ON SAINT BRUNO,
BISHOP OF WÜRZBURG IN GERMANY.
IN THE YEAR MXLV.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY
Setting forth his birth, the rescripts of the Pontiffs, the elogia of his life, and the testimonies of miracles.
S. Bruno, Bishop of Würzburg in Germany.
BY THE AUTHOR G. H.
[1] There flourished in the eleventh century of Christ the most holy Bishop of Würzburg in Franconia, a province of Germany, Bruno, having discharged this mortal life in the year MXLV. He was both born of an illustrious lineage of family, and famous for eminent doctrine and holiness of life. As his father, Conrad II Duke of Carinthia, Of noble paternal lineage who died in the year MXXXIX, Jerome Megiser assigns him in the Annals of Carinthia and in the Genealogical Table inserted at page 772. To him also was an illustrious maternal stock, born of his mother Mechtild, daughter of Gebhard Lord of Querfurt and of Sophia Countess of Mansfeld: to which Gebhard a brother was S. Bruno, Bishop and Apostle of Prussia, and maternal, crowned with martyrdom with eighteen companions in the year MVIII, on the XIV of February, on which day we published his Acts, and we said it seemed that from this S. Bruno the Martyr the name of Bruno had been given to this his grand-nephew. This lineage Elias Reusner explains in the Auctarium of the genealogical work Βασιλικῶν page 45. But the said Querfurt is a domain situated between the rivers Saale, Unstrut, and Rava, which once had peculiar Counts, now is joined to Mansfeld.
[2] His eminent doctrine even now shines forth, left in a precious treasure to posterity, on account of his various Commentaries: of which some are on the whole Psalter of David, and on the Canticles both of the old and new Testament, Commentaries on various books of scripture. which with the Psalms themselves are recited in the Ecclesiastical Office: likewise on the Lord's Prayer, on the Symbol of the Apostles and of S. Athanasius: which were first published in the year MCCCCXCIV, then reprinted from the recognition of John Cochlaeus in the year MDXXXIII, but now are read in volume XI of the Library of the Fathers of the Cologne edition: but John Eisengrein in the Catalogue of witnesses of Catholic truth folio 81 cites also lucubrations on the Epistles of S. Paul and the Proverbs, of which elsewhere we have read nothing.
[3] Finally the holiness of his life is best gathered from the miracles, divinely wrought at the intercession of S. Bruno: of which we have forty and more noted within the XIV months of the year MCCII and the following; Miracles here to be given: so that in them are read five blind enlightened, deaf and dumb healed three; lame, paralytic and contracted twenty, two drowned resuscitated, as many hanged saved, and three bound and tied with chains restored to liberty, energumens also freed the devil being expelled, the gravelly, hunchbacked, scrofulous, and infected with poison having experienced his patronage. These miracles were printed at Würzburg in the year MDXCVI from an old codex, which we here give: nor do we doubt that in the following years more of this kind were wrought, of which the Roman Pontiffs Gregory IX, who presided over the Church from the day XXI of March of the year MCCXXVII until the year MCCXLI, and Innocent IV, who sat from the day XXIV of June MCCXLIII until the year MCCLIV, made mention. Their letters from the Roman Registers Cardinal Baronius had, and published some fragments excerpted from them in his Notations to this XVII of May. We have received the same, transcribed from the Register of the Vatican Archive by Leander Coloredo, the most worthy successor of him and of Oderic Raynaldus in writing the Ecclesiastical Annals, entire, and here give them. The Epistle 56 of Gregory IX given in the year of Christ MCCXXXVIII is of this kind, inscribed to the Abbots… of Brannebach and …Scovetal of the Cistercian Order of the diocese of Würzburg and …to the Prior of the Friars Preachers of Würzburg.
[4] Wonderful is God in His Saints, that He may wonderfully manifest the power of His might, and mercifully work the cause of our salvation; concerning which Gregory 9, being admonished His faithful, whom He always crowns in heaven, in the world also He frequently honors, working signs and prodigies at their memorials, through which heretical depravity may be confounded and the Catholic faith confirmed. We therefore render to almighty God as great thanksgivings as we can, though not as great as we ought, that in our days, for the confirmation of the Catholic faith and the confusion of heretical depravity, He evidently renews signs, and changes wonderful portents, making those to coruscate with miracles, who held the Catholic faith as much in heart as in mouth and also in work. For just as the Venerable Brother N. Bishop and the beloved Son the Dean and Chapter and People of Würzburg have intimated to us by their messengers and letters, orders that informations be taken concerning them the Lord has conferred such glory on Bruno of pious memory, Bishop of Würzburg, that He makes his sepulchre coruscate with so many and so great miracles, that it is unworthy that his suffrages should not be invoked among the other Saints. Wherefore it is humbly supplicated to us, that concerning the miracles which the Lord works through him, we should cause testimonies to be received. But because in so holy a business one must proceed not except with maturity and gravity going before, obtaining full confidence in the Lord of your circumspection, we mandate, that, having taken to yourselves religious men and fearing the Lord, most diligently inquiring concerning the virtue of his manners and the truth of the signs, namely the works and miracles, you should keep the depositions of the witnesses received, enclosed under your seals, until our good pleasure. But if not all, etc. Given at the Lateran, on the Kalends of May in the year XII. That the Apostolic Commissaries executed what had been mandated to them is clear from the Epistle 364 of Innocent IV, succeeding after the brief Pontificate of eighteen days of Celestine IV, given to the same Abbots and Prior in the year MCCXLVI, of this kind of tenor.
[5] Long ago, the Venerable Brother N. Bishop and the beloved Sons the Chapter of Würzburg intimating to Gregory the Pope of happy record, our predecessor, and Innocent 4 moreover mandates, that Bruno of holy memory Bishop of Würzburg, who once living in the world was powerful in great merits, now living in heaven coruscates with so many miracles, that his holiness is proved by open indications, and it is unworthy that his suffrages should not be invoked among the other Saints; and through this supplicating that he should enroll him in the Catalogue of the Saints to be venerated: the same Predecessor gave you in mandate by his letters, that, having taken to yourselves religious men and fearing God, most diligently inquiring concerning the virtue of his manners and the truth of the signs, namely the works and miracles, you should faithfully send the depositions of the witnesses received enclosed under your seals to the Apostolic See. Although therefore, by the inquisition made upon these by you, which by our mandate you transmitted to the same See, it plainly appears concerning the miracles of that Saint himself, through which anyone seems able to be held a Saint among men in the Church militant; yet because for this, that anyone be a Saint with God in the Church triumphant, perseverance alone suffices, according to that, Be faithful unto death, that inquiry be made into his life, and I will give thee the crown of life (which that tunic of Joseph reaching to the ankles evidently figured) so that the merits and miracles may mutually testify to each other, since neither merits without miracles, nor miracles without merits fully suffice to render testimony among men to holiness: and on account of the length of time there cannot be found in Germany anyone, as is asserted, who can render testimony of sight concerning these: We, attending that in so holy and pious a business one must proceed with very great gravity and maturity, at least from fame and writings. mandate, that not only by witnesses, but also by fame and hearing and authentic writings, concerning his life and conversation and merits, carefully inquiring through yourselves or others worthy of faith, you should faithfully transmit to us under your seals what you shall find. But if not all, etc. Given at Lyons on the Nones of November in the year v. Indeed I do not at all doubt that this mandate too the Commissaries fulfilled with similar accuracy, and that the desired Canonization followed: for in such businesses they did not proceed so hesitantly as now: but I grieve that the Decree published upon that matter is nowhere found, and much more, that nowhere yet has appeared an example of the aforesaid Processes, from which the glory of this Saint could have been wonderfully illustrated by us, as we have often already proved in others.
[6] Meanwhile it is rightly to be rejoiced, that the defect of these did not retard Cardinal Baronius, His name in the Roman Martyrology. from inscribing his name in the most recent tables of the Roman Martyrology recognized by him and manifoldly augmented. The same had before been done by Galesinius with this illustrious elogium: At Würzburg S. Bruno Bishop and Confessor. He, born in a most illustrious family, cultivated by divine gifts, made Bishop of that city, conferred all his patrimony to the use and ornament of the churches. He constructed and illustrated the church of S. Kilian with a most magnificent edifice, and likewise augmented it with an ample estate. Finally vigilant in every kind of virtue, and agreeing in life and manners with the discipline of Christ, both by zeal and by example he kindled the minds of the citizens of Würzburg to the inheritance of the celestial fatherland. Thus there, which thence into the third edition of the German Martyrology, begun by Peter Canisius, were translated, but very much contracted. Galesinius alleges Demochares as author in his Annotations; and Baronius following him erring, and Canisius following Baronius, gave occasion of erring; while for the XXVII of May, which he had read in Bruschius soon to be cited to have been the day of death for S. Bruno, he transcribed XVII. We doubted therefore whether this Saint should be deferred by us to the said day: for this is the title of the miracles: Miracles of S. Bruno Bishop XX of Würzburg, who died on the XXVII of the month of May in the year MXLV; and to this number consents the Epitaph, marking the VI of the Kalends of June. But since the Church of Würzburg, out of reverence for the Roman Martyrology, began to venerate him on this XVII of May, we too retain the same day; until the error be corrected by a new recognition of the same Martyrology.
[7] His Acts and illustrious deeds, which could easily have been collected at least from the Processes, we marvel were not once accurately written. But if they were drawn up, we grieve either that they have already long since perished, Elogia from Trithemius, or that somewhere they yet lie hid in the hidden chests of libraries. In their place we give a few elogia of others concerning him. Let the first be that of John Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim, then of S. James in the suburb of Würzburg: who in the book on Ecclesiastical Writers, completed in the year MCCCCXCII, has these things: Bruno Bishop of Würzburg, cousin of the Emperor Conrad the second, by nation a German, a man studious in the divine Scriptures, most holy in life and conversation, who on account of the excellence of his merits inscribed in the catalogue of the Saints, is held the singular Patron of Eastern Franconia, gathered together from the writings of the ancient Fathers a beautiful
exposition on the whole Psalter. Whether he wrote anything else, I know not. He died under the Emperor Henry the second, in the year of the Lord MXLV, Indiction XIII, on the VI Kalends of June. The same Trithemius has similar things in the Catalogue of illustrious men of Germany, where he is said to have been not ignorant of secular letters, excelling in genius, sweet and ornate in eloquence, and who coruscated with many miracles both living and dead. The said Psalter came forth in print in the year MCCCCXCVIII, before which someone of Würzburg prefaces these things: The blessed Father Bruno, In a preface to his Psalter, according to the dignity of the world cousin of the Emperor Conrad II, but according to the election of God once illustrious Bishop of Würzburg, holy in religion and life; after that very temporal death (which he underwent in the year of Christ one thousand forty-five, on the sixth Kalends of June) famous also for miracles; besides the works of greater virtues, by which in the Lord's sheepfold he shone forth a good Pastor, and by which he always fed the flock committed to him by the Lord both by work and by example; treasuring up nonetheless for his posterity sons a memorable and holy book of Psalms, from which this one was printed, sumptuously written, left as it were no small portion of a spiritual inheritance: which, offering also to our Apostle and the first Bishop of the most blessed city of Würzburg S. Kilian, with these little verses he entreats the same our holy Patron:
May he be a colleague of thy lot, O Father Kilian, The Bishop, who venerates thee in this gift.
[8] We add in place of a longer Life the epitome published by Caspar Bruschius in the year MDXLIX in the Bishops of Würzburg in these words: XIX S. Bruno, and from Bruschius, according to whom son of Conrad Duke of Carinthia, born of a mother Baroness of Querfurt, cousin of the Emperor Conrad the second, or (as some will have it) nephew by a sister, is elected Bishop of Würzburg by the unanimously consenting Clergy, in the year of the Lord MXXXIII. He presided with the highest praise for eleven years, one month, fourteen days. Created Bishop in the year 1033, He constructed and illustrated with most magnificent edifices the Cathedral Church of S. Kilian: also beautifully repairing and adorning the other temples of the whole Bishopric, on which he conferred all his patrimony. He was an Bishop exceedingly learned: he wrote a Commentary on the Psalter of David which is extant. He followed in the year of the Lord MXXXIV the Emperor Conrad into Italy, set out to subdue it and subject it to his power. But the Emperor besieging and gravely assaulting several times Milan, it happened on the very feast of holy Pentecost, that, Bishop Bruno celebrating the Sacred mysteries in the camp of the Emperor, so great a tempest of the sky arose, the siege of Milan that all men thought the day of the last judgment to be at hand: for many soldiers struck by lightning from heaven perished, many also being reduced to madness by the horror of so great a tempest. Bishop Bruno, standing at the altar, nonetheless finished his Sacred mysteries. Which performed, approaching the Emperor, he said that in the Sacred mysteries themselves S. Ambrose, once Bishop of the Milanese, had appeared to him: who, unless the Emperor at once loosed the city from the siege, threatened grave things to his life and health. By this prodigy or fiction the Emperor moved, he persuades that it be raised. and persuaded by Bishop Bruno, peace being first made with the citizens, loosed the city from the siege, certain principal citizens however being snatched to punishment, the authors of such rebellion and contumacy. Bruno returned from this expedition to Würzburg, gave as a gift to the Church of Würzburg a certain noble estate of Westphalia, surnamed in the Saxon tongue Sunnenreich, which on his mother's death had devolved to him: from which estate he had every year fifty marks of pure silver, and certain other perquisites.
[9] In the year of the Lord MXLV he sets out, with the Emperor Henry the Black and many other Princes of Germany, into the Pannonias. But when in a certain castle of Upper Pannonia, Bosenburg, situated over against the town of Ips on the Danube, the Emperor was passing the night with all the Princes; on the very twentieth day of May the lofty and ruinous dining-room or solarium of that fortress fell, into which the whole court of the Caesar had already assembled for the cause of dining. The Emperor, the dining-room collapsing, the window being grasped, by the singular protection of God remained unhurt. The whole rest of the multitude, the Princes, and in the year 1045 injured by the ruin of the dining-room, Bishops, Nobles and Soldiers, highest and lowest, fell down: among whom many at once expired, many were gravely injured and mutilated. There Bishop Bruno was so miserably and inclemently received by fortune, the moderatress of human things, that on the seventh day after this fall in the same fortress he discharged the debt of nature, namely on the twenty-seventh day of May of the year MXLV. he dies on the 27th of May. He was carried back with the highest grief of all his own to Würzburg, where in the crypt of the chief basilica he was buried and rendered to his parent earth with such an epitaph:
In the year of the Lord MXLV, on the sixth of the Kalends of June, died the Blessed Bruno Bishop, founder of this Church.
[10] Thus Bruschius: who, what he narrates of the siege of Milan, and the tempest that arose, could have received from the Chronicle of Sigebert at the year MXXXIX, when the day of Pentecost fell on the III of June: where consequently it is added, that: Bishop Bruno, who was chanting the Mass, and the Secretary of the Emperor with three others, said that they had seen during the solemnities of the Masses S. Ambrose, threatening the Emperor with indignation. Hermann the Lame, Conrad Abbot of Ursperg and others, refer this expedition to the year MXXXVII, when the Pentecostal feast occupied the day XXIX of May, without any mention of this tempest and the appearing S. Ambrose. The same Hermann the Lame describes three expeditions of Henry the Black into Pannonia, in the journey toward Hungary, in favor of King Peter against his rebellious subjects, undertaken in the years MXLII, III, IV; then in the following year he narrates how King Peter received King Henry, invited to him at the festivity of Pentecost, that is the XXVI of May, with great apparatus, and presented him with the greatest gifts, and rendered to him the kingdom of the Pannonias, the Princes of the Hungarians confirming fidelity to him and his successors by oath: which however he received from him to be possessed by him while he lived. In which journey, he says, the King ascending a certain old solarium, with many others fell down, the edifice collapsing: and he himself, God protecting, being unhurt, Bruno Bishop of Würzburg, having collapsed lethally with the others, after one week, that is the VII Kalends of June, died; and being carried back to his See and there buried, received Adalbero as successor. Moreover the town of Ips, in Upper Austria. over against which the aforementioned ruin happened, has its name from a river between Linz and Vienna, at an interval almost equal on either side of 12 German miles, going under the Danube, situated on a mountain; to which lies opposite from the opposite bank a castle, variously expressed on the Geographical maps, Porsenperg, and Besenburg, within the bounds of Upper Austria, which indeed appears to be not rightly confounded with Upper Pannonia by Bruschius: to whom however, transcribing the very Epitaph of Bruno, I would rather give credit than to Hermann as to the day of death, retaining the VI Kalends of June, then the second Feria of Pentecost: which both Trithemius did and the Abbot of Ursperg. Later writers contracted their things from Bruschius; such as are Antonius Monchiacenus Demochares on the sacrifice of the Mass in the Bishops of Würzburg, Peter Cratepolius on the Saints of Germany, John Gualterus in the Chronicle of Chronicles in the Catalogue of the Bishops of Würzburg, Sixtus Senensis, Conrad Gesner, Antonius Possevinus, Bucelinus, and others.
MIRACLES
Wrought in the year MCCII and MCCIII, from a Ms.
S. Bruno, Bishop of Würzburg in Germany.
BHL Number: 1475
FROM A MS.
In the year of the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand two hundred and second, on the sixteenth Kalends of July, the moon being the twenty-second, miracles were seen in the crypt of the Holy Martyrs Kilian and his Companions, and of the blessed Proto-martyr Stephen.
[1] The first is that, when a certain poor little woman, by name Gepa, had been contracted eight years and more, on the Lord's day in the morning, 16 June when Mass was being celebrated, the same woman by chance was present at Mass beside the tomb of S. Bruno Bishop of Würzburg: who, many seeing, received her step. On the same day to a certain woman, by name Adelheid, great scrofulous swellings about the neck, being reduced to nothing, no longer appeared.
[2] On the fourth Feria of the same week, the same vomited out poison in great quantity, and was fully cured. On that night a little before twilight, 19 June a certain maiden of the city of Würzburg, Richeiderin, received her step, by the testimony of many.
[3] On the fifth Feria of the same week, a certain woman of Elthman, at midday, 20 June her own Priest rendering testimony for her, received sight. About night a certain maiden by name Bertha of Würzburg, contracted from infancy, received her step.
[4] On the vigil of S. John the Baptist, a certain woman of Limbach, by name Demut, so far contracted, 23 June that she crept on the ground, received a free step.
[5] On the following day, a certain woman of Leinnach, who had come in a cart, received her step. 24 June A certain boy of Buttelbrunn, by name Henry, contracted in hand and one leg, was cured. A certain girl of Bleichfeld, Irmengart, contracted, was raised up. Under the testimony of many these things happened.
[6] On the feast of S. John and Paul, a woman by name Adelheid, who was deaf and dumb and contracted, was cured. 26 June On the same day a certain woman of Alhusen, from a very great hump, all seeing, was cured.
[7] On the following day, Feria v, Henry of Lougingen, who did not have sufficient testimony, 27 June swore that he had been contracted in one leg for a long time, and was cured.
[8] On the sixth Feria a certain boy, for a long time contracted and infirm, was cured. On the same day a certain maiden of Gorbolsdorff, daughter of a Soldier, when she had to learn the Psalter, vexed often by a demon, 28 June lost her speech for seven days: and assembling to our city, on the journey received her speech, by the testimony of many.
[9] On the Vigil of S. Kilian, after Matins, a certain woman of Windsheim, Wendelmut, contracted in hand, 7 July was cured.
[10] On the holy day of B. Kilian and his Companions, a certain man of Himmelstat, for a long time blind, 8 July received sight. At midday a certain boy of our city, contracted in hand, was cured.
[11] On the division of the Apostles, a certain woman by name Bertha of Ochsenfurt, contracted, was raised up. 15 July. On the same day, of Wertheim and Geilenhausen, two girls, by good testimony, were raised up.
[12] On the following day a certain woman, by name Mechilt, contracted five years, was raised up. 16 July A certain little servant of a Canon of our Church, who from infancy had been contracted, by name Reinhard, was raised up.
[13] A certain maiden of the city of Bamberg, beside the tomb of S. Kunigund had stayed two years: 7 September who on the night of the Queen Virgin, at midnight was cured, and had been so contracted five years, that she crept on the ground with both hands and feet, whose name is Agnes. A certain woman of Iphonen, by name Kunigund, for a year and a half contracted in one leg, while she was beside the tomb of S. Kunigund at Bamberg, saw in dreams how S. Bruno was to cure
her: who, when she was on the journey, and wished to come to the city by ship, freely received her step. A certain boy who was six years old, of Ense, was seized by a wolf at the evening hour, and carried off by it to the wood, and infected with eleven wounds. Whose mother, with disheveled hair and torn garments, with great clamor invoking S. Bruno followed, and found the boy half-alive in the wolf's keeping. Who, when she had invoked S. Bruno thrice, the wolf withdrew from the boy, and thus through S. Bruno he escaped. A certain woman of Worms, from infancy deaf and dumb, by the testimony of many honest men, who were then present, who also afterwards came, received hearing and speech. A certain woman of our city, by name Gisela, was freed from a demon. Another of our city, by name Irmengart, received sight. On the following day another certain woman, by name Jutta, was enlightened.
[14] On the Parasceve a certain boy of three years was submerged in the water until midday, and was found dead: In the year 1203, 4 April whose father and mother, while they invoked S. Bruno, and through the invocation of many, he was resuscitated. A certain girl of Retzstadt, four years vexed by a demon, was freed. A certain boy was captured by thieves, and placed in fetters: who, when he was alone, invoked S. Bruno, and touched the fetters, and was loosed. A certain man was captured who was innocent: and while he was being hanged, he invoked S. Bruno, and hanged he hung from the third hour until vespers, so that he could not die. And while those hanging him drew him by the feet, that he might die the more quickly; it profited not: but afterwards by a certain passer-by he was loosed, and thus escaped. A certain woman beside the tomb of S. Bruno, who was possessed, was absolved. A certain frenzied woman, who was the mother of eleven children, and at the birth of each of them vexed by a demon, at the last for seven days was fully possessed, so that she went mad: and at the tomb of S. Bruno, was freed. A certain man contracted of this city, by the testimony of many, at the tomb of S. Bruno was raised up. A certain Eberh, a merchant of this city, bound in fetters, through S. Bruno was freed and escaped. A certain boy of Schmalkalden under six years always crept on the ground: who within the Passion of the Lord received his step. A certain boy of Tubera, who was submerged in a well, from the first hour until midday dead, about vespers escaped alive.
[15] A certain blind Virgin, on the Vigil of the Ascension of the Lord, at the tomb of S. Bruno, was enlightened. 14 May The boy of Udalric, a noble man of Ehrenbrehteshoven, laboring with the stone, offered at the tomb of S. Bruno, by the testimony of many was freed. A certain paralytic of six years and more, who had many kinsmen in the city, was cured. A certain man of Fulda innocently hanged, by the help of S. Bruno escaped.
[16] A certain Erdlindis, Almoner of the Lord L. of Sphippe, was bound with three chains, of which one fell beside the tomb of S. Kilian, another at Mergetheim, 7 July, the third on the Vigil of S. Kilian at the tomb of S. Bruno, and thus loosed and cured she escaped. A certain boy of Heydingsvelt, in the knees from infancy so weakened, that he could not go, offered by his parents at the tomb of S. Bruno, there received his step. Another boy of Karleburg whose left hand was contracted, in the presence of many was cured. The wife of the Schultheiss of Kissingen, lame, and contracted in one leg, was carried to the tomb of S. Bruno: who, invoking his grace, suddenly the leg being straightened received her step, and the boy of the same, gravelly, was freed from the stone.