the same year Agnes, wife of John Köntlein, a citizen of Amorbach, about the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, having climbed an apple-tree to pick apples, fell when the branch on which she stood broke, her right leg being so crushed that little pieces of bone, piercing the flesh and skin, stood out. Being carried home and restored to herself, she straightway besought St. Amor with continual prayers, and vowed that when she should be able to walk again upon her feet she would go to his spring, offering a waxen leg of almost as great size and weight as her own. Meanwhile the dedication of that same chapel came, falling that year upon the day of St. Remigius. The woman, lying abed, grieved the more vehemently that she could not be present at the feast according to her devotion. Thereupon she besought more urgently the help of St. Amor, added new vows, and promised a candle with two coins to be offered yearly to St. Amor. She feels very quickly a lessening of the pain, tries to move her foot, moves it, sets it here and there and sets it back without any other's help. At last after a few days she stands upon her foot, and walks leaning on no staff. Glad at her restored foot, she gave thanks to God and to St. Amor, with the paying of her vow.

In the same year Conrad, from the town of Amorbach, about fourteen years old, falling from a horse, so broke his arm that a certain little piece of bone stood out beyond the skin. His mother, grieving for her son, invited him to implore God's help along with her through the intercession of St. Amor, a vow being added of offering a waxen arm at a visit to the chapel. The youth recovered shortly after and could use his arm for every purpose. The mother with her son paid the vow they had uttered, both rendering thanks to God and to St. Amor.

[65] implored and felt the help of St. Amor. When in the year 1448 Conrad, of whom we spoke at number 1, had reached eighteen years, being exceedingly sick, deprived of all sense and reason, lay motionless like a log, with eyes widely distorted. All human help being despaired of, his brother, named Peter, vows that when he recovers he will go together with his brother to the chapel of St. Amor, and will bring with him a living offering. The vow being made, mind and health are restored to the sick man, who now devotes himself to St. Amor. His feet meanwhile being strengthened, he paid the pilgrimage together with his brother, both giving due thanks to God and to St. Amor.

Conrad being restored, his brother's wife in the same year began so to suffer in her throat that for four weeks she could take no solid food. A pilgrimage to St. Amor being promised with the offering of a candle, and it being performed, within two days she was healed.

In the same year Conrad Nunnenmacher, a citizen of Amorbach, was for twelve days grievously tormented with cholera. Complaining to his wife of his continual pains, at her urging (she herself also having at another time been freed of pains of the head at the invocation of St. Amor), he promises a candle to be offered by himself in his chapel to St. Amor. He visits the chapel, offers the candle, pours forth prayers, and returning home rejoices that he is whole.

In the year 1449 dysentery grew strong at Amorbach and in the surrounding places, and seized very many boys and girls. By such a malady the twin brothers, of whom at number 3, Amor and Nicholas, lay even at the point of death. Their parents invoke St. Amor for the boys, and they recovered from a most dangerous infirmity.

[66] The editor of the history of Amorbach here advises that he has found no older benefits set down in writing, This piety of the ancients more recent people imitate, and subjoins to them certain more recent ones in this order of time: In the year 1642 John Hertz, a citizen and joiner of Amorbach, lay for half a year afflicted with great pains of the back, all remedies being applied in vain. At last, persuaded by his neighbors, he made a vow to the spring of St. Amor, and, his pains presently abating, he recovered, paid his vow, and thereafter every week devoutly visited the chapel of St. Amor.

[67] To this miracle or benefit another is annexed, which a religious of Amorbach experienced in himself, among whom a religious of Amorbach freed from toothache, and which he confirms thus by his own authentic testimony: In the year 1652, the first after my profession, I, Father Columbanus, from the beginning of Lent until the second day of Easter

suffered so vehement a pain of the teeth that I frequently crawled upon the ground like a brute beast, all my brethren being moved to compassion for the sufferer. When on the aforesaid second day of Easter the Fathers of the community visited the chapel of St. Amor, I accompanied them. And since I had often heard of the wondrous power of St. Amor and of his spring, I invoked that same Saint for the easing of my pain, washed my teeth from the spring, and, the pain being straightway relieved, I have never since to this day, all marveling, suffered pain in my teeth. Being bidden by my lord abbot, I comprised this benefit granted to me and the power of that spring in a few verses, and inscribed them on the walls of the chapel. So I testify, Brother Columbanus, professed of the monastery of Amorbach of the Order of St. Benedict, parish priest in the town of Mudau, the 30th of May 1683.

[68] The verses which Father Columbanus composed out of a grateful mind toward his holy benefactor out of a grateful mind composed a poem, are alternately Latin and German, that perhaps in the vernacular tongue the less learned also might be roused to implore the patronage of St. Amor. But since we write for men skilled in the Latin tongue, and the German verses there signify the same as the Latin, we omit those and give these alone, which run thus:

When the body languishes and lies sick and without strength, While violent pain troubles and torments it; Why dost thou so often send most lavish gifts to the physician, And dare to leave aside the gifts of the most high God? Behold, the most pleasant stream of Amor the pilgrim Flows past, relieving of their diseases the languid limbs. If the foul weakness of wasting has bound thy joints, Wash these thy limbs in this fountain-water. When toothache breeds untamed pains, Rinse thy teeth in the waters of this Amor. For quickly wilt thou find the diseases driven off by a wondrous power, Which the divine Amor heals with his stream.

[69] Finally the rest are briefly reported thus: In the year 1670 John Kron, a citizen of Miltenberg, labored a whole year with fever. and many others, a vow being made, Remedies availing nothing against the disease, he promises a pilgrimage to the spring of St. Amor with an offering, pays his vow, drinks with devotion from the health-bringing spring, and from that hour the fever left him.

In the year 1676 the three-year-old child of Thomas Berberig, a citizen of Amorbach, was so weak in the limbs that it could by no means stand upon its feet. Whatever remedies were applied in vain. The parents, taking refuge with God and St. Amor, bring the child to the spring of St. Amor, wash it therefrom, and straightway feel strength increasing in the child; so that it could now stand upon its feet, walk, and return home with its parents.

In the year 1678 Michael Grosman, a citizen in Erlenbach, his little son having for a long time been sick, all his strength lost, and being brought to the spring of St. Amor, obtains health, prayers and a vow being paid.

In the year 1679 John Michael Marck of Amorbach had a child so sick that all despaired of its life. The parents call God and His thrice-blessed Mother, and St. Amor, to their aid, carry the child according to their vow to his chapel, and bring back health for it.

[70] recover their former health, In the year 1701 Kilian Jacob and Maria Magdalena, husband and wife in Obernburg, grieved over a little daughter crippled in her whole body from the second to the fifth year of her age. When no remedies availed, at length through the merits of St. Amor, prayers and a vow being paid in his chapel for the daughter, she was healed.

In the year 1712 John Valentine Krumming of Miltenberg, a boy of eight years, was for a long time crippled, able neither to walk nor to stand. Being carried by his parents with an offering to the chapel of St. Amor, and health being there obtained, he returned home glad with his parents.

In the year 1708 Christian Rütger of Röllfeld lay under so grave a disease that no one hoped for his recovery. Touched by a higher prompting, in this extreme peril of life he made a vow to God that when he should be restored to his former health he would make pilgrimage to the chapel of St. Amor, and there hang up a tablet for a perpetual memory of the benefit received. The vow had scarcely been uttered when already he feels himself better, and shortly recovered entirely.

There are still very many other benefits of this kind which the faithful have obtained from God through the merits of St. Amor, written not on paper but on grateful hearts. Others are attested by the various images, waxen figures, crutches, and other such offerings hung up in his chapel, which every year are wont to be brought and hung there as a perpetual witness and memorial of health recovered or of some other benefit.

[71] from which we gather the immemorial and public cultus of the holy abbot. From these things it is clear that St. Amor was honored with public cultus in Franconia from time immemorial before the most well-known decree of Urban VIII, and therefore can confidently be inserted into our work. Moreover, from the testimony of Meginfred, an old writer, in Trithemius, it is established that a certain disciple of St. Pirmin, named Amor, shone with many miracles in Odinsylvania, was for forty-three years the first abbot of the monastery of Amorbach, and that this place received its appellation from him. But since these particulars can with no semblance of likelihood be attributed to the St. Amor who rests and is honored in Belgium, we have judged it most probable that the one is different from the other Saint of the same name. If, however, we have erred in this judgment, we do not refuse to be corrected, and we submit our opinion to the censure of the learned, that it may again be examined on the VIII day of October, on which the yearly memory of St. Amor of Belisia is celebrated. And these are all the things which we have been able to gather concerning St. Amor, abbot of Amorbach, and which we gladly and with grateful mind acknowledge that we owe to the most vigilant abbot of that monastery and to his diligent historiographer. May God grant that we obtain many like helpers of our work.