ON BL. BERTHOLD, ABBOT OF ENGELBERG IN SWITZERLAND,
AT THE CLOSE OF THE 12TH CENTURY.
CommentaryBerchtold, abbot of Engelberg in Switzerland. (B.)
BY J. D. B.
At the Mount of the Angels of the Order of St. Benedict, commonly called Engelberg, near the town of this name situated in the Swiss canton of Unterwalden, On Blessed Berthold, to be numbered among the saints, there is observed on this day the deposition of the man of God Berthold, abbot of this monastery from the year 1178 to the year 1197, whom Murer Helvetia Sacra, p. 289. together with the martyrologists of the Order of St. Benedict, whom the studious reader of the Bollandist work has long known, proclaimed blessed. And although among hagiographers these authors are not strong in such favour that under their leadership it can be safely determined whether the title of blessed denotes a man whom the Christian people publicly venerate, yet they do warn of raising the question whether a public cult has been given to the servant of God from time immemorial. And so in the manner
of our predecessors we approached by letter the most ample lord Anselm, the present abbot of the Mount of the Angels, who on the 12th day of April of the year 1879, with the courtesy which is customarily found in the sons of St. Benedict, wrote back: Berthold has always been called blessed, and his memory is celebrated every year on the day of his death with an office under the rite of a double of the 2nd class, as also of Blessed Frowin, with a solemn votive Mass of the feast of All Holy Monks. By this our doubt too is resolved, and the reader is asked to take Blessed Frowin out from the Prætermissi at the 27th day of March. But as elsewhere in our work Vol. I May, p. 309. complaint has been made that at the Mount of the Angels, by the negligence of men or the injury of the times, nearly all documents have been lost, no one will wonder that we too have not been able to bring forward more things by which the Acts of Blessed Berthold could be illustrated. I know indeed that Haller Bibliotheca Helvetica, part III, p. 399, n. 1231 ff. noted that in his time there existed more than one chronicle of this monastery, and that now in the library of St. Gall [Scherrer, Verzeichniss der Handschriften der Stiftsbibliothek von St. Gallen, p. 588.] not a few things are preserved that would be useful to one writing the fortunes of the monastery; yet because they are of a more recent age, no hope dawns that there will be dug out from them what would contribute to the knowledge of Blessed Berthold. It remains, therefore, that there be presented gathered into one the things handed down in books of the best note, and those which the Fathers of Engelberg communicated to us in the year 1879.
[2] these documents survive. And so the Annals of Engelberg Monum. Germ., Scriptt., vol. XVII, p. 280. report the following of Blessed Berthold at the year 1197: Berthold our third abbot died. He, soberly towards himself, justly towards men, piously towards God, remaining a prudent virgin, lived as a faithful dispenser and minister of the Mother of God, ever-virgin Mary, our patroness. For he most devoutly celebrated the sacred solemnities of the Mass daily, and, what is more to be wondered at, even on the very day of his death. Him the divine grace assiduously, secret causes being revealed to him, followed with kindly favour, and rendered him commendable to many mortals. Finally, to pass over many other things worthy of report and memory, I will mention this alone: That the day of the death of the Emperor Frederick, deceased in Armenia, he foretold prophetically here to us, stunned thereat. To these let there be added Cf. Hartmann, Annales Heremi Dei Genitricis, p. 215. the things which, received both from later chroniclers and from the tradition strong among them, the Fathers of Engelberg teach in their letter given on the 19th day of April of the year 1879: A chronographer of the 15th century reports: "Berthold merited to be venerated in divine revelations, even by a deceased brother giving him thanks for his salvation." Further, Berthold was a singular lover and guardian of virginal purity, and, stained by no even the lightest breath of allurements, he was truly a mirror of light, so that not only the monks entrusted to his care, but also all the people in the neighbourhood could see in him what to choose, or what to correct. He was so mild that even the inhabitants of the valley of Engelberg proclaimed him a mother, not a lord. The good shepherd watched, lest even one sheep of his flock should stray from the path of virtue. Not only did he afflict his body with vigils, but by day and night he applied himself to this, that he might occupy all against idleness and the snares of the devil. He always prayed or wrote or taught, and incited his monks to the same occupation; whence we still behold in our library very many books written both by his own effort and by the industry of his monks. But why say more? By example, or doctrine, or miracles he fed all. It would be unjust if, as is handed down by our predecessors, I made no mention of that miracle which this Blessed Prelate performed in the lake of the Sylvani near the village of Stans. For when there was the greatest scarcity of fish, he filled the lake with them by his blessing. This wonderful thing is held sufficiently celebrated among the Sylvani, our neighbours, and hence in memory of and gratitude for so great a miracle and benefit the fishermen of the same lake annually paid to our monastery a quantity of fish (2000 albulae in number), and pay it to this day. — Likewise it is taught by ancient monuments and held in chronicles and annals:… "at the same hour at which he was about to go forth from the body, he ordered water to be drawn for him by the brothers standing round from a spring not far from the monastery (which Blessed Adelhelm, the first Abbot, had produced by his pastoral staff, and which is therefore still called the spring of Adelhelm), which was miraculously turned into wine, and this indeed a third time." For that reason in the choir there was still to be seen in the 17th century his painted image, in which Blessed Berthold held a glass full of wine towards two fish lying over it, with little verses expressing the miracle:
Three times for me, the seer about to die, the water was turned
Into Cæcuban: what then? Bread too was turned for me into Christ!
[3] He attacks the errors of Burchard, No less a document of the sanctity of our Blessed One than the prodigies themselves is that sincere zeal for guarding the faith, which, nourished in his heart, he made manifest in work, when by writings he attacked Burchard, abbot of St. John in the valley of the Thur among the Toggenburgers, who had fallen from the norm of truth. What this Burchard devised is indicated by the following verses, which Fr. Stanislaus Wulberz of St. Blaise copied out about sixty years ago from a parchment of Engelberg [Versuch einer urkundlichen Darstellung des reichsfreien Stiftes Engelberg, (Luzern 1846) p. 134.] :
Every man, though here he has striven to be of holy life,
Seeks after death the places of Orcus, nor has he merited the joys
Of heavenly life, until God, taking man
Into himself, thus deigns to open the kingdom of heaven
By himself, when it is unbarred for the thief.
Behold, Abbot Burchard is proved to deny the true faith
By lacerating it, in his unwillingness to follow, evilly slow.
For he says that the blessed were placed in the heavenly kingdoms
Before Christ was born or suffered.
Against whom Berthold our memorable abbot,
Venerable to all as a pattern of virtues,
Wrote and stopped the crafty lips of him who spoke false things.
On every side he undermined and enclosed him, proving with the mouth
Of a wise man the reprobate heart of one vomiting foul poisons.
The errors of the same Burchard and the ecclesiastical erudition of blessed Berthold are perhaps better shown by the note which Fr. Adalbert Vogel, archivist of Engelberg, transmitted from p. 49 of the catalogue of manuscripts, namely: Of Blessed Berthold, third abbot of the monastery of the Mount of the Angels, Apology against the error of Burchard, abbot of St. John in Thurthal or the bull's valley, in which, besides the knowledge of sacred scripture and the holy fathers, I admire especially the art of dialectic. The controversy of these two abbots I set out in summary. The same Burchard defended against many that the just of the Old Testament were placed in heaven before the coming of Christ; and to defend an opinion of this kind he used both sacred scripture and the holy fathers, whose authorities he bent with so sharp a dialectic that he had already pierced not a few of the simpler with the darts of his heresy. In that season indeed Switzerland did not lack illustrious men; yet no one dared to oppose himself to Burchard. Berthold is therefore asked by the brothers to undertake this province. Moreover led by zeal for the Catholic faith, Berthold complies with the fraternal petition, and very amicably exhorts Burchard to depart from so pernicious an opinion. But, because it is grievous not only to heretics alone but also to men otherwise learned and great to sing a palinode, Berthold washed an Ethiopian. For that reason, when he learned the contumacy of his adversary, he inveighs against him with a sharper pen; he contends bravely and learnedly that the souls of the just were brought into heaven through the passion of Christ, and after it, by Christ. That it may be more easily possible to judge of the value of this work, I give a synopsis of this apology, I transcribe the very words of Burchard and Berthold. The first thing that occurs is inscribed the error of Burchard. And it begins thus: "It is neither fitting nor profitable for us to speak against the detractors of the saints; each of whom indeed abounded in his own sense, that the souls of all the just who departed this life before the passion of Christ were detained in hell; some judge not at all. But we judge that those to whom it has pleased have thought more sharply as regards reason, and more consistently with the authority of the canonical scriptures. Burchard judges that to have rest and to remain in hell are opposites, and cannot be predicated of the same sense at the same time. He says that hell in sacred scripture properly signifies the place of the damned; he proves his opinion from texts of sacred scripture: The souls of the just are in the hand of God and the torment of malice shall not touch them. But they are in peace. It came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into the bosom of Abraham. And to demonstrate that the bosom of Abraham was the kingdom of the heavens and the rest of the saints, he brings forward many testimonies from the holy fathers Ambrose, Augustine and Gregory. He says that St. Augustine called the contrary opinion not an assertion, but an opinion. That Lazarus and his companions, the ancient just, absolved from original sin, departed into the rest of the heavens before the coming of Christ, and that the Lord, to free the others from punishments, descended to hell, he strives to prove from Augustine. He says that to be just and to be bound by original sin ought not to be called opposites; that original sin is not a diminution of human justice, but a corruption of human nature, that it should not be called sin, but the punishment of sin. With these words at last Burchard closes his compilation: Therefore let all iniquity stop its mouth and let the wise man understand the power of the Scriptures. There follows then the apology of Blessed Berchtold under this title: Catholic assertion, to be faithfully held and proclaimed, composed by the venerable and religious Berthold, abbot at the Mount of the Angels, against the aforesaid Burchard, who at the last acknowledged himself and repented. The beginning of this Apology sounds thus: "On a certain day as I sat in a certain secret retreat, a friend to meditation and reading, there came to me someone bringing a letter, to whose reading that I should give a hearing, I assented to him reading. And so in the course of it I began to note certain uncatholic sayings." Blessed Berthold proves that Burchard speaks against the saints and himself, since he defended an opinion lacerating the glory of our Redeemer and so contrary to the writings of the Holy Fathers. That St. Gregory affirmed in most clear words that all the ancient elect were detained in hell before the coming of Christ, he demonstrates by adducing several testimonies of the holy pope. To the text of St. Paul: Each one abounds in his own sense, he says that the apostle used these words in another cause, far removed from this. That the word hell according to its formation has its origin from that which is below: for from infra is said infernum, from supra supremum, and from extra extremum. He teaches that from the etymology of this name (hell) it is not proved that the just before the passion of Christ, although they were in hell, were subject to the punishments of torments: whence to have rest and to be in hell are not opposites. He distinguishes hell into upper and lower; he teaches that in the one there is quiet, in the other torture; that from the lower there is no redemption, according to that saying: The fire not
is quenched and the worm shall not die. That in the upper hell all the just awaited the coming of Christ in bright and quiet delay. By arguments from likeness taken from sacred Scripture and reason he demonstrates that a hell or limbo of the fathers was possible: Berthold asserts that it is repugnant neither to reason nor to truth that all the just, as it pleased the ordering of the divine disposition, were preserved in hell in bright and quiet mansions, by a delay pleasing to the wisdom of God, until the passion of Christ. He complains that the opinions of the Holy Fathers have been either mutilated or badly set forth by Burchard. That original sin is not indeed a diminution of justice; but that a privation of justice befell man, as one alienated from God by disobedience, through original sin. He then proves from several places of the Bible that no one has ascended into heaven except through Christ and in Christ; that our Redeemer suffered for absolutely all men, that all the just before the passion of Christ were detained in hell, and after the passion were placed in the glory of the heavens, he brightly demonstrates from SS. Jerome, Augustine and Gregory. At the end of the apology he admonishes Burchard to cease from this contention so injurious to the glory of Christ. He exhorts him in these words: Do not, I beseech you, be overcome by evil, but overcome evil in good; let not the enemy of souls, the devil, the worst evil, overcome us by his fraud, but let us overcome him in the good, which is the best and highest, God Jesus Christ…"
[4] even to his own unpopularity. Yet the deceitful tongue did not spare the blessed man who undertook so much labour for guarding the truth. For there exist at Engelberg two letters, of which the one, as from such an inscription of the seal, partly erased, Burchardus… Mo… Joha… s, is conjectured to have been written by the very man whom he attacked, while the other, similar to the former, had as author, as it seems, Martin, abbot of Cella Lucens. These Ibid., p. 46. I will copy out, so that all may know how great a calumny perverse men brought on the blessed man. M., least of his fellow abbots, to the beloved sons of the church, unfeigned charity. We desire the worshippers of the Catholic faith to know that we have written nothing calumniously to the apostolic see against our fellow abbot and brother of the Mount of the Angels. For we have been defamed in that we wrote to the ears of the supreme pontiff that our aforesaid brother acquired in our cloister by a certain stealth letters suited to the advantage of his cause, sealed under our name without our knowing. But that this is by no means true the Lord knows, to whom every heart lies open and from whom no secret is hidden. We do not doubt that it must be a grief to pious spirits that a person of so good a reputation should be assailed by accusation, that for obtaining victory in his cause he should have said or done anything captiously. Blessed Berthold is commended also for this, that he so held Blessed Frowin his predecessor, a man adorned with every virtue, as a friend, that Frowin inscribed to him a book on the Lord's Prayer, down to our age, if I am not mistaken, unpublished. For the prologue begins Letter from Engelb.; cf. Annal. Bened. vol. VI, p. 657. : Although I am of slippery memory, yet I remember tenaciously that your most sweet love, O venerable presbyter Berthold, demanded of my littleness that I should show the capacity of my little wit in an explanation of the Lord's Prayer. Nor did the same Frowin wish to dedicate to any other Annal. Bened., ibid.; cf. Versuch einer Urkund., p. 30, note 2. the seven books on Free Will; for in an Einsiedeln codex the following little verses were read prefixed:
Vive, precor, Berhtolth, tibi sit Dominus filholt,
At te, quod liber sim, docet iste liber.
Hunc librum vovi: nunc promissum tibi solvi;
Jus est, si sapias, gratus ut accipias.
[Live, I pray, Berthold, may the Lord be gracious to you, and this book teaches you that I am free. This book I vowed: now I have paid you what I promised; it is right, if you are wise, that you accept it gratefully.]
[5] He promotes the study of letters, Nor must there be given to oblivion the documents, though very few, by which it is evident that Berthold assiduously watched that the study of letters should always thrive among his monks. The Engelberg codex marked I 4l20, containing Claudian on the state of the soul to Sidonius Apollinaris, has on the front: May this, kind Christ, the gift of Berchtold be pleasing to you; whence it is dug out that Blessed Berthold wrote this codex with his own hand Letter of Fr. Adal. Vogel cited. . That the treatise Versuch., p. 50. of St. Augustine on the Holy Trinity was copied at his order is declared by the little verses of the folio codex marked I 1l11.
When Abbot Berthold shone forth, he ordered me to write
Whence God is known as three, and truly also one.
But soon this worthy, chaste and kindly father
Laid down the burden of the flesh, and left the present writings
Unfinished, and there succeeded him by the gift of Christ
One called Henry. This good man, and worthy to keep
The name of abbot, himself completed the volume.
[6] and guards the rights of the monastery. Blessed Berthold finally sustained many labours in guarding the rights and possessions of the monastery entrusted to him. For the sake of establishing this matter we borrow the following from the register of the abbots of Engelberg which is annexed to the little work so often cited Ibid., pp. 134, 135. :
On the 4th day of May of the year 1184, Pope Lucius strengthens for Abbot Berthold by consistorial letters the possessions and privileges. Edit. in Mone, Episc. Constant., vol. II, p. 536.
On the 28th day of June of the year 1186–1187, Urban III confirms by brief for Abbot Berthold the patronage of the church in Wilare adjudged to him. — Urban, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved sons Abbot Berthold and the convent of the Mount of the Angels, salvation and apostolic blessing. Those things which are known to have been ended by judgment ought, lest they be brought back again into the scruple of contention by the malice of anyone, to be commended to the memory of letters and fortified by apostolic protection. Now when a question had been agitated between you and Lutold the knight concerning the right of patronage of the church of Wilare, at length sentence was promulgated in favour of your monastery. We therefore, holding that sentence ratified, as it was reasonably pronounced, confirm it by apostolic authority and fortify it by the patronage of the present writing. Decreeing that it be lawful for no one of men at all to infringe this page of our confirmation or to go against it with rash daring. But if anyone should presume to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of almighty God and of his Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. Given at Verona on the fourth day before the kalends of July.
Hermann II, bishop of Constance, supported by the approval of Pope Lucius, then deceased, and the authority of Conrad, archbishop of Mainz, gives sentence in our favour in the suit concerning the patronage of the church of Wilare between Berthold our abbot and Luitold the noble of Regensberg. — Hermann, by the grace of God bishop of Constance, to all the faithful of God. The business of the patronage of the church of Wilare, long agitated between the venerable man Abbot Berthold of the Mount of the Angels and the nobleman Lutold of Reginsperch, at the mandate of the lord Pope Lucius at Zürich in the face of the Church we sifted much, and sought out the truth of it. Both parties being present, then, we heard the testimony of the abbot, as apostolic authority had commanded that it be received. The abbot, namely, produced seven presbyters from the neighbourhood, men beyond doubt, who, bound by the bond of obedience by which they are held to us and being questioned, testified that the patronage of the church of Wilare looked to the monastery of the Mount of the Angels. Having heard these, we confirmed the aforesaid patronage to the said abbot and his monastery by apostolic authority and ours, and by episcopal ban. Moreover the said lord Pope Lucius of holy memory, the letter of our confirmation having been inspected, because our action seemed reasonable to him, conferred on the abbot and his monastery the writing of apostolic confirmation concerning the same: and after him the lord Pope Urban did likewise for them. Finally also, since the opposing party did not yet rest, we received a letter and mandate of our lord Conrad, archbishop of Mainz, and in accordance with these we again confirmed the same patronage to the abbot and his church in the place which is called Hermdtingin, by metropolitan authority and ours and with ban.
On the 16th day of September of the year 1188, Clement III, at the request of Abbot Berthold, asks the abbot of Trub and the provost of Lucerne to see to it that the next parish priest of Stans should answer to the monastery of the Mount of the Angels for temporalities. Edit. in Mone, op. cit., vol. II, part I, p. 529.
On the 29th day of September of the year 1188, at Constance, Abbot Berthold occurs as a witness in a controversy settled between Anselm, abbot of Muri, and Tiebald the presbyter.
On the 2nd day of January of the year 1190 Abbot Berthold confirms a donation made by Henry of Buochs. — Since the slippery and lamentable condition of this world, ever verging towards its setting, leads the deeds of the past into oblivion of those to come in a small interval of time, lest the things we do be erased, we have judged it best to commend them to the writing of the present page. Whence we wish it to be known to present as to future men, that Henry, parish priest of Buochs, touched by divine instinct, gave over entirely the estate of Alteloshoven, bought by him, to St. Mary in the monastery of the Mount of the Angels on this condition, that each year the memory of Odalric, parish priest of Stans, formerly his uncle, and of his father Kisiebert, and also of his mother Richinza, on the anniversary of the aforesaid parish priest, as long as Henry himself shall live, be solemnly celebrated by the whole congregation with the celebration of Masses, vigils, alms and ringing of bells, and that on the same day there be supplied to the brothers from the rent of the aforesaid estate. And Henry being in whatever manner taken from our midst by divine summons, on his anniversary the memory of the aforesaid and his own shall be dutifully carried out as noted above. These things were done in the monastery of St. Mary of the Mount of the Angels, the lord Berthold, venerable abbot of that monastery, being present, and the whole congregation of the same cloister, and Frederick, parish priest of Stans, on the fourth day before the nones of January, in the year from the incarnation of the Lord M.C.LXXXX, happily. And that this constitution may remain unshaken in perpetuity by God's assent, Abbot Berthold strengthened it by the confirmation of his seal.
On the 15th day of July of the year 1190, Abbot Berthold gives notice that Luitold the noble of Regensberg gave up also the advocacy in Wilare, for the remedy of the souls of his parents and his own, with the patronage. Edit. in Neugart, Cod. dipl. Aleman., no. DCCCLXXXIX.
Abbot Berthold, invoking the testimony of his fellow abbots and lords, asks Celestine III to end the suit concerning the patronage of Wilare, prolonged for seven years by the complaints of Luitold the noble of Regensberg. — To Celestine, supreme pontiff of the Roman see, Berthold, servant at the Mount of the Angels of the poor of Christ through poverty, with the unanimity of the whole convent, the homage of prayers with the due subjection of obedience. Since it is written that the eternal law is reason, through this in truth the founders of laws decree just things, and by that declaration of the laws, you who conduct yourself worthily of God in the stead on earth of Peter, prince of the apostles, indeed of Christ, they remain inviolate by your protection, so that violators are struck with worthy punishment. Hence surely it is that we hope that the integrity of our right, namely of the patronage of the church of Wilare pertaining to our monastery, which we obtained by the testimony of seven presbyters, will be restored through your clemency. Seven years and more having passed, then, while we have been agitated in it by discussions, on account of its excessive prolixity we cannot chastise the conduct of the business to convenient brevity. Wherefore concerning that which is established to have been treated most recently by judicial assessment, we note briefly. For we and our adversary O. the cleric being cited, when before
the judge we had come, the adversary, accused of robbery by the presbyter presented by us in the aforesaid church, when, sentence having been pronounced, he was being compelled to purgation by oath, fearing scandal and condemnation for his manifest guilt, against law and the canons put off the danger by an appeal. After a year's waiting had passed, then, summoned likewise before our bishop of Constance, he tried by tergiversation of this kind to slip out of restitution of the robbery. There being recited there the letters of Your Holiness, in which was contained about the perpetual silence imposed on him, as is to be seen in the letters of Pope Lucius of good memory, and that Pope Clement your predecessor strictly ordered the aforesaid adversary with his supporters Henry and Hartmann to be bound by the chain of excommunication, with bells rung and candles lit, and that no hearing be afforded him thereafter on this business, you have deigned, by a definition consonant with them, namely your holy predecessors, strictly to sanction the same things as they; these letters, I say, having been recited, the often-said adversary cried out that they were false, seeking on this occasion to escape by appeal. And although he brought forward nothing about the earlier appeal, which he had not pursued, he was nevertheless heard by the bishop, very many indeed of those standing by being struck with vehement wonder at so unheard-of an injury done to us. And for ascertaining the indubitable sincerity of our truth let there be inspected the letters of testimony of the seven presbyters, the letters also concerning the renunciation of the suit by the principal adversary the nobleman Lutold, and the very many things obtained from the apostolic see. May the Most High make you well, and put a due end to our infinite weariness in Christ Jesus. Finally witnesses of our truth and of the injurious vexation are the lords our fellow abbots.
On the 30th day of July of the year 1191 Celestine III confirms to the abbot of the Mount of the Angels the parish of Stans with the right of patronage. — Celestine, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved sons Abbot Berthold and the convent of the Mount of the Angels, salvation and apostolic blessing. When what is honest and agrees with reason is asked of us, it befits us to grant it with willing spirit and to impart fitting support to the desires of those asking. For that reason, beloved sons in the Lord, more kindly inclined to your just prayers, we confirm to you by apostolic authority the parish of Stans with the right of patronage which you have in it, as you canonically and peacefully possess it, and we fortify it by the patronage of the present writing. Let it be lawful, therefore, for no one of men at all to infringe this page of our confirmation or to go against it with rash daring. But if anyone should attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of almighty God and of his Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. Given at Rome at St. Peter's on the 3rd day before the kalends of August, in the 1st year of our pontificate.