Herumbertus

ON ST. HERUMBERTUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, OF MINDEN IN WESTPHALIA.

From the Osnabrück Office.

ABOUT THE YEAR 800.

Herumbertus, Bishop and Confessor, of Minden in Westphalia (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.

Minden, a not undistinguished city of Westphalia on the left bank of the Weser, once subject to a Bishop who was a suffragan of Cologne, now subdued to the Prussian power, although Imperial and Hanseatic, refers the first beginnings of the Christian faith to the blessed Charlemagne, Foundation of the bishopric of Minden by Charlemagne. the subduer of the Saxons famous in that time, and so also those things which chiefly conduced to establishing it, especially the bishopric, instituted there by the same Emperor, in the year, as the Chronicles report, 780, Pope Adrian I approving. Of the foundation of this and of the other churches throughout Saxony the Chronicle of Minden treats more expressly, in Meibom, volume 1 of German Affairs, from page 554, of which we have had to discourse more than once in our Acts. An account of the other Chronicles of Minden is rendered by the illustrious Leibniz in his Introduction to the Writers of Brunswick, volume 2, page 19, speaking of Hermann Lerbeke, author of the Chronicle of the Bishops of Minden, where, besides those already mentioned, he assigns a third, which is also in our keeping in the collection of Pistorius, volume 3, from page 723, in which some things recur which you would wish treated a little more exactly.

[2] Beyond the other collectors of those Chronicles, Lerbeke seems to have written accurately, from the Chronicle of Hermann Lerbeke, of the Order of Preachers, whose age is designated by Otto von dem Berge, Bishop of Minden, as the praised Leibniz found written on the front of the codex: Hermann von Lerbeke, brother of the Order of Preachers of the house of Minden, published this Chronicle, down to the time of his own life, in the time of Otto von dem Berge, Bishop of Minden. This Otto was the third of that name, in the order of Bishops the forty-fifth, who by Urban VI in the year 1384, on the seventeenth of the month of February, at Naples, was provided with the bishopric of Minden. His deeds are narrated from page 194, and finally Bishop Otto is said to have sat 14 years, six weeks, and five days, and so his death is to be referred to the year 1398, which, after the manner of that age, is thus expressed in a rude little verse: "M, three times a hundred, L and X, four and eight points"; which things are said only to show that Lerbeke did not live or flourish in the thirteenth century, but toward the end of the fourteenth, and most probably about the beginning of the fifteenth: and from him are to be taken the few things which have been handed down to memory concerning St. Herumbertus.

[3] In the Pistorian Chronicle another name is set before us, so that for Herumbertus, the first bishop of Minden, is taken rather than in other Minden sources. there is Erkanbertus, who elsewhere is named Hercumbertus and Hercubertus: nor in other matters is its author diligent enough, as may be gathered from one thing also pertaining to our subject; when he says: But the aforesaid Charles founded a beautiful and adorned church, which is now the greater church of Minden, which St. Leo the Pope consecrated, and ordained for them a certain holy man as pastor and first Bishop of Minden, by name Erkanbertus: he was a devout man, and by the reckoning of his life walking in all the commandments of God; for God worked through him many miracles, which are written in the book of life. But the aforesaid Erkanbertus, illustrious for many virtues, rested in peace on the vigil of St. Medard the bishop. These things do not cohere with the received opinion that St. Herumbertus was given to the people of Minden as Bishop in the year 780; nor does the day of death seem rightly defined: for the Lerbekian Chronicle expressly notes that the passing or anniversary of that Saint was wont to be kept on the eve of Primus and Felicianus; which would be the VIII of June, sacred to St. Medard; whereas meanwhile he is now venerated on this day, the IX of July, at least in the Osnabrück Office, to be recited below.

[4] Few things survive concerning St. Herumbertus, It is necessary to confess that no less the death of the Saint than the series of his deeds is unknown, Lerbeke most deservedly complaining that in this, as in most other matters, the Clergy of that time and their successors are found not moderately, alas, blameworthy. But that fault was not of the Clergy of Minden alone, but too common to many other churches, whose loss the Monks and Religious have striven to repair. We have already given what in the Chronicle of Pistorius is worthy of observation and of correction: the Meibomian too is at the beginning quite confused, rightly building up, unless I am mistaken, this one thing with the received opinion, at page 555, that Charles founded the church of Minden in the year of Christ 780 …, over which he set the venerable man the Lord Hercumbertus, first Pastor and Bishop of that church, of whose foundation, he says, there exist such verses:

Behold, in seven hundred and eighty years together, a fitting place is founded thence for the church of Minden; may it be full of delights, enjoying peace, and pleasant.

[5] in some rhythmic verses, The Pistorian Chronicle also relates a rhythm concerning the foundation of the aforesaid church, but always with the name of our Saint distorted: the things which Lerbeke has seem indeed more correct, but how Leo the Pope is intruded, I do not for my part understand. Behold the little preface of the work:

In eight hundred years of Christ, but twice ten taken from these, the first temple is founded to the honor of Peter Cephas: the error of the nation is converted into the beauty of the faith. The place named Minden, entrenched by a heathen, Widukind by name. He, captured by Charles, baptized by Leo in the sacred stream of the font. Charles, founding it, made it against the nations which he cast out, the Saxons so named. Leo, consecrating it, made it safe, and set Herenbertus over it against the wicked demons. Grant, O God, that the nation and the place be saved, nor let the ambushes of the enemy be feared [*]: to remain forever, nor let the malice of demons drag it into hell.

[6] The beginning of the Lerbekian Chronicle follows, of this kind: All the aforesaid things therefore being well ordered, not sufficiently accurate. whether by the holy Charles or by Widukind, the venerable man Hercumbertus is set over and designated as the first pastor and fitting bishop of the church of Minden. How long a time he ruled the said church, or where he was buried, I have not found written. Then he subjoins that complaint which we reported above; finally the following little verses:

Here the prudent teacher, called to a sublime work from the repose of the mind, that he might gain very many hearts, and a fruitful harvest be prepared for God the Author. For here the Bishop is honored, who is called of Minden, with the dignity of the pallium, which is well and not ill called the rational; for three Bishops are so adorned by that, through whom are rightly venerated the place, the nation, and the clergy.

[7] It remains that with Lerbeke we accuse the clergy of that age, that in committing their affairs to writing they were quite careless, since so few things survive concerning their first and holy Bishop. He is venerated in the church of Osnabrück. One may also marvel that even in the later centuries themselves no ecclesiastical commemoration in the Office was made of so distinguished a man in the church of Minden. We have a Breviary of Minden printed and completed in the year of the Lord 1516 in the noble and famous city of Mainz, by Johann Scheffer, in which there is not a word about St. Herumbertus, so that we should not have thought it complete enough to relate him in this place, unless the church of Osnabrück gave testimony of his cult, and indeed under a semi-double rite, by that lesson which is read among its proper Offices, printed at Cologne in the year 1652: Herumbertus was a man of wondrous sanctity and zeal in converting the Saxons, not long before subdued by arms by Charlemagne; by the merits of whose virtues and by whose doctrine many were led to the Christian religion. Moved by this, Charles, with Pope Adrian consenting, set him as first bishop over the new episcopal see of Minden, lately founded by himself. Who in his office showed himself a diligent pastor and excellent teacher for many years, and at length rested holily in the Lord. The rest, with the prayer, are taken from the common. You will note that in the proper Martyrology of the same church St. Herumbertus is announced in the first place on this day, in the same sense as here, but a little more compressed.

* Otherwise, Parentur.