ON THE BLESSED EUPHEMIA,
ABBESS OF THE CONVENT OF VIRGINS OF S. ALTO, IN BAVARIA.
>IN THE YEAR 1180
HISTORICAL COLLECTION
Concerning her birth, sanctity, age, title of Blessed.
Euphemia, Abbess of the convent of Virgins of S. Alto, in Bavaria (B.)
G. H. & D. P.
The deeds of St. Alto the Abbot we have set down
on the day of his birth (to heaven),
the 9th of February; and we said, that the monastery
founded by him, in the eighth
century of Christ, in upper Bavaria,
situated between Augsburg
and Munich; and that in it at the beginning
Monks lived; who being translated to Altorf,
there were introduced Nuns, professing
virginity under some Abbess set over them.
Such was there the Blessed Euphemia, of the most noble
Andechs family, born of her father Berthold, and
her mother Sophia, The noble Andechs family. sister of Gisala; who was the mother
of four Bishops, and of B. Mathildis
the Virgin Nun in the Diessen monastery of the same Bavaria:
at whose Life, illustrated on the 31st of May,
we treated of the antiquity of the Andechs family. This B. Euphemia desired to be buried
with her sister B. Mathildis in the Diessen convent;
Epitaph. where the epitaph in German words is read
with this sense: Here under a smaller stone lies
buried the Blessed Euphemia the Virgin, Abbess of the monastery
of S. Alto, sister of the Divine Mathildis, and
daughter of Berthold the Count of Andechs, our
founder. Death on the 17th of June. She died in the year 1180. This was submitted
to us by the Lord Simon Provost of Diessen, asserting,
that in a most ancient Manuscript Calendar of his monastery,
the day of her death is noted as this 17th of June.
And he added this synopsis of her Life.
[2] Synopsis of her Life Our Blessed Mechtildis had as her own sister
the Blessed Euphemia: who, wisely
reckoning of little account that she was equal to her
in illustrious blood, and, at the Apostle's exhortation
striving to emulate better gifts, rather
strove in the perfect manner of living to
assimilate herself to her in every way. And so, having entered the monastery of S. Alto in
Bavaria, under the rule of St. Benedict,
she fully attained this, that to her sister she might seem
a true sister no less in virtues, than in the splendor
of her birth: inasmuch as she proved her own
innocence to the Sisters excellently, by the constant exercise of pious
actions. Whence in a short time it came about,
that by the common votes of the same she was substituted
into the place of the deceased Abbess.
Which office when she had for a long time fulfilled both piously
and prudently, full of the merits of good works,
she is called to her rewards in heaven,
on the seventeenth of June, in the year of salvation one thousand
one hundred and eighty; having obtained a burial fitting her own
desire, in the monastery of her parents,
Diessen, with the Blessed Mechtildis;
made the diligent imitator of her, as she herself of Christ.
Thus he.
[3] Matthaeus Raderus in the second volume of Holy Bavaria
published a small elogium on page 289 under this title,
S. Euphemia Abbess of the convent of Virgins of S.
Alto. she is called Saint by Raderus, The rest are more accurately set forth in the synopsis submitted
to us, with which alone we give the title of Blessed.
Andreas Brunner, when in part 3 of the Annals
of the virtue and fortune of the Bavarians, book 12 num. 9, he had described
the virtues and miracles of B. Mechtildis,
at the end adds these things: With equal sanctity her sister
Euphemia, set over the monastery of the Divine Alto,
lived, but the records of her have not found a writer, or
by the fault of the times they perished. For the rest,
from the silence of Raderus and of the Provost Simon himself,
we are compelled to believe; that all worship of B. Euphemia,
if any once existed in her monastery, the worship, if there was any, being abolished. through the neglect of posterity
has died out, only the title of Blessed or Saint
remaining: which defect the extreme
negligence of the preceding centuries readily renders credible to us,
concerning the worship of the native Saints, through Germany even
in those provinces, which the Lutheran heresy raging everywhere
they somehow repelled from themselves; as
was done in Bavaria, we rejoice indeed, but not therefore
less do we grieve over the many monuments of ancient
Religion either lost, or not sought after, while
for the highest interest of the Catholic cause against the heretics by religious men
watch is kept more zealously, and by princes more laboriously
it is contended.