ON BLESSED MARQUARD,
OF THE ORDER OF MINORS, AT MUNICH IN BAVARIA.
A.D. MCCCXXVII
HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
On his miracles, burial, translation.
Marquard, of the Order of Minors at Munich in Bavaria (B.)
D. P.
He died in the year one thousand three hundred twenty-seven (as at that year writes Luke Wadding, volume 3 of the Minor Annals, number 14) at Munich in Bavaria Fr. Marquard Weismaler, a Lay-brother or Convert, a man of wondrous patience and devotion, which in a long-lasting infirmity broken in his members he exhibited. After death he was famous for many miracles: Elogium from Wadding and among these he illuminated a blind girl, healed three crippled persons: a certain goldsmith's son praying at his sepulchre, while there was staying Bl. John Capistran, and another from the pain of the stone he healed. Buried near the altar of St. George, he was exhumed in the year one thousand five hundred five, after his death the hundred seventy-eighth, and laid in an honorable sepulchre on the eve of St. Felix Pope and Martyr. Thus Wadding, who mentions him in volume 2 at the year 1289, number 49, when he treats of the foundation of the convent of Munich: and there absolutely he calls him Bl. Marquard. Francis Gonzaga in the 3rd part on the origin of the Seraphic religion in the province of Strasbourg, and Gonzaga, Convent 1, seems to make him not a Lay-brother, but a Priest, while he calls him Father: for thus he writes: In the same church, in a most honorable place however, is the body of the blessed Father Marquard de Weismaler, who after a long-lasting and most grave infirmity, when he had most holily died, both illuminated a blind man, and a crippled man restored to his pristine straightening, and with very many
other miracles was renowned, was laid up.
[2] His Translation was made, as from Wadding we have said, on the day before the feast of St. Felix Pope and Martyr, Memory in Arthur on 29 May. or May XXIX, in the year MDV. Therefore Arthur du Monstier in the Franciscan Martyrology, since he was ignorant of his Birthday, on that day referred him, with these words: At Munich in Bavaria Bl. Marquard Confessor, illustrious for signs and prodigies. But Ferrari in the general Catalogue of Saints places him on July XXIX: At Munich in Bavaria, he says, Bl. Marquard of the Order of Minors.
[3] What Arthur writes, that the same seems to be Maguard, or Marguard, or Marcoald, or Marcuat, another Marquard buried at Wrocław. whom the Pisan mentions buried at Wrocław, this is by no means proved to us. For there would exist some memory of his body translated to Munich and the cause would be disclosed of so distant a translation. Thus far concerning Marquard I find our Bollandus already long ago commented, I know not on what occasion; with no mention made, which I wonder at, of our Matthew Rader in his Bavaria Sancta, illustrated with most beautiful pictures, part 1, page 155, representing the concourse of the sick to his sepulchre; whose stone moderately raised from the ground exhibits his effigy in the habit of the Minors, the head radiated and supine, the hands folded before the breast. The same, in the adjoined description, alleges the MS. Codex of that Convent of Munich, where these things are had, and they are the source of those things which you have read above from Wadding. Take it itself.
[4] In the same year MCCCXXVII, in Munich a city of Bavaria died Fr. Marquard Weismaler, The first prior notice from an old MS. of the Order of Minors, a man of wondrous patience and devotion. He when for many years he was infirm and crippled, came to so great perfection, that after death he glittered with many miracles. For he illuminated a blind girl, healed three crippled persons, and the son of a certain smith of Munich, praying at his sepulchre, in the time of John Capistran of blessed memory (that is in the year MCCCCLVI), and another one from the pain of the stone he totally heals; he consoled devout persons, praying at his sepulchre for their distresses and invoking his patronage. He was buried near the altar of St. George, in the said convent: whose bones were lifted from the tomb in the year of the Lord MDV, after his death the 178th, on the eve of St. Felix Pope and Martyr. Rader adds, that that altar of St. George is now changed into a new altar of St. Francis: but on the now broken grave-stone or rock this Epitaph is read.
Near this altar the bones of Blessed Marquard laid did wondrous things, God favoring. Epitaph. From the womb to a blind girl clear light was given back, often too here for the sick was health procured. He who patient, humble, content lived and sick, after his funeral, Marquard, can do so great things.
The same Epitaph reports Francis Harold, the Epitomizer of Wadding, at the year 1327, number 5.
[5] In place of that which Rader alleges as MS. there is found today in the convent a Chronology of the monastery, composed in more recent work, which to the day XXIX of May twice ascribes his death, perhaps by the example of Arthur; and says that for sixteen years crippled in hands and feet and nourished as an infant, he gave a wondrous example of patience: then it is subjoined, that today, adorned in a gilded metal chest, on the high altar, among other notable Relics, as a domestic ornament, Translation into a new chest. to public veneration most honorably he is exposed. Among those, moreover, who mentioned him with praise, is there named also the most celebrated writer of the Saints of Bavaria, Matthew Rader S.J., who since he published in the year MDCXV his first volume, where of Marquard, and died in the year MDCXXXIV; it becomes credible that the aforesaid Chronology was written even later, and so the second translation, from the sepulchre into the aforesaid chest, is of plainly recent memory.