ON BLESSED CONRAD MARTYR
FOUNDER OF THE MOUNT OF ANGELS OF THE ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT,
AMONG THE SUBSILVANI IN HELVETIA.
A.D. MCXXV.
PrefaceConrad Martyr, Founder of the Mount of Angels of the Order of St. Benedict, in Helvetia (B.)
D. P.
That several, nay very many, on the Mount of Angels lived and died Saints both men and women, and that there are even now entombed kept there not few bodies of the same men and women, In a place frequented by Saints of either sex, cannot be called into doubt by him, who the ancient splendor and fecundity of this Mount in temporal and spiritual things, the rigor and vigor of regular discipline, and the fame of either monastery considers; in which, through three more or less centuries, the monks day and night serving made a number not less than a hundred, but often by half they exceeded; but as for the Nuns on one day, on the feast of St. Verena Virgin, in the year MCXXV, in the presence of Lady Agnes once Queen of the Hungarians, daughter of Albert King of the Romans, were veiled a hundred thirty-nine Virgins. Thus in his letters to us, in the year MDCLXXVI on the V day of August written, the most Reverend Abbot of the place Ignatius, wonderfully recreated, when our April synopsis he received. Which sense of his mind that he might express in words, To God, he says, the sower of so good, so holy, and great and high a counsel (namely of the Lives of the Saints thus collecting) I give thanks, and with most humble prayers I bend the knees of my heart, soul, and body, that the Divine goodness, which through your Paternities, with the joy and consolation of the whole Christian world, most happily have been begun, through the same may complete.
[2] Of St. Adelhelm the I Abbot He complains then, that by the carelessness and injury of the times it has been done, that our wishes cannot be satisfied, of obtaining ancient monuments about St. Adelhelm the first Abbot of the place, about B. Conrad the Founder, and about BB. Frowinus and Bertholdus successors of Adelhelm, and that nothing can be added to the things written by Murer in Helvetia Sancta and by Bucelinus in the Menology. The chief therefore testimony of the ancient toward them, especially the prior two, religion he suggests is the constant, as the same Abbot in the already cited epistle speaks, the cult perseveres and an altar, even now veneration and cult toward St. Adelhelm the Abbot, on the sixth Weekdays especially, with great confidence of the devout people of obtaining through the intercession of this Saint, whatever on three consecutive weekdays following them piously they demand. There is extant even now an effigy of this holy Abbot, in encaustic work a hundred years ago and more expressed, the epithet of Saint being added, and with rays about the head adorned. Moreover at the altar, lately erected for his and the blessed Founder's cult, common to him and B. Conrad. a lamp continually burns; and also every year on the feast of St. Adelhelm the day, namely XXV February, a Mass with most solemn rite, with great concourse of the people is wont to be made: but the death of the aforesaid Founder our Necrology and the more ancient Calendars to the day II of May everywhere assign; so that we wonder at Murer, as if the day were unknown, to have referred it to XXVI November, when is venerated St. Conrad Bishop of Constance.
[3] Of their sepulchres and the Relics of their bodies since nothing is indicated, I believe them unknown to lie hidden, or by hostile incursions to have been dissipated. His life is kept for the supplement of February, Meanwhile, just as we recognize there to be more than enough cause, that of St. Adelhelm, before for defect of fitting information passed over, we treat in the Supplement of February; so we believe it can suffice, for the Life of B. Conrad such as it is here to place, that he have a common altar with that Saint: at which I would be the author, that, although a proper Mass of him to make without an express decree of the Apostolic See is not lawful, yet let there be done what to such Blessed that [See] indulges, in his honor of the Most Holy Trinity yearly; especially if it should happen sometime (which would that it might happen!) the sacred bodies of both to be found, to be elevated to public cult. Conrad's Acts are here given collected by Murer. Murer alleges the Chronicle of the very monastery, in the year MDCXXIV written by its Abbot D. Benedict, which I know not whether it survives; there survive at least printed, the Chronicles of Helvetia of John Stumpf, and the Topography of Matthew Merian: of whom the latter, the situation of the place in figure and in the Appendix folio 11 exhibits, in copper form printed; the former the foundation explains book 7 chapter 3: to which Bucelinus adds the monuments of the convent by D. Placid the Abbot to him communicated: which perhaps are nothing other than D. Benedict's aforecited Chronicle.
THE LIFE
From the German of Henry Murer.
Conrad Martyr, Founder of the Mount of Angels of the Order of St. Benedict, in Helvetia (B.)
FROM THE GERMAN OF MURER
[1] Some hundred years ago, in the district of the Zurich country, an old and noble family dwelt, deduced from the Albis mountain, Conrad sprung of a noble and pious lineage, not far from the town Birmenstorf and the river Reuss, in a certain castle Sellenburen or Seldenburen called, whence also the title bore the Princes of that family. Of these one, by name Regibertus, in the year DCCCCXLV founded the monastery of St. Blaise in the Black Forest, and died in the year DCCCCLXIV. Another Henry, the foundation of the Muri convent in Argovia helped, in the year MXXX. Nor long after, namely in the year MLXX there lived a pair of noble and pious spouses, to whom this grace God granted, that among the fruits of their concordant marriage they numbered also B. Conrad, of whom is our speech.
[2] He, after the death of his parents, the portion of inheritance befalling him, not to luxury or vanity, his goods about to convert into the foundation of a convent, as everywhere others, judged it to be spent; but of building a convent he thought, the more solicitously, that in those parts rare then were and very far from one another the monasteries. For which matter when a place not fit enough near the Seldenburen castle he found; all things surveying, at length in the year MCXVIII the wood of the Carni being crossed among the Subsilvani, he went through the valley, which the Aa or Saa river intersects, where Wolfenschiessen and Graffenoort places are named, until he attained the precipices of the Alps and the mountain Hennenbergh, that is, of the Hens then called. There pleased him vehemently this place, the place chosen for it he says was named by the Angels, for a monastery of men of the Order of St. Benedict, in honor of the Mother of God Mary and of the holy Angels, there to be placed; since more frequently there the songs of Angels were said to have been heard: from whom, the prior name being changed, to be called thenceforth he judged. No delay the wood is extirpated, the ground is leveled, there rises the structure of the cloister and the church, and the chief altar in that place is placed, where once had been the den of a forest bear. Then from the monastery of the Hermits of Einsiedeln, or as others wish from that of Hirsau, is summoned St. Adelhelm with his associates, and first to the place an Abbot is set, under the Abbot St. Adelhelm, and by Udalric Bishop of Constance the church is consecrated about the year MCXX on the day I of April; and the celebrated handing over of goods both movable and immovable, for the foundation conferred into the hands of the new Abbot, there acceded the privileges of confirmation and protection, both from Calixtus II Pope, and from Henry Emperor of the Romans IV, King of Germany V: as more largely it can be read in our Ecclesiastical Theater of the Helvetians.
[3] In all these things the sole glory of God before his eyes having Lord Conrad and the salvation of his neighbors, to that grade of more perfect virtue ascended, and made a monk that hitherto little to have done himself he believed, unless himself also to God and His holy Mother in the cenobial life he should offer and consecrate. And so the secular pomp laid aside, by the counsel of the holy Abbot Adelhelm, a virgin to keep himself he proposed, and the habit of St. Benedict in the lay order however remaining to receive: in which so strenuously he exercised himself, that of all virtues but especially of humility and obedience a mirror to all the Brethren he was. while he defends the rights of the convent, he is slain, A few years after these things it happened, that a certain secular some goods, which to the monastery had given Conrad, to be of his own right contended. Wherefore Abbot Adelhelm was compelled to send him away to the man, that that suit either by law or by entreaty might be terminated. They come together therefore into one both, and among themselves confer the moments of the cause; and while no such thing suspected Conrad, the other, by anger and the devil instigating driven, a dagger seized; and to the blessed Brother two lethal wounds inflicting, on the ground laid in his own blood left him, where soon also he expired a Martyr, Virgin and Monk, in the year MCXXV.
[4] The body carried to the Mount of Angels, in the middle of the choir received a most honorific tomb: and shines with miracles. but how great Conrad's merits were with Him God testified by miracles wrought at the sepulchre, which to be narrated I leave to those experienced in the suffrages of his intercessions. Nor to the homicide passed unpunished the perpetrated crime; but in a short time also he himself by an avenging sword struck fell. Thus far Murer, whose Ecclesiastical Theater, long sought, has not yet come to our hands. From Murer almost only in brevity differs Bucelinus, except when he says, that Conrad, with a show of duty courteously received, among simulated embraces, with a double wound inflicted on each side was dispatched in the year of Christ MCXXVI: but before this same Bucelinus had said, that when a convent near the village Busch Conrad was building, the things which he had built soon collapsing, the place by the Deity to be reproved being taught, by the leading at length of an untamed ox, and the music of Angels more frequently repeated, the area, on which today the convent rests, he chose.