ON SAINT ALDERIC THE SWINEHERD, OF FUSSENICH IN THE DIOCESE OF COLOGNE,
Around the year 1200.
Preliminary Commentary.
Alderic, swineherd of Fussenich (Saint)
I. B.
[1] Fussenich was founded at the same period as the already mentioned monastery of Meer of Blessed Hildegunde for noblewomen of the Premonstratensian institute, at Fussenich, in the diocese of Cologne, near the town of Tolbiac, between Marcodurum and Cologne, subject to the Archbishop of the latter, except that the Lord of Juelich has there a certain jurisdiction under the title of Imperial Advocacy, as they call it. The natives call the village and monastery Fussenich; certain learned men call it Vulpiacum, since the noble family formerly called "de Fussenich" (as Aegidius Gelenius, a man of extraordinary courtesy and learning, has informed us) styled itself "de Vulpe" and "de Vulpiaco."
[2] The former swineherd of this monastery, now its patron saint, is Saint Alderic, once the swineherd Saint Alderic, now venerated on the sixth of February, translated from the sty to the altar by the merit of his virtues and miracles from time immemorial. His anniversary is observed on the sixth of February, as will appear more clearly below.
[3] I do not know what authority Chrysostomus van der Sterre, Abbot of the monastery of Saint Michael at Antwerp, followed in his Birthdays of the Saints of the Premonstratensian Order, which he published some time ago while Prior, not on the ninth, when he assigned the feast of Saint Alderic to the ninth of February. Following him, John Pagius in book 2 of the Premonstratensian Library, as some have written: Andrew du Saussay in his Gallic Martyrology, and Aegidius Gelenius in his Agrippine Calendar. On the same day, the booklet printed at Madrid in the year 1635, already frequently criticized by us above (since it exhibits, fashioned by someone from the Birthdays of Chrysostomus, the Calendar of that most holy Order with excessive amplification beyond the elegant encomia elegantly expressed in those same Birthdays), that booklet, I say, reads at the ninth of February: "Of Saint Alderic, Confessor, double." What kind of Office was celebrated for him is clear from the Life, chapter 3, no. 14.
[4] Pagius, from the cited Birthdays and from the separate manuscript codices of the monastery and Order of Wusenich (as he writes, and later Wissenich), writes the following about Alderic: "Blessed Alderic, sprung from the most illustrious line of the Princes of France, from his boyhood gave clear signs of virtues as indications of future sanctity; and preserving the integrity of his mind and body uncorrupted, and yearning for the holy leisure of solitude, he is said to have been a pilgrim, after visiting the shrines of the Saints, weary of the vanities of the world and having trampled worldly glory underfoot for Christ, he submitted his neck to the sweet yoke of Christ at the monastery of Wissenich, of noble Virgins of the Premonstratensian Order, in the diocese of Cologne. In which, having become a lay brother (as they call them) and swineherd, he led a life of admirable sanctity and angelic conversation, and like another Saint Alexius lay hidden from the world. and he suffered much from demons. Harassed by the most grievous temptations, he fought bravely against the common enemy, by whom the blessed man was often beaten most cruelly with scourges. He beheld horrible phantasms like another anchorite, Saint Anthony; but this brave athlete of Christ, always steadfast and unmoved, manfully overcame the most wicked darts of the enemy and put him to flight. At last, after a long and arduous struggle in the religious life, he happily took flight to eternal rest on the ninth day of February. His body, buried in a common place, was found exhumed a third time; and at length it was placed in the church of the Virgins, in the spot which God had several times designated with heavenly light; where it now rests honorably in an elevated tomb and is renowned for miracles."
[5] Concerning the terrors set before him and the scourges inflicted by demons, nothing is related in the Life; by whom was the Life written? much less is he said to have had a long struggle in the religious life, since from the size of the surviving bones he is judged to have scarcely reached, or at most barely exceeded, the twentieth year of his age. That Life was composed from the records and testimony of the community of Fussenich by James Polius, for twenty years and even more the Chronologist of the German provinces of the Order of Friars Minor of the Regular and Stricter Observance, a most devout and courteous man, who, both at Tolbiac, where he learned his letters as a boy, and at Marcodurum, his homeland, where he served as confessor to the holy Virgins known as the Annunciatines and governed as Guardian the monastery of his own Order, had a particular acquaintance with the community of Fussenich and was able to trace out everything with care.
[6] The same author informed us by letter that an ancient vernacular hymn composed about Saint Alderic was formerly sung in public processions according to the received custom of the nation, a hymn about him: but has now entirely fallen out of use. He also wrote to us the following about the image of Saint Alderic: "A glass window of the Seraphic convent at Bethania in Marcodurum depicts him in common dress, his image. with some pigs painted beside him, as for a swineherd. But in a more genuine and more sacred fashion, an old painting at the inner fountain of the cloister of Fussenich depicted him in the manner of a pilgrim, with a staff and circular shoulder-piece, though this painting was made obsolete in recent years. Nor has all the antiquity that preceded it taught us anything else." So he writes; and in the Life, no. 11, chapter 3, he records that his body, as that of a simple servant, was interred in the common cemetery outside the precincts of the church.
LIFE
by James Polius, of the Order of Friars Minor of the Stricter Observance.
Alderic, swineherd of Fussenich (Saint)
By James Polius.
CHAPTER I
The birth, pilgrimage, and office as swineherd of Saint Alderic.
[1] At the close of the twelfth century after the birth of Christ, Alderic was born into the world of noble parentage. Antiquity reported that he was the son of the King of France, Saint Alderic, born of royal lineage, and that he himself confessed this on his deathbed. Hence a certain learned man draws the conjecture that
he is commonly called Telewin, as though Dauphin. But neither did the Dauphinate, or Viennese lordship, pertain to the dominion of the Kings of France in Alderic's time, much less had the custom prevailed of calling the heir of the kingdom Dauphin; nor is he anywhere called Telewin or Delwin. For the more polished call him Saint Alderic, the common folk of the neighborhood Saint Telerich. Whether, however, he was born of royal stock or of some other princely line, he merited greater splendor and glory by having despised ancestral honors than others by having amplified them.
[2] The children of Kings and Princes are accustomed from their tender years to be enticed by history, the witness of the ages, no less pleasantly than fruitfully; since the same, presenting for contemplation the course of every age as in a certain theater of the whole world, sets before one's eyes the span of human life, teaches the vanity of the world, by the example of various Kings and Princes, and the providence and just judgments of God. That Alderic, born of happy parentage, had the images of illustrious persons instilled in him either by his tutors or imbibed by pious reading, no one will doubt. He may have learned, among others, that Saint Lucius, a British King, spurning the pomp of the world, exchanged an earthly kingdom for a heavenly one in a holy pilgrimage; that Saint Judoc, son of the King of the Armoricans, having secretly clothed himself in a humble garment after visiting the shrines of the Apostles, devoted himself to the eremitical life; that Saint Richard, an English King or a Prince of the royal blood, died as a pilgrim at Lucca in Etruria; that Saint Adelard, kinsman of Charlemagne, was made a monk at Corbie in Gaul.
[3] Provoked by such examples, or certainly impelled by the same Spirit that had moved them, bending his mind more forcefully from the cares of earthly things to heavenly ones, and marvelously inflamed by the love of immortal glory, he spurned luxury, honors, and earthly pleasures, took flight, he departs secretly as a stranger, and secretly withdrew from Gaul; and having visited various places celebrated for their religion or for the habitation and miracles of Saints, then having saluted the relics of the Saints at Cologne, he turned aside to Tolbiac. This was formerly a village, and near the town of Tolbiac now a town, situated on higher ground in the nearer Ardennes toward the Rhine, two miles above Marcodurum; which today is commonly called Tulpetum, and in the popular tongue Zuelpich; celebrated in Frankish histories, made famous to posterity by the memory of the Frankish Kings, though not always the most honorable. For King Sigebert, who later perished by the treachery of Clovis I in an infamous act of fratricide, fighting against the Alamanni near the town of Tolbiac, was struck in the knee and thereafter limped, as Saint Gregory of Tours relates in book 2 of his History of the Franks, chapter 27. Herminfrid, King of the Thuringians, was summoned there under pledge of safe conduct by Theodoric, son of Clovis, and one day while they were conversing upon the city wall of Tolbiac, he was pushed by someone unknown, but by the treachery of Theodoric, from the height of the wall to the ground and there breathed his last, as the same author records in book 3, chapter 8. Finally, Theodebert, son of Childebert, fortified by the strength of many nations, went forth to fight his brother Theodoric, King of Burgundy, at the fortress of Tolbiac, as Jonas writes in the Life of Saint Columban; there, battle being joined, innumerable companies of men perished from both armies; Theodebert was vanquished, etc. Nor are learned men lacking who hold that Clovis I gained his victory over the Alamanni there, fulfilling a vow of Christianity.
[4] When Alderic came to Tolbiac, whether he knew those deeds of his forebears or was being led by God lest he should ever come to know them by similar experience, at Fussenich, a monastery of the Premonstratensian Order, he resolved to enter upon another conflict, far more glorious, with the world and the devil. Proceeding into the adjacent valley, he turned aside to a house of noble Virgins of the Premonstratensian institute, situated on a pleasant plain, attracted by a certain unspoken sense of blossoming holiness. The name of the place is Fussenich, which in the Latin tongue is not inaptly called Vulpiacum. At that time it was still thickly covered with the wild appearance of the Ardennes forest, and in its origin was precisely contemporary with the first buildings of the monasteries of Meer below Neuss and Langwaden above Neuss, under Arnold I, Archbishop of Cologne; and these three sacred places continue laudably to this day under the most holy discipline of Saint Norbert. It was the ninth year of the aforesaid Archbishop's rule, recently founded. the eighth of Conrad, King of the Romans, the year of the incarnate Word 1147, and the tenth Indiction, when the same Bishop exempted the church of Saint Nicholas at Fussenich and established it as free, so that the religious life according to the canonical Rule of Blessed Augustine and the Premonstratensian Order might, with the Lord's cooperation, be there begun and perpetually preserved.
[5] Alderic therefore, in the place of Fussenich, a new plantation of God, grafting himself as a shoot into the heavenly Paradise and remaining unknown to the world, out of an admirable submission of heart most modestly chose the office of swineherd, he acts as swineherd taught by the Spirit of virtue that all other virtues flow toward humility, are adorned and preserved by humility lest they wither. For that is the truest valley, with remarkable humility: to which the streams of graces flow down, to be filled with the variety of all virtues. And here, born from a lofty eminence and cast down to the sty, he redeemed the value of his time by that occupation; for, separated from the crowds and having obtained more leisure, he never relaxed his unconquered spirit from heavenly contemplations and the pursuit of prayer.
NotesCHAPTER II
The miraculous spring of Saint Alderic.
[6] It happened that while he was struggling with fevers, voluntarily removed for God's sake from the consolations of his splendid birth, he was sitting in the fields near the pigs, and when a recurrent attack of hot fever left him tormented by violent thirst, he humbly begged a drink of cold water from the jug of a passing woman, thirsting from fever which she had recently filled at the estate called Dirlo Ad Saltum, or "Fuer dem Wald." He suffered a refusal with both reproach and command: that as a strong young man he should go to a cistern farther off, whence she herself had drawn, and satisfy his thirst. Thereupon Alderic, drawing long sighs from the depths of his breast, immediately turned to God, the fountain of all good, and confidently asked that drink be granted to himself and also to the livestock entrusted to him, he prays to God, which in his bodily weakness he could not drive to a more distant place. And behold, the Angel of the Lord came as a comforter and commanded him to drive his staff or pastoral crook into the ground and at the Angel's command, where he stood (in an event and outcome similar to what once befell Saint Judoc); and immediately a spring clearer than any crystal burst forth and flowed most abundantly, he draws forth a spring with his staff, and to this day continues with a perpetual vein, from the small trench still visible in a square shape whence he had dug forth the spring, flowing ceaselessly; and by the derivation of channels it supplies the most wholesome waters both to the workshops of the said monastery of Fussenich still flowing even now, and to the entire district, whereas before the rising of this vein, the watering of livestock had to be sought at a very great distance and was obtained with the greatest difficulty, and most convenient, and water for human use, accustomed to be carried or hauled from a greater distance, came at a high cost. Whence the most illustrious fame of Saint Alderic pervaded the entire region.
[7] The sacred and miraculous spring itself, as a perpetual testimony to the generosity of Alderic, could never at any time be enclosed with a vaulted arch always open to all, or shut off or sequestered with a wooden rim (though this was often attempted), but on the following morning, any such obstruction having been removed by angelic hands, it was always ready to flow abundantly for both humans and livestock. Its water is not only the purest and sweetest for sustaining life, salutary against asthma and fevers, but when drunk also provides the most efficacious gifts of healing for the comfort of the sick, especially those afflicted with asthma and fevers.
[8] Around the year 1625, when by the sorcery of wicked men the same spring had been infected with poison and had degenerated, as it were, into the appearance of curdled milk, while the inhabitants of the sacred monastery and the neighbors lamented the loss, recently purified from poison through his relics. a venerable priest, Adam Leufgen, with sound judgment led a solemn liturgical procession to the spring; where, when the base or foot of the sacred reliquary was immersed and the sign of the life-giving Cross was impressed upon the water, its former clarity and wholesomeness were immediately restored.
NoteCHAPTER III
The burial, relics, and veneration of Saint Alderic.
[9] The conflagration at Tolbiac and the overflowing waves of war in every century have consumed the literary records, the acts of Saint Alderic are lost: so that nothing else remains concerning the course of his life or his miracles beyond what our forebears have consistently told us about the sanctity, the sacred spring, the birth, and the burial place of Saint Alderic. To this day it is visible to the eye how the oaken chest, colored blue, with bands fastened above and below to a crossbar, was accustomed to be removed and carried about in sacred processions of old.
[10] Indeed, with God governing the course of his life, he was perfected in a short time and fulfilled a long span; for it pleased the Most High to lead him forth more quickly from the midst of tribulations. he dies at about the age of twenty. For he concluded his struggle at the age of about twenty, as is evidenced to the eye by the sacred relics of his body, resting in their order and dimension, bound together by a silken covering; the head, however, is separate, fittingly adorned with fine linen.
[11] Before the close of his life, he revealed to his confessor that he had been born a Prince of France; and when the confessor kept this secret, God made it known by multiple miracles. For the sacred body, the body is buried in the cemetery, as that of a simple servant, was interred in the common cemetery outside the precincts of the church, with a humble funeral. But when for three consecutive days the body had been buried there, thrice rejected, it is placed in a spot divinely indicated behold, each time at the next dawn it was found above the earth; and at the same time, by day and by night, a candle was seen burning, with no human agency involved, at that spot within the church where it was soon honorably interred, placed in a sarcophagus seven feet long and raised four feet above the pavement, next to the right-hand entrance of the lower choir, fittingly adorned in cut stone; the sacred deposit, covered by glass and iron lattice, joyfully awaits the happy coming of the common Rewarder of the just who have kept the faith entire.
[12] The people of Fussenich relate that they received from their forebears that French noblemen and royal commanders who were leading armies through that region attempted, offering an immense sum of gold, refused when the French sought it, to persuade the nuns to allow the body to be taken back to France, to be venerated with greater honor; but that they fought most resolutely lest they be despoiled of the treasure and protection divinely given to them.
[13] When the Swedes recently devastated Germany in a cruel war, under the auspices of the King of France, their ally, heretical Hessian soldiers had occupied Neuss and from there harassed the territory of Cologne and the neighboring domains. Fussenich plundered, Fussenich was plundered by them, the nuns having taken refuge in Cologne. There the Antistita Adriana von Bodberg was seized with anxiety about transferring the remains of Saint Alderic to a safer place. For this purpose she sent Catherine Modersheim, a sturdy Virgin, the cook of the inner cloister, back to Fussenich. The bones are those of a tender youth, carried to Tolbiac with great labor, as we have already said, and not all of them (for some had previously been given to various churches), and they were decently arranged, so that they could not have been thought very heavy. Yet Catherine was by no means sufficient to carry them. She employed two strong and vigorous men, who carried them to Tolbiac with no slight labor. What omen this may have been, I shall not rashly affirm. The sacred treasure was deposited in one of the basilicas of Tolbiac. and there preserved from fire. One night a fire broke out there which consumed everything near the sacred relics but spared them, no doubt a proof of heavenly protection. These events took place in the year 1642.
[14] The most ancient Missal of the monastery, in a fairly old script, reads at the sixth of February: "Of Alderic, Confessor, feast of Saint Alderic, whose memory is solemnly celebrated with vigils of nine lessons. Collect: O God, who by the soul of your servant Alderic, etc. The convent after Mass sings the Responsory: The Lord led the just man through right paths, etc. Collect, as above." Nor should this seem remarkable, and his Office, since in the Premonstratensian Order a similar Office has been customarily performed for Blessed Norbert, the Founder of the same religious community, within living memory.
[15] The Calendar of the Saints of the diocese of Cologne, painted in solemn characters on the ancient tablets of the Commendations, reads at the sixth of February: public invocation, "Of Alderic the Confessor, Vedast and Amand." Twelve most ancient Cantuals as well, similarly inscribed, in the Litanies read in the appropriate place: "Saint Alderic, pray for us."
CHAPTER IV
The miracles of Saint Alderic.
[16] Around the year of salvation 1550, a nun of the community who had lost her sight sight restored by his merits, fully recovered her vision through the merits of Blessed Alderic.
[17] In the year 1632, a servant of the noble matron Gartzen, Lady of Zevel, suffering from a fever, sent for the healthful drink from the aforesaid spring; fevers dispelled, upon tasting it, he immediately recovered, and afterward having made a pilgrimage to Fussenich, giving glory to God, he confessed it by public attestation.
[18] In the year 1633, on the Nones of February, that is, the day before the feast of Saint Alderic, the nuns, moved by piety, a candle not consumed over a long period, placed a half-pound candle upon the tomb of the Saint; which burned continuously for two days and two nights, a thing which all the Virgins attested would have been impossible by the natural course of events.
[19] In the year 1635, in the month of January, the Venerable Father Hugolinus of Mainz, of the Order of Friars Minor of the Stricter Observance, Vicar of the convent of Hamm, of the Saxon province, and Guardian in other places on more than one occasion, an exile in the convent of Marcodurum of the Cologne province of the same Order on account of the Swedish invasion, a learned and pious man, suffering long and severely from an acute fever, fevers dispelled by water from his spring, after human remedies had been tried without success, eagerly sought water from the oft-mentioned spring; having drunk it at intervals with firm hope of restored health, and when no more remained, on the following night the fever vanished. Not long afterward, in order to offer to God, who is glorious in his Saints, a sacrifice of praise and gratitude, he visited the tomb of Saint Alderic, having spent the vigil of his feast day in fasting, and celebrated with joy the feast day of the sixth of February; and by order of obedience, imposed through me, then Guardian at Bethania in Marcodurum, he faithfully recorded all the foregoing.
[20] In the month of January of the current year 1638, I myself, who write these things, hardly able to sustain my head and chest infected with severe catarrhs and
noxious humors, gradually wasted away, the Author exhausted by a troublesome illness, so broken by coughing that pains increased in all the members of my body, my stomach refused its duty, rest was sought by taking to bed, and at last the natural ruddy color of my face and hands gave way to a pallor and emaciation like that of a corpse, and my eyes, recessed within, presented a certain hollow cavity. And so, with hope of recovery abandoned even in the judgment of the physician himself, on the Saturday before the first Sunday of Lent, scarcely drawing breath, after the confession of the Sisters of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Marcodurum, I whispered into the ears of some of them that they should pray to God with all earnestness that he would establish for me a final moment in his grace, and that for the actual expiation of a sinful life he would prolong and aggravate the illness. Moreover, fearing that the thread of life would be broken during the night by suffocation, in the late evening I serened my soul with a sacred meditation. Meanwhile, thus exposed to the divine will, revolving the matter more deeply, I began to make it a matter of conscience that I had knowingly and willingly neglected the feast of Saint Alderic; which also, as the illness with which I was afflicted grew worse, and by the pious urging of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus at the college of Marcodurum, was drawing forth the Life of the Saint with firm faith, yet I had directed no acts of faith or good hope to the intercession of the same Saint (whom as a boy I had learned from the tradition of the elders was the patron of the sick); therefore, stirred by inner promptings, I began to correct such failings, to offer to God vows of annually celebrating the vigil and feast of Saint Alderic, and on the following day to send a companion Brother to fetch water from the spring. having made a vow to him, he is healed. Without delay, a more peaceful rest than usual followed; hunger returned to my stomach, and health to my whole body suddenly and beyond the expectation of everyone. Since I hold this with firm faith, I confess it ingenuously, not ungrateful to God, and by these presents I attest to it.
Note