CONCERNING ST. ADALPRETUS, BISHOP OF TRENT AND MARTYR.
IN THE YEAR 1181.
CommentaryAdalpretus, Bishop of Trent and Martyr (Saint)
[1] The Proper Office of the Saints of the city and diocese of Trent was published in the year 1627 by order of Carlo Madruzzo, Bishop and Prince of Trent and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. sacred veneration In its Calendar, at the 27th of March, the veneration of St. Adalpretus, Bishop and Martyr, is prescribed under the double rite, and the entire Office is taken from the Common of one Martyr, with this prayer: "O God, who gladdens us with the annual solemnity of Blessed Adalpretus, your Martyr and Bishop," etc. Ferrarius in his General Catalogue, citing the Records of the Church of Trent, commemorates at this 27th of March St. Adalpretus, Bishop of Trent and Martyr.
[2] Concerning the Lives of the Bishops of Trent, Janus Pyrrhus Pincius published twelve books, carrying them down to the year 1539, when he flourished; and in the second book he reports the following about St. Adelpretus: from Frederick Barbarossa he receives privileges Eberhardus the Bishop having departed this life, Adelpretus the Second succeeded him. Whence he drew his origin is not entirely clear. At this time the Emperor Frederick, surnamed Barbarossa, confirmed by decree to the Bishopric of Trent what Conrad had previously donated, and to treat him more generously, gave as a gift the town of Garda on the shores of Lake Benacus and all its jurisdiction, in the Christian year one thousand one hundred sixty-one. in the year 1161 About that time the city of Trent was agitated by various commotions, and war was also declared against it, as may be read in certain authors, though the cause of so great a disturbance is not sufficiently ascertained. The suspicion from subsequent events is that the Lords of Castelbarco were at that time harassing the Tridentines with arms. For at that time they were exceedingly powerful in resources; in order to preserve his territories for they held dominion throughout the entire Lagarina valley and the towns and fortresses on both sides of the river, and other places besides, yet subject to the rights of the Church of Trent. The Castelbarcos therefore pressing the Tridentines with war, Adelpretus, provoked by these injuries, resolved to imitate the most generous spirits of illustrious men, and either bring aid to the faltering homeland or fall manfully with his Church. Wherefore he solicited the Carleses, the Veronese, he forms alliances with neighbors and many other Princes from the March of Treviso -- formerly Venetia -- and neighboring places against the Castelbarcos, and struck an alliance with them, who, having mutually given their word, swore reciprocally that they would have the same friends and enemies. The Bishop further, to bind the Veronese more closely to himself and to have them more faithful against his enemies, gave them the town of Garda -- from which the lake itself takes its name -- in fief (for so speak those versed in the laws). From all this it was apparent that Adalpretus was prepared to defend the rights of the city and public liberty with great spirit, and to manfully repel injuries from the Bishopric. But the Castelbarcos, seeing many armed against them on account of the Prince of Trent, he dies pierced by a lance from ambush were all the more gravely indignant and set an ambush for the Bishop. For nowhere has any account been transmitted of any warlike preparation: we find only this briefly committed to memory -- that the Bishop, pierced by a lance by one of the Castelbarcos in the Lagarina valley near the town of Rovereto, departed this life from the cruel wound. By which crime -- that they killed a Bishop and feudal Lord -- it is believed that the Castelbarcos, as if struck by a divine thunderbolt, fell from the mightiest principality and collapsed to the lowest estate. But Adalpretus, who had presided for twenty years, intercepted by treachery and pierced by the enemy, when he had most gloriously fallen for his country, for religion, and for God, opinion holds that by so conspicuous a death he was made immortal. He was buried in the church of St. Vigilius at the gate that leads to that part of the city which they call Borgo Nuovo, honored among the Blessed and is numbered and venerated among the Blessed; by which title he had also merited to be called during his lifetime, on account of the things piously and bravely performed for religion; but the honor of the Saints is not given to a Prince until he has ceased to live among men. After him Solomon, elected in the customary manner around the year 1181, received the Church, shaken by the death of its most valiant Bishop, and his especial care was to increase the worship of God.
So writes Pyrrhus Pincius; to which we add another eulogy published by Ferdinando Ughelli in volume 5 of his Italia Sacra, among the Bishops of Trent, thus: St. Adelpertus, who is also called Albertus in several privileges of the first Emperor Frederick, was chosen in the year 1158. In the year 1161, the same Frederick not only confirmed to him whatever the Emperor Conrad had once granted to the Church of Trent, but also added the castle of Garda with all its rights on the shore of Lake Benacus. He most vigorously defended the rights of his Church. For when many possessions had been occupied by neighboring enemies, having conscripted a just army, he went to recover them, and near the castle of Rovereto, betrayed and pierced through by a lance, he perished on the sixth day before the Kalends of April in the year 1178, dead on March 27th, buried in the Cathedral church having piously and holily administered the Church entrusted to him for twenty years. His body was brought back to Trent and buried in the Cathedral, and he himself increased the number of the Blessed. I find this same Albertus subscribed to a certain privilege of the Emperor Frederick granted to the Church of Vienna in the year 1157, in the Floriacensian Librarian, where he calls himself Albertus; and to another granted to the Church of Fermo, styled with the same
appellation, with the added title of Imperial Vicar of Italy, in the year 1164 -- indeed only in the year 1160, as will presently appear.
So writes Ughelli, who in volume 2 of his Italia Sacra, among the Bishops of Fermo and Bulignano, the twenty-ninth Bishop, reports the following: another Albertus, a Bishop, distinct from him Moreover, between this Bishop Bulignano and Vamerius, Marquis of Muri-Vallium, on account of that same Castellione, a rather tangled dispute arose in the year 1160, which, when they had at some point argued before the Emperor Frederick, was finally settled in favor of the Bishop through Rufus and Albertus, Judges of the Imperial Chamber, while Albert, Bishop of Trent, the Emperor's Vicar, presided as judge in the Church of St. Paternianus at Fano. As for the privilege that Ughelli writes was granted to the Church of Vienna, it is reported in the Sacred and Profane Antiquities of Vienna, Holy and Senatorial, published by Jean du Bois at the end of the Floriacensian Library, where among the witnesses on page 88 is listed Albert, Bishop of Trent, and the year indicated is 1157, the sixth day before the Kalends of November, with the fifth Indiction, in the reign of Lord Frederick, most glorious Emperor of the Romans, in the sixth year of his reign and the third of his Empire. All of which agree correctly. For in the year 1151, when Conrad died on the 15th of February, his nephew Frederick was chosen as his successor on the 4th of March, and was crowned at Rome by Pope Adrian on the 18th of July in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 1155.
and predecessor Having examined these matters, we judge that the Catalogues of the Bishops of Trent have not yet been correctly arranged, and that after Eberhard the said Albert should be placed, and that he is the one who is said to have built the castle of Stenico and to have held the pontificate for six years -- which we would place from the year 1154 to the year 1160 above one thousand one hundred. For Hartwig, Bishop of Regensburg, who is intruded, was created in the year 1155 and died in the year 1164; he was not Bishop of Trent, although perhaps he may have signed in its absent bishop's name. After Albert sat St. Adalpretus, created toward the end of the year 1160 or certainly at the beginning of the following year, whose successor was Solomon, St. Adalpretus created around the year 1161 whom Pincius above affirms was created around the year 1181. If, however, it were established that the latter had attended the Lateran Council in the year 1179, as is stated in Ughelli and found nowhere in the Acts, and died in 1181 both he would have been ordained earlier and St. Adalpretus would have died sooner. The Albert who is placed after Solomon we judge to be the very same one who sat before St. Adalpretus.
March III: 28 March
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