Adelindis

ON BLESSED ADELINDIS, ABBESS AND FOUNDRESS OF THE CONVENT OF BUCHAU IN SWABIA

Before the middle of the tenth century.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

A view of the place; the chronology of the foundation corrected; when the Blessed one died; her public cult.

ON BLESSED ADELINDIS, ABBESS IN SWABIA

BY J. P.

Buchaugia or Buchovia — of canonesses or noble nuns, distinguished by ancient lineage and by the images of their ancestors, yet exempt from every order, profession, and vow, and entirely free — is rather a college than a monastery, The situation of this convent and its manner of life: situated in Swabia by a most pleasant lake of the same name, which they commonly call the Free lake, or the Feather lake , not far from Biberach, an imperial city in Swabia: into which are wont to be received only countesses and baronesses, who there under an abbess are wont to be brought up chastely and soberly, to be formed to piety and virtue, and afterwards, being marriageable and courted or sought after, to go out again and honorably marry. Which is granted and free to all; to the abbess alone, on account of the pontifical benediction, as they call it, which she has received, it is not permitted. Therefore they ought to be called not nuns but rather expectants, and the house itself not a monastery, but rather a dwelling and sanctuary of most honorable discipline. Thus Bruschius in the Monasteries of Germany*, first century, folio 17 verso: who then subjoins a long history of the foundation of that same convent, from which I excerpt these things:

[2] That … most ample and most beautiful college is read to have been founded in honor of the holy Cornelius and Cyprian, concerning its earliest by the Lady Adelindis … who is buried there. The whole history of the foundation stands thus: There ruled over the Swabians eight hundred years ago, in the times of Pepin king of the Gauls, a certain most powerful king Marsilius, buried at Lorch in a very rich monastery of the duchy of Württemberg: he, having followed Pepin, king of the Gauls, who had been summoned into Italy against the Lombards by Stephen the second, Supreme Pontiff, and had therefore set out for Rome with an armed force, bore himself strenuously there … After the victory gained over the Lombards and the saving of Rome from the tyranny of Aistulf, king of the Lombards, Pepin and Marsilius led with them into Germany, among other captives and hostages given, two excellent youths also, Bonosius and Sophonius, the little sons of Russo, a certain petty king of the Lombards, or, as some will have it, of some Greek Count of Tragentum (who had fallen in this very war).

[3] Sophonius, a boy of ten years, Pepin claimed for himself: foundation but Bonosius, a year older in birth, Marsilius kept with him, and had him washed in holy baptism in the monastery of Lorch … There had then lately come into Germany from Rome the most noble counts of Montfort: a certain daughter of one of these Marsilius, king of the Swabians, gave to that same count Bonosius as wife: but in place of a dowry, that province which was near to the Feather lake and to the district of Biberach … Bonosius once went out with his bride …, that he might seek a place fit for building a citadel; which, when he had found a most convenient one in the dense groves, he said among other things to his dearest wife … If by God's goodness and mercy there were now at hand for us the wealth and monies which at Tragentum my dearest father buried in the earth, when he saw his city and his most sweet fatherland being assailed, how fair a citadel I should wish to build for us here … To which presently I should add also a temple … in honor of the eternal and almighty Triad … The Montfort lady … with cheerful mind bids him begin … the construction both of the citadel and of the temple. They come to the place they had found, and begin to dig, with a firm hope of certain divine aid.

[4] it narrates And as they dug they found, by God's favor, presently a bronze vessel or ample cauldron, huge and capacious, full of monies, gold, and silver … They raise the citadel together with the temple, on which they set a title and name from the cauldron found, and they call all their adjacent territory the county of the Cauldron, or of Kesselburg … Bero, son of Bonosius and of the Montfort lady, having married a noble girl of Bodman, was father of four sons, Clingold, Husso, Tallatarius, and Birridonarius … Tallatarius, marrying a countess of Hillermont, begot a son Godfrey … He afterwards had a son Hatto or Otho by a Bavarian countess of Andechs. Hatto or Otho, count of the Cauldron, … a wealthy and powerful lord, who often profited even the neighboring princes by his prudence and counsel, married the lady Adelindis, daughter of Hildebrand, most powerful Duke of the Swabians, and of the lady Regarda, duchess of the Bavarians, … born in the citadel of Andechs, sister of queen Hildegard (who had been betrothed to Charlemagne): who bore him four sons … Beringer, Reginold, Gerhard, and Hatto. But it happened that, some lustres passing, the Huns rushed into Germany … The princes of Germany, being admonished by Charlemagne, go forth to meet them.

[5] many apocryphal things But a huge battle was joined near Biberach, in which that Otho, count of Tragentum and of the Cauldron, fell with his three sons just named. The very place in which the battle was fought was afterwards named the Valley of lamentation from the lamentation of the lady Adelindis and of the dwellers around … which the inhabitants call even today, with the word corrupted, the valley of Planchina. Atto or Otho, the fourth son of count Otho and of the lady Adelindis, being given to religion and made a deacon, a little afterwards pined away with grief of mind. But the Huns being routed and driven out of Germany by the valor of Charlemagne, the lady Adelindis gathered the slaughtered bodies of her husband and sons, and in their everlasting memory founded the monastery of nuns of Buchau, at first of the Augustinian profession: in whose church she caused her husband with her sons to be honorably buried. She herself afterwards, from weariness and hatred of life, having rendered to God all her goods, possessions, and means, and bidding farewell to the world altogether, was made the first governess of her own monastery, in which, dying at last, she was rendered to mother earth in an honorable mausoleum.*

[6] These things Bruschius reports, who also treats of the second founder of the praised convent, Bruschius, and, when it had been reduced to ashes, of its restorer, the emperor Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, and of the donation made to it by him in the sixth year of his reign, that is, in the year of the Lord 821, whose diploma Bruschius affirms that the abbess of the aforesaid convent showed him to read: But by the authority and privilege of that same emperor Louis the Pious, he says, the monastery of Buchau was exempted from every profession and rule. Whence it is now wont to be called a free, immune, and imperial college of Canonesses. He names also very many of its governesses: This most ancient and princely college of Buchau flourishes to this day notably, most brilliant in all the more sacred discipline of manners, on the testimony of the Reverend Lord Franz Petrus in his Suevia ecclesiastica, printed in the year 1699, page 207. But this chronological and historical narration of Bruschius concerning the foundation of the convent of Buchau is in very many points suspect to me, and therefore I have reported it at such length, that it may the better be refuted, chiefly from chronology, of which I shall now treat.

[7] The deeds of St. Charlemagne, emperor and king of the Franks, we have illustrated in volume 2 of January, as from elsewhere at the twenty-eighth day of that same month, page 874 and following, his death being fixed in the year 814. Whence it follows that the Blessed one flourished in the eighth century. But what was said above concerning the Huns routed and driven out of Germany by the valor of Charlemagne affords somewhat more light. Einhard in his Life, in the volume and at the day just indicated, page 881, writes these things: The greatest of all the wars waged by him, except the Saxon, followed upon this war — namely that which was undertaken against the Avars or Huns: which he administered both more spiritedly than the rest and with far greater preparation. Yet he made in person only one expedition into Pannonia — for that nation then inhabited this province — with such success that that same province was rendered almost empty. But that Pannonian expedition in the Annotations in the same place, page 882, letter b, is attached by us to the year 791. Blessed Adelindis would therefore have lived at that time, if Bruschius reported true things. Matthäus Rader in the second volume of Bavaria sancta, page 122, sets down these chronological notes concerning her: About the year of Christ 800, and somewhat later, Charles the Great reigning. So he, following an incautious guide.

[8] Hermann Contractus in his Chronicle, published in an enlarged form in Heinrich Canisius, volume 1 of the Antiquae lectiones, overturns Bruschius's chronological system, when in the same place at page 561 he narrates these things at the year 901: In that same year Beringer, Reginolf, and Gerhard, noble German brothers, sons of count Ato and of Adelindis, not far from the Buchau monastery of virgins, in the district of Alemannia called Erichewe, founded at that same time studiously by their mother in honor of the holy martyrs Cornelius and Cyprian*

being built — when, endeavoring to give their virgin sister in marriage, they were secretly carrying her off thence, were surrounded by enemies and slain, and were buried by their mother at that same monastery: where she too, after she had gone to Jerusalem and to other holy places for the sake of prayer and had returned, being intent upon the divine services and gaping after the gains of souls, happily ending this life, was laid to rest. Her own virgin daughter, of the same name with herself, was there appointed abbess. Mabillon, volume 3 of his Annals, page 310, says: Erichgewe, or Erigove, Elgow, is now the head of a deanery in the diocese of Constance: but I find no trace in it of this convent, the knowledge of which we have received from Hermann. But concerning the situation of that same convent enough has been said above, whatever be the case with Erichewe, which it seems can be not imprudently presumed to have existed in Hermann's time.

[9] it is shown To return to the chronology set out above: Bruschius's is utterly overthrown by this, that from the time of king Pepin he sets forth above so many things concerning the forebears of Otho, the husband, as he will have it, of Adelindis, and also concerning the death of that same Adelindis and of her sons, so that she must have flourished long after the time in which Bruschius places her. Besides, so long is Bruschius's history, and so long its windings, with a stupendous miracle likewise woven into them, that without an older witness fit for producing historical credit, almost his whole narration is rendered suspect to me. But Hermann, on the contrary, dispatches the matter briefly, nor do I see why not truly. Bruschius makes Adelindis the sister of queen Hildegard; Hermann so distinguishes them chronologically that they cannot be sisters, writing these things at the year 783: Hildegard the queen, wife of Charles (the Great), died on the second of the Kalends of May, and Bertha his mother on the fourth of the Ides of July. It is helpful here to call to mind what was observed concerning blessed Hildegard the queen in volume 3 of April, at the thirtieth day of that same month, where at page 788 we also fixed her death in the year 783. In the same place at page 791 the genealogy which Bruschius wove concerning the said queen is accused of grave error, as may there be seen: so that these words are deservedly subjoined by us:

[10] by us: Further, as we believe nothing concerning the place (which from Bruschius had there been set forth as in the citadel of Andechs) or the day of her birth, since those monuments which Münster and Bruschius used are fabulous and already convicted of deceits concerning the year of her birth; so much less do we trust the same concerning Hildegard's genealogy, by which "Hildebrand, duke of Swabia, by his Bavarian wife the lady Regarda," is said to have begotten her. Apply these things to the birthplace and parents of Blessed Adelindis assigned above by Bruschius. But what of the diploma of donation of Louis the Pious, which Bruschius said the abbess of Buchau showed him to read? That it was genuine is roundly denied by us, against which cry out arguments by no means doubtful, which I have already propounded. There may also be read the things which are had in our work at page 791, cited above. These things therefore having been thus far set forth against Bruschius's fabulous and prolix history of the foundation of Buchau, and against the chronology of our Blessed one, I have placed her death, from what Hermann Contractus says of the foundation of Buchau, before the middle of the tenth century. We must now treat of her sacred cult.

[11] she is reported by various hagiologists, The hagiologists announce her on different days. Molanus in his additions on this twenty-eighth day of August: At Buchau, of St. Adelindis the abbess. Of her also the German Martyrology, which we call by the name of Canisius, makes mention, in the editions of the years 1573 and 1599, which I have seen. The Benedictine monastic writers Wion and Menard also report her: At Buchonia in Swabia, of St. Adelindis the abbess (in Wion there is inserted the burial). But Dorgan reports her without a place: which Ferrari most ineptly places In the territory of Fulda, and adds in the notes: She flourished in the region of Buchonia, of which Fulda, C. of the diocese of Mainz, is the head. I suspect that the man was led into error from the corrupted name Buchonia, which Wion and Menard also write thus, as we just saw; but they add in Swabia: outside which, while Ferrari had before his eyes the region of Buchonia instead of the convent of Buchau, he went astray the whole way. Now Bochovia, Buchaw, or Buchen, is a district of Germany in the circle of the Upper Rhine beside Hesse in the dominion of the abbot of Fulda: whence also Fulda … is called Buchovia … It is often also called Buchonia in titles, on Baudrand's testimony. Wrongly also Arthur: At Buchau in Swabia, of the diocese of Mainz, near Biberach. These things on occasion of the place; which Chastelain perhaps had not sufficiently examined, when without danger of error he reports at the twenty-first day of August these words: In Germany, St. Adelindis the abbess. From the announcements of the Benedictine monastic writers it is permissible to gather that she is ascribed by them to their own Order: she is reported by Arthur also under the name of a Benedictine abbess. If we believe Bruschius, she founded a monastery at first of the Augustinian profession; but of this there is no certainty, nor of its subsequent change to a life exempt from vows introduced by Louis the Pious, which is convicted of falsity from what has been said about the chronology. But when this change took place, and whether from the beginning of the foundation the ladies of Buchau were not canonesses, I have not whence to define. Finally, I have called the Blessed one abbess with the other writers.

[12] and her public cult is proved. Further, the public cult of this blessed Matron Bruschius, who in this matter ought not to be suspect, declares and confirms at folio 18 verso in these words: She is numbered in the catalogue of the Saints on account of the notable innocence of her life and manners. Her feast is celebrated on the day of St. Augustine, that is, the twenty-eighth of August. On that day the lady abbess is wont, in her memory, to distribute through her virgin countesses and baronesses, to all sorts of persons coming and running together from the whole little region round about, both her own people and also pilgrims and strangers, men born in the highest and the lowest station, the wheaten loaves of St. Adelindis the foundress: which is wont to be done with notable pomp, of which I too was a spectator in the year 1548, when four thousand loaves were distributed. If other notices concerning her cult and life, which I have taken care to have sought out among the people of Buchau, should come to me, they will be able to be given at the end of this volume, if it shall be worth the labor.

* Federsee

* commonly Planchtal

read Buchaugiensi*

read æquivoca*

Mabillon without est*

August VI: 29 August