Alto

ON SAINT ALTO, ABBOT IN UPPER BAVARIA,

AROUND THE YEAR 760.

Preliminary Commentary.

Alto, Abbot in Bavaria (Saint)

By I. B.

Section I. The monastery of Saint Alto. Its various fortunes.

[1] There is a monastery of Saint Alto, commonly called Altenmunster, in Upper Bavaria, at nearly equal distance (as our Rader writes) from Augsburg and Munich, Where is the monastery of Saint Alto situated? though closer to Augsburg and situated to the left for one heading toward Munich. Concerning the origin of this monastery and of many others collectively, our Andreas Brunner, in Part 1 of the Annals of Bavaria, Book 5, Number 10, thus pronounces: "Bavaria received, with the spirits of its citizens and Princes conspiring together, these many and great fortresses of religion within a few short years -- the eternal monuments of Boniface and the other illustrious men whom I have named. Yet to assign each its own era and years, even if the effort were available, the hope is not: built between the years 740 and 760, because we have found the very tablets of the monasteries, however much antiquity they may display, to be of wavering and doubtful trustworthiness. We shall establish this much: that within the fortieth and sixtieth years of the eighth century, all these dwellings of piety that we have enumerated arose."

[2] It is established indeed that the place was consecrated by the habitation and death of Saint Alto, and that the monastery was either founded by his own industry and labor, or dedicated to the veneration of the deceased by a people moved by miracles performed at his tomb. The one who wrote his Life, three hundred years after his death, reports that he built an oratory and dwellings suitable for divine service, and that it was consecrated by Saint Boniface, admonished from heaven; by Saint Alto himself, and that a great part of the forest in which it was situated was given to Alto by King Pippin. Rader narrates the same from the documents of the monastery; with which what he adds does not agree -- that "the first founder is said to have been Etico, Count of the Lechrainers." Not by Count Etico. This man was a hundred years later than Alto, being the brother of Judith, wife of Louis the Pious, and the son of Welf. His son Henry restored and enriched that monastery; and what Etico himself had built elsewhere he joined to it. Thus Brunner, Volume 2, Book 7, Number 9: "When Etico had selected ten from his entire company of household members and retainers, he migrated with them to the Ambergau district, far from the bustle of men; and captivated by the love of solitude, having devised humble dwellings for himself and for devout men, he grew old in the constant worship of God, whose service alone he did not disdain. When he died, his son Henry -- the monks having struggled hard with the grimness of the place and the harshness of the climate -- restored by his son Henry, first restored the monastery of Saint Alto, which had fallen into ruin through the injury of men or the times, transferred them there, and equipped it with all necessary provisions, as far as his means allowed." The same Brunner recalls this restoration in Volume 3, Book 11, Number 1. And the monk of Weingarten in his booklet on the Princes of the House of Welf, Chapter 3: "Then, when his father's death was learned of, Henry, considering that the place where the cell had been begun was inconvenient and difficult for claustral life, transported the aforesaid monks to the villa called Altenmunster, where Saint Alto the Confessor rests, and there completed an abbey that was quite religious and wealthy." And this Henry, son of Etico, grandson of Welf I, Bruschius calls the founder of the monastery of Alto.

[3] Henry's sons were Saint Conrad, Bishop of Constance, Rudolf, and again by his grandson Welf II, and Etico II. From Rudolf was born Welf the Second, who restored the monastery of Saint Alto -- either afflicted by time, which consumes all things, and by the depredations of dynasts, and now nearly lost, as Rader writes; or, as Aventinus says, destroyed by the Hungarians -- having introduced Benedictines; which the author of the Life also commemorates. Although Aventinus judges that the Welf by whom that monastery was restored was not the son of the first Rudolf, whom the writers of Bavaria call Welf the First, but the son of Welf -- born of that Rudolf -- that is, the second Rudolf's son, Welf the Second. The monk of Weingarten, Bruschius, and the rest recognize Welf the Second, the restorer of that monastery, as the son of Rudolf and grandson of Henry. He was not, however, as Rader and Hundius in the Metropolis supposed, that Welf who was Prince of Bavaria: for the first of the Welfs to attain that dignity was this man's grandson Welf, son of Azzo of Este.

[4] The monks were subsequently transferred from the monastery of Saint Alto to Altdorf. For Henry, grandfather of Welf and son of Etico, as Brunner writes from the Weingarten Monk in Book 7, "having first restored the monastery of the Lord Alto... also built at Altdorf an ample dwelling for women who had professed virginity"; Nuns introduced by his widow. to whom shortly afterward the monastery of Alto was given to inhabit, the men migrating to Altdorf. Bruschius, Martin Crusius in the Annals of Swabia, and the Weingarten writer report that this was arranged by Welf II himself. The Life contradicts this, having been written while Welf's widow Irmentrud was still living. Aventinus attributes it to Welf's widow, whom he calls Irmengard; the monk of Weingarten calls her Juitha, monks transferred to Altdorf, and reports that she lived there for a long time as a survivor and was buried at Altenmunster. Bruschius calls her Immissa, the enlarger of the monastery of Alto. Thereafter her son Welf III, in his fortress which, as Crusius and Bruschius have it, had been consumed by fire around the year 1053, founded a monastery afterward to Weingarten, which he called Vineyard, or Weingarten, and into it transferred the monks from the monastery of Altdorf, which he converted into a parish church.

[5] Finally, in the year of Christ 1487, the monastery of Saint Alto, having again collapsed from age, as Rader writes, was restored to its former splendor by George, Prince of Bavaria the monastery of Alto (the last, I believe, of the Landshut line), and he placed in it sacred virgins of the strict discipline of Saint Bridget. There exists in Volume 2 of the Metropolis of Salzburg a diploma of Innocent VIII, Supreme Pontiff, dated the day before the Kalends of March of the same year, in which it is said that that monastery, through the malice of the times utterly collapsed and the carelessness and negligence of those presiding over it for the time being, had come to such ruin that its structures and buildings were almost leveled to the ground, its goods squandered, alienated, and dispersed, and the monastery itself had been entirely deserted by nuns and left uninhabited, and no exercise of divine worship was being performed there. Then, having heard those who thought their interests were concerned -- namely the Bishop of Freising, to whom it was subject, and the heads of the Benedictine Order in that region, restored in the year 1487 and given to Brigittine Virgins, and others to whom he had entrusted the investigation of the matter -- the same Innocent decrees that 60 nuns and 25 monks of the Order of the Holy Savior, or of Saint Bridget, should possess and inhabit the monastery to be rebuilt there by the Duke -- but separated from one another by high and strong walls.

[6] Julius II then confirmed, by a diploma dated the 4th of the Nones of March 1504, the possessions of the said monastery of the Blessed Mary of Altomünster, of the Order of Saint Bridget, called of the Holy Savior, under the Rule of Saint Augustine, as can be seen in the same Volume 2 of the Metropolis of Salzburg. Rader testifies that when he published the first volume of Bavaria Sancta in the year 1615, that monastery was flourishing greatly. Then in his Observations on Volume 1, published in the year 1627, after the third volume, he writes this: "Today, as I recently (in the year 1624) learned in person, it has flourished to this day, only 13 Fathers and 36, as they call them, Sisters frequent the place, because at this time, when the price of goods has risen, it does not suffice to feed more." Thus Rader. But as for his writing that the church was dedicated to the name of the Holy Savior, I fear this is not certain, since Julius II calls it the monastery of Saint Mary -- unless some change was made afterward. Monks and nuns still inhabit the monastery of Alto, although the province has been devastated by more than one incursion of heretics.

Section II. The homeland, era, veneration, and Life of Saint Alto.

[7] Having explained these matters concerning the monastery of Saint Alto, we must ask who he himself was and whence he came, Saint Alto, a Scot, and in what era he lived; and when his deeds were committed to writing. He is said in the Life, which we shall give presently, to have been "sprung from the most noble stock of the Scots"; in the old Breviary of the Church of Freising, "sprung from the noble race of the Scots"; in Rader, "born in Scotland"; by other writers simply, "a Scot." Colgan does not doubt that he was Irish, because, he says, all other Scots who flourished in Bavaria in that era or in earlier times were natives of Ireland -- which he endeavors to prove by a long induction; then because Alto is a name frequent among the ancient Irish, which he proves by two examples; and finally because our Brunner seems to support this, writing that Saint Alto was from the company of Saint Virgil, born in Ireland of noble family. Dempster claims him for modern Scotland in Book 1 of the Ecclesiastical History of the Scottish Nation, Number 11. Rader favors this in his epigram subscribed to the image of Saint Alto, addressing him thus: "Alto, a lineage not ignoble of Caledonian land." For there were no Caledonians in Ireland, but among the Picts. We shall call him a Scot, with the good will of both nations: nothing more is yet clear. When they produce ancient documents that certainly assign him to one region or the other, we shall go over to their side.

[8] He lived under the reign of Pippin, father of Charlemagne, and while Saint Boniface was managing Christian affairs among the Bavarians -- Boniface who in the year of Christ 755 was dispatched by a noble martyrdom among the Frisians. Nor is this disputed by anyone. He lived around the year 750. To what year Alto prolonged his life is nowhere stated. "By outstanding virtue," says Brunner, "he merited celestial honors after death." Likewise Rader: "The memory of Saint Alto is observed with an annual and public liturgy he is venerated on February 9, on the fifth day before the Ides of February, which I received written out and signed from the monastery itself." In the Diocese of Freising, as can be seen in the Proper Offices printed in the year 1625, on the 9th of February the feast of Saint Apollonia, Virgin and Martyr, is celebrated with a commemoration of Saint Alto, Abbot. In the manuscript Martyrology of the Carmel of Cologne, his memory on the same day is recorded thus: "On the same day, the Blessed Alto, Confessor." The same appears in the Martyrology printed at Cologne in the year 1490, and in the additions of Hermann Greven to Usuard, and in Ferrari's Universal Catalogue. Reported by some on other days. The same is read in the manuscript Florarium, but on the 6th of February. Dempster writes that he is venerated on the 7th of February and the 5th of August, in both cases without citing an authority. Wilson, in both editions of the Anglican Martyrology, places him on the 5th of September, and after him David Camerarius; and again Ferrari, who both there and on this day, the 9th of February, wrongly reports him to have been an Abbot at Salzburg. Whether he ever accompanied Saint Virgil there, we cannot rashly determine; what is certain is that he lived in Bavaria, built a monastery (not that Saint Boniface did so for him, as Wilson supposes), and was buried there.

[9] His Life was written while the widow Irmentrud of Welf, who had restored his monastery, was still living, and under the third Abbot after the restoration, Henry. The Life written in the eleventh century. Thus in Number 9: "Also Henry, Abbot of this monastery, over which he still sagaciously presides, enjoying the present life." And in Number 11: "The venerable matron called Irmentrud... the widow of the same Catulus for many years now, still, by God's dispensation, placed in this present life -- in which we also wish that she may long continue," etc. She afterward transferred, as was said above, the monks to Altdorf in Swabia, and from Altdorf the nuns to the monastery of Alto -- which others claim was done by her husband. Concerning her, the monk of Weingarten, who calls her Juitha, after relating the death and burial of Welf, writes thus: "His wife, however, surviving for a long time afterward, was buried at Altenmunster."

[10] Dempster speculates that Saint Alto wrote a Mirror of Charity, Book 1; Hymns on the Saints, Book 1; Books attributed to him. and Claustral Ordinances, Book 1. Who claims to have seen these, or to have read them cited by others?

[11] Besides Wiguleus Hundius in the Metropolis of Salzburg, and Christoph Gewold in his Notes and Additions to it, Matthaeus Rader in Bavaria Sancta, Andreas Brunner in the Annals of Bavaria, Johannes Aventinus, the anonymous monk of Weingarten, Thomas Dempster, and others already cited, Saint Alto is mentioned by Arnold Wion in Volume 2 of the Lignum Vitae, page 903, among those Passed Over, Book 3, and in the same words by Hugo Menard in the Appendix to the Benedictine Martyrology. Marcus Velser, in his History of Bavaria, Book 5, at the year 755, Velser's testimony about him, where he speaks thus: "Altenmunster praises Pippin as its patron. To Alto the Scot, whom posterity honored as a heavenly saint, Pippin contributed a tract of land, vast and wild with forests. Alto, having felled and uprooted the trees, cleared it for human habitation."

LIFE, BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR,

written about 600 years ago, from Volume 11 of the Metropolis of Salzburg.

Alto, Abbot in Bavaria (Saint)

BHL Number: 0316

By an anonymous author.

[1] The Blessed Alto, therefore, sprung from the most noble stock of the Scots, according to the Teutonic etymology of his name, Alto, holy from boyhood, from his very boyhood lived years of mature and elderly gravity -- setting aside, that is, the very brief pleasure of carnal affections and attending constantly to the perpetual joyfulness of the spiritual life. Neither the glory of ample possessions nor the favor of parents or kinsmen had drawn him back from his undertaken purpose; but his will was in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditated day and night. And as, by this maturity, he progressed further in his resolution, and the ardor of evangelical perfection grew fervent in his soul, admonished by the Lord through a vision, following the example of Abraham the Patriarch, By divine admonition, he was to leave his land and his kindred and cross over into the distant region of the Germans. Hastening therefore to fulfill this divine admonition, leaving the habitation of his earthly homeland so that he might merit to receive some of the heavenly mansions -- concerning which our Lord said in the Gospel: "In my Father's house there are many mansions" John 14:2 -- proceeding therefore, as was said, the man of God departed from his homeland and came into Bavaria, situated in the southern part of Germany; he comes to Bavaria, where, having entered a certain forest, he began there to become a colonist, acquiring sustenance for himself thence so as not to burden anyone, and lives by his labor: moving about in all directions, mindful of the Apostle who says: "We did not eat bread from anyone for nothing, lest we burden any of you" 2 Thessalonians 3:8; and of the Psalmist who says: "You shall eat the fruit of your handiwork; blessed are you, and it shall be well with you" Psalm 127.

[2] When, having dwelt there, his sweet fame had reached many ears, it was carried even to Pippin, King of the Franks, the father of Charlemagne, Then he clears the forest given to him by Pippin: who, reigning at that time, had subjected very many provinces to his kingdom. Since he took care of pilgrims, the poor, and those serving God, he delivered into Alto's possession a great part of that forest in which Saint Alto had dwelt. Whence it came about that one whom the King honored with so great a donation was honored by very many, both near and far; and the faithful and devout of every kind from the regions of Alemannia and Bavaria, in whose borderlands that same place is situated, vied with one another to visit him and to minister to him from their means and resources. Supported therefore by benefits of this kind from all sides,

he cleared the greatest portion of the forest that had been given to him and leveled it into flat and fruitful acres.

[3] Then, after some years, when the land -- cultivated by the labor of his own hands and by the supplementary aid of those assisting him -- had produced a copious harvest, and when the substance of provisions had also happily increased from the offerings of the faithful who flocked to him daily, the man of God began to consider with anxious heart he builds a monastery, how he might render all these things back to the honor of Him from whom he knew they had been bestowed upon him. While he was considering this, he built dwellings suitable for divine service, as well as a monastery of religious men, and gathered lovers of the spiritual life and made them dwell with him. For which reason to this very day the place is called the "Monastery of Alto."

[4] When this was built, the holy Bishop Boniface, who at that time was regarded as an outstanding propagator of the divine word in Germany, whose church Saint Boniface dedicates, at God's direction, was admonished by a certain prompting of divine vision to go quickly to consecrate the monastery of Saint Alto. When he came and wished to consecrate it in the usual manner, so that no woman should be permitted to enter it, the Blessed Alto requested that he not consecrate his oratory on such terms. He said it was especially necessary, since the men often went out far away on various tasks, that their wives, remaining at home, should pray for themselves and their husbands. Consenting to his request, Saint Boniface accordingly, in consecrating the church, made it common to both women and men; but he blessed a certain spring located in the same place near the church and blesses a spring inaccessible to women in such a way that no woman was permitted to approach it and draw water. Both of these arrangements persisted to the times of our own age. But how certain of these things have been changed in our times, the following account will make clear.

[5] When the oratory was built and consecrated, as was said, he persevered in his undertaken resolve of holy manner of life, The miracles of Saint Alto are lost, and Saint Alto died there, shining with many virtues and signs; which are reported to have been committed to writing, but afterward (alas!) stolen. Whence no one should be surprised if he finds but few notable wonders of his virtues narrated here.

[6] After the death of the Blessed Alto, a certain powerful man from Alemannia -- namely the father of that Count who commonly acquired a certain name which is expressed in Latin as "Catulus" whelp -- Through the fault of secular men the monastery collapsed, claiming the monastery and all that pertained to it by some tradition or law, possessed it as their hereditary right. For which reason it came about that, since the possessors of so great a place had been more zealous for worldly pomp and domestic cares than for divine service, they allowed that same place to be annulled and to be visited by no fitting offering.

[7] In this manner, therefore, through this negligence, the monastery of Saint Alto was maintained for many cycles of years -- until, in the time of the aforesaid Count Catulus, Saint Alto appeared in a vision to a certain venerable man, saying to him: Saint Alto commands that they be admonished to restore it, appearing to someone: "Go, and tell those lords under whose power I rest bodily: I am Alto. It is very burdensome to me that the place has long been held in negligence regarding my body, and that no care of divine service is exercised there. If therefore they amend these things, let them know that they will receive a great reward therefrom; but if they neglect them, let them know without doubt that a great punishment will come upon them." When such a vision had occurred, the man to whom it was revealed immediately arose and confided it to his wife. But she, one of the foolish women, caring little for heavenly commands, he twice neglects it at his wife's counsel, answered him, saying: "It does not seem useful to me to announce such things to men of such high dignity, since you will gain nothing but hatred therefrom." Her husband, obeying her counsel, kept silent about the command entrusted to him. But after a few days, Saint Alto again said to the same man in a vision: "Why have you despised my command? Go now and announce what I had ordered you; otherwise you will suffer something harsh." But, just as before, he deferred the same commands.

[8] But the third time a certain monk appeared standing before that same man, saying to him: until he is beaten in his sleep. "My lord sent me to you, to ask why you have so many times spurned his commands." And the man said: "Who is your lord?" The monk answered, saying: "Saint Alto is my lord, and he himself sent me to you. And so that you may recognize it to be so, the punishments which he himself, threatening, twice foretold would come upon you, you shall now feel." And immediately, amid these words of reproof, beginning to strike him, he afflicted him with excessive beatings. Then he said to him: "If therefore you have hitherto delayed fulfilling the commands of Saint Alto because you had no signs to which faith should be given, hold now the signs of faith, and quickly fulfill his commands."

[9] Having seen these things, the man awoke, and hesitating no further about the command, went and announced to the aforesaid Count all these things that had been indicated to him. The Count, immediately believing Count Welf restores it, and obeying the mandate of this vision, strove to fulfill it with his utmost efforts, to such a degree that, having transferred certain estates by public donation and also having assembled monks, he appointed a venerable Abbot named Rudolf to preside over all these things according to the Rule. But after the same Rudolf, having strenuously governed the monastery of Saint Alto for many years, was taken from this life, only two Abbots succeeded him: an Abbot having been appointed, namely Eberhard, distinguished by rare probity, and also Henry, likewise Abbot of this monastery, over which he still sagaciously presides, enjoying the present life. I have inserted the memory of these men here for the reason that all the things I have related about the revelation of Saint Alto concerning the renovation of his monastery might be manifest to the knowledge of those both present and future, and might become more credible.

[10] Among these things it must also be mentioned that the venerable Itha -- that is, the mother of the aforesaid -- with Itha, his mother, persuading and helping, labored with such great devotion in interceding with him for this establishment that she rejoiced to have her own pleasures and her household diminished for the increase of the divine office, and decreed that her burial should be in the same monastery of Saint Alto. She is also said to have declared: "Perhaps the reason why the whole race of our parents and kinsmen has hitherto been unstable and short-lived is that the monastery of Saint Alto was left in such great neglect. Let us therefore amend for the better what we have sinned through ignorance."

[11] When the same Itha had died and been buried there as she had decreed, and when her husband and their son, the aforesaid Catulus, had also died, the venerable matron named Irmentrud, born of most noble parents -- the widow of the same Catulus for many years now -- still, by God's dispensation, placed in this present life (in which we also wish that she may long continue, which Irmentrud, his widow, enriches, and that through her God may have mercy, coming to the aid of a world in peril) -- this matron, I say, when upon the death of her husband and sons the entire possession had devolved to her sole inheritance and power, submitted herself to Christ with such devotion and such great humility that she not only did not diminish what had been donated by her predecessors to the monastery of Saint Alto, but even greatly increased it.

"For him the hard rock, struck with the staff, provided a stream to the thirsty, and flowed with a generous flood."

This is perhaps the spring, or is believed to be, which Saint Boniface blessed.