Ida of Toggenburg

ON ST. IDA OF TOGGENBURG, COUNTESS, IN SWITZERLAND,

AT AN UNCERTAIN TIME

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY

Ida, countess of Toggenburg, in Switzerland. (S.)

BY J. D. B.

§ I. Review of the documents on St. Ida.

[1] At Brussels many documents on St. Ida are preserved, namely in codex 8930 In the dominion of Thurgau, which is a part of Switzerland bounded on the east by Lake Constance, on the third day of this month there is held the famous memory of St. Ida, countess of Toggenburg, concerning whose life and cult the Royal Library of Brussels preserves not a few documents among its manuscript codices under nums. 8545 and 8930. The codex marked num. 8930, besides an ample commentary on the cult legitimately paid to the blessed countess, of which there will be talk directly, has four apographs of the legend of Ida. The first, which is committed to print below, was copied from old codices of the region itself, namely of the monastery of Fischingen; the second, scarcely different from the first, keeps no trace of its origin; the third is inscribed: Ancient lessons of the divine office, but those lessons present the legend itself; finally the fourth, also to be inserted in our Acts, was taken from a very large parchment of the monastery of Blaubeuren of the Order of St. Benedict near Ulm, the tenth passional of the saints, most elegantly written around the year 1480 by Br. Bartholomew Krafft, part 2, fol. 97, with these little notes added: A Life obscurely written, but carefully collated 1649. Sent by Fr. John Gamans in the year 1659, in the month of August. It has this besides as proper to itself, that there is prefixed to the legend a letter of Albert of Bonstetten, dean of the place of the Hermits, and there is attached an excerpt from the miracles of the blessed widow. These four apographs, as regards the things narrated, agree excellently with one another; yet they so differ in style, that in one kind they form two species, of which the former includes the first three, the latter the fourth. And I think that this fourth should be preferred to the others, both because it seems to offer the very version of Albert of Bonstetten, and because it has very prudently omitted the name of the husband of Blessed Ida, and reports certain marvels less assertively. Of these, moreover, the use here will afterward be that in the former column there be published the Fischingen apograph assiduously collated with the two others, and in the latter that of Blaubeuren.

[2] and in codex 8545, The Brussels codex marked num. 8545, moreover, besides three drawings expressing almost the whole Life of the blessed countess, and a booklet which is entitled: Elogium of St. Ida, countess in Toggenburg, famous for miracles, in the monastery of Fischingen, interspersed with certain philosophical decisions, under the presidency of Rev. Fr. Charles Printener of Brunberg, capitular of the Order of St. Benedict in the said monastery and ordinary professor of philosophy, the defenders being Rev. Fr. Francis Besler, the very noble Lords Francis Anthony Tschudi of Glarus and John Sartorius of Fischingen, on the 25th day of the month of September 1696, contains a summary of the proofs offered to the Holy See for obtaining the confirmation of the cult long since paid to Blessed Ida. To this small volume the title is: Certain notes to serve for illustrating the Life of St. Ida, countess of Toggenburg, gathered and excerpted from the acts and documents of the archive of the monastery of Fischingen by Fr. Wilibald Huffner, professed there, subprior, archivist and apostolic notary in the year 1745. But with a few exceptions, say some apostolic letters and the narrative of a certain miracle, whatever Fr. Huffner gathered, we have also found in another study which is now to be discussed.

[3] which will be given almost entire. For since the cult of Blessed Ida, whose sacred body the monks of that monastery rejoiced to have, is restricted chiefly within the walls of the monastery of Fischingen and in the district of Thurgau, and since on the one hand I have judged it not to be held so certainly that that devout woman whom the people of Fischingen attended with such honor is to be called Ida of Toggenburg, and on the other hand it is to be taken the greatest care that nothing be omitted of those things by which the certainty of the legend is supported, for that reason I have thought fit above all to present to the reader all the documents which, in the year 1745, were transmitted to our predecessors by Fr. Maurice Chardon, at that time rector of the college of Constance, and which today are preserved in codex 8930 of the Royal Library of Brussels. From where Fr. Chardon himself received these things he teaches us, writing: Most of these things were zealously gathered from ancient monuments and others of later times preserved in the archive of Fischingen of the Order of St. Benedict, and arranged nearly in this order, and dedicated to St. Ida his most beloved patroness, by the Most Reverend and most distinguished Lord Francis, abbot of the monastery of Fischingen. They are as follows, reported in the very words of the compiler.

§ II. Of the legend of Ida published and rewritten among the people of Fischingen.

[4] The legend of St. Ida, very ancient, "Since in the summary various outside authors are listed who have brought the Life of St. Ida to light, above all we shall here rightly adduce some domestic ones of the monastery of Fischingen, or those whom it is possible to conclude from the monuments and documents of the same monastery. From the legend of Albert of Bonstetten, then, it is clearly deduced that there were legends and histories of St. Ida brought to light before him and already from of old. For he himself confesses in his preface to Henry, abbot of Fischingen, that the legend of St. Ida, which he translated from German into Latin at the prayers of the same Lord Abbot, he took from a legend already obsolete. Similarly at the beginning of his legend he asserts that annals, and indeed ancient ones, report that St. Ida came from the counts of Kirchberg. Since therefore the aforesaid father committed his history of St. Ida to print in the year 1481, and again in 1486, and, as he himself confesses, several annals or records of St. Ida preceded him, and indeed ancient ones, consequently they were written or brought to light after the year 1300 or 1200, in which our blessed Ida died. There is held in the archive of Fischingen a legend of St. Ida copied in the Latin idiom, of which the author and beginning are unknown, and although it is very ancient, as can be recognized from the script and simplicity of style, yet it too is shown to have been copied from older ones by this formula from its title: Copied from ancient codices. There is displayed a legend of St. Ida, with a listing of miracles, in the German idiom, copied by Lord John Dolder, public notary and scribe of the court of Tannegg, on parchment in the year 1593, and enclosed in a wooden panel in which an image of St. Ida is seen painted. This legend, because it was copied from ancient codices by order of Lord Abbot Christopher, is held by all in the greatest authority and reverence.

[5] has often been printed The same Abbot Christopher Brunner, second founder of the monastery of Fischingen both in temporal and in spiritual matters, took up the abbatial rule after the Zwinglian apostasy in the year 1578, on the 1st of April. He, out of divine zeal, that with the great domestic example of the name of St. Ida, the patroness of his monastery, he might refute his subjects, new heretics who detested the cult and invocation of saints, and bring them back to the ancient religion and the cult of saints, resolved to commit to print anew the history of St. Ida with an annotation of miracles. That he might preserve it free from the cavils of non-Catholics newly arisen, and in all things conformed to the truth, he called Lord Gaspar Moser, citizen of the city of Wil, in the territory of St. Gall, public notary, to examine most rigidly the legend of St. Ida with all zeal and diligence and under sworn faith, whether all the things reported in it are true. He, having read through at length, having scrutinized the documents and antiquities, and having also duly examined men who could have knowledge of the life, miracles and cult of St. Ida either from their own knowledge or from hearing their elders, testified that this history agrees in all and through all with the documents, codices, records, antiquities and attestations of men worthy of belief, and that no room remains for doubting the truth of the history. But the aforesaid abbot, not yet willing to acquiesce, in order that it might be a work perfect in all respects, this legend of St. Ida, duly examined and approved, to the venerable man, excellent in sanctity, and

most expert in Swiss antiquities, Rev. Fr. Peter Canisius of the Society of Jesus, at Fribourg in the Uechtland, he sent to be reviewed, and also to be approved by his authority, and finally to be given to the press. The devout Fr. Canisius, most gladly assenting to the pious devotion of the Lord Abbot, in his last sickness, as may be seen in the most illustrious Henry Moser in his Life, took up the legend of St. Ida as if anew, wrote it out, enlarged it with wonderful annotations printed here and there and moral doctrine, especially against the new non-Catholics who blaspheme the invocation and cult of saints, and finally brought it to light at Fribourg in the year 1590 at the beginning of the year. Afterward this same legend was printed again at Constance in 1612, on the 13th of May. From these things it may briefly be seen that, since the history of St. Ida has been so often discussed, juridically examined, authentically approved, no scruple of doubt about the truth of the history is to be admitted.

[6] and sought after by many. Abbot Joachim with the greatest care and zeal, according to the ancient monuments of our monastery of Wiblingen and of the fortress of Kirchberg, brought the history of St. Ida to light in the German language, in the year 1660, but in so devout, as being himself most devout, and sweet a style, that it stirs up a wonderful devotion in the minds of those reading or hearing it, nay effectively persuades them to the conduct of a holy life; wherefore it is desired and sought with the greatest eagerness not only by domestics and neighbors, but also by foreigners from Swabia, Bavaria, Alsace, Austria, and those on pilgrimage to the sacred tomb of St. Ida, nay even by the heterodox. Whence it has now been put through the press in a seventh edition, and from the year 1660 until the year 1701 more than 8000 copies have been sold. The Life of St. Ida was left to posterity in manuscript in their chronicles by the most illustrious James Buecher and Placid Stopell, both professed of the monastery of Fischingen and most expert in antiquities, as may be seen in the archive of Fischingen. Finally, omitting others, the Life of St. Ida is recalled by the lessons of the second nocturn of matins, which will be given below, and which were recited by the monks of Fischingen on the solemnity of St. Ida on the 3rd of November from immemorial time, and still 100 years ago. Their beginning, moreover, because of their antiquity, which even the most simple form of speech sufficiently indicates, is not held even from the tradition of our elders. But in the year 1612, with the reform of the Benedictine breviary in Switzerland, the present ones, of more elegant style, were taken up in preference to the earlier, which Rev. Fr. Jodocus Mefler of St. Gall, returning from Rome, brought as a most welcome gift around the year 1610.

§ III. Chronology of the Life of St. Ida.

[7] The series of the years of the blessed widow. "According to the diploma of the most eminent and most serene Lord Andrew, Cardinal of Austria and bishop of Constance, which will be given below, num. 23, St. Ida lived around the year 1085. The words of the diploma are: Itta of the house and family of the counts of Kirchbeg endured life innocently five hundred and fifteen years ago. This diploma was given in the year 1600, on the 29th of February. Subtracting therefore 515 years there remain still 1085 after the birth of Christ. With these seems to agree the most illustrious Lord Ranutius Scotti, apostolic nuncio in Switzerland, cited below, num. 27, who reports the death of St. Ida in the year 1100, while Rev. Fr. Gabriel Bucelin in the year 1184. The more common opinion, however, and that more conformed to the documents of the archives of Fischingen, Wiblingen and St. Gall, is that St. Ida lived after the year 1100. For she was born around the year 1156, in the fortress of Kirchberg, given in marriage in the twenty-third year of her age to Count Henry, in the year 1179. The Ven. Fr. Peter Canisius, however, adds with other writers that St. Ida lived many years with her husband in marital concord; wherefore if it be granted that St. Ida lived for some years, at least seventeen, in the fortress of Toggenburg, seventeen in solitude, as writers commonly have it, ten in the little house of Au, eight at Fischingen with the nuns, as enclosed, it must be concluded that St. Ida died around the year 1226, in the seventieth year of her age, full of days and merits. But these things I report only by divining, and I append this catalogue of her life and death according to what has been said:

St. Ida was born in the castle of Kirchberg about the year 1156

At the age of 23 she was given in marriage to Count Henry 1179

Thrown innocent from the castle of Toggenburg 1191

She lived in solitude from the year 1191 until the year 1208

In the little house at Au from the year 1208 until the year 1218

At Fischingen in the monastery of nuns from the year 1218 until 1226

Died and buried in the monastery of the monks of Fischingen 1226

If anyone can draw a more certain reckoning of the years of the life and death of St. Ida, he will do so, by no means against the will of me, to whom it has not been possible to find anything more certain even in the most ancient documents.

§ IV. Of the translation of the body of St. Ida.

[8] [From the fire of the year 1414 the head of St. Ida was unharmed, and in the year 1534 it was lost.] "The cult of our holy patroness Ida, not only private but also public, is very ancient. For the sacred head of this blessed woman, translated from the tomb, was already exposed from ancient and immemorial time to the public veneration of the pious faithful, namely after the year 1300 or even sooner; wherefore it cannot be denied that Christ's faithful have held the sacred head of St. Ida in the highest veneration now for more than 300 or 400 years, as will be clear from what is to be said. In the year 1414, on the sixth of March, under John III Abbot Hörlin, the savage flame of fire consumed the whole of both monasteries, of men and of women, with all the furnishings of the church, not without a wretched spectacle, and reduced them to ashes. On the third day after, the flames being in some way subdued and put out, the sacred head of St. Ida, triumphing in the midst of the fires, was found unharmed and entire; even though the whole image, in which it had been set, had been altogether burned up with all its ornament. Wherefore to the admiration of all on account of this great and manifest prodigy this precious treasure was taken up, and preserved in the monastery of Fischingen until the Zwinglian apostasy, which began in the year 1532. On account of this that sacred head was taken away elsewhere, and has remained unknown to the present day. And so say all the most ancient documents of the monastery of Fischingen, the German manuscript chronicles of Fr. James Buecher, and the Latin of Fr. Placid Stopell, monks of Fischingen, each of whom was most expert in the antiquities of this monastery. The same is testified by Fr. Albert of Bonstetten in his legend, which he brought to light in the seventy-second year after the said fire: likewise by the Ven. Fr. Peter Canisius, Heinrich Murer, John Dolder, Abbot Joachim and others. A witness of these things too is the constant and perpetual tradition, accepted by all as most true and never recalled. For Abbot Placid, who was elected in the year 1616, knew a certain old man of more than a hundred years, who was an eyewitness that wine was offered to drink to the people before Hörlin in honor of Blessed Ida from her own skull. The same abbot had that prodigy of the venerable head of St. Ida unharmed in the midst of the flames painted on parchment by Christopher William Seufrid in the year 1632. Abbot Joachim, successor of Abbot Placid, likewise knew a little old man whose father with his own eyes saw and venerated this venerable head.

[9] [Other relics of St. Ida, however, have been preserved and laid in the tomb at Fischingen,] It pleases me to set here what Fr. James Buecher reports in his chronicle at the year 1532 in almost these formal words translated into the Latin idiom: The sacred head of Ida with other relics of the monastery of Fischingen at the beginning of the apostasy was carried to the fortress of Landenberg, in the valley of St. Terbanus, as to a most safe asylum. But when the nobles of that fortress too fell away from the true faith, what was done with the venerable head of St. Ida in this lamentable event is not known to this hour. This one thing is held for certain, that a notable particle of the arm of St. Ida is preserved in the castle of Herderen in Thurgau. On what occasion it was carried there is likewise not known: yet it is probable that the lord of Herderen received it as a gift from the lord of the castle of Landenberg, as from his brother. A certain Capuchin Father obtained from the lord of Herderen a certain small particle of these relics, which he afterward gave to our monastery. So he. And this very particle is now preserved at Fischingen, in a wooden panel adorned with silver, whose silver plate shows the figure of St. Ida. One may also see another particle, though very small, enclosed in a silver cross, which the famous and noble Lord Wolfgang Rudolph Reding of Biberegg, chief secretary of Thurgau, received from the Capuchin Fathers at Mount St. Gotthard and gave as a gift to our monastery in the year 1687 *. But it is beyond doubt that, except for the sacred head and arms, the relics of St. Ida are still laid up in this very place, in which her tomb is seen, as is clearly evident from what follows. Rev. Fr. Albert of Bonstetten reports that the body of St. Ida was buried next to the altar of St. Nicholas, and that her shrine is seen today, visited and honored by many, and is made famous by miracles. Wherefore he too in his preface to Lord Abbot Henry asks to be recommended at the said tomb as a reward for the labor spent in translating the legend of St. Ida from German into Latin. This version, moreover, was made in the year 1481. The aforesaid father testifies at the end of the legend that the tomb of St. Ida was at once famous for miracles and venerable: therefore the certainty of the place of the burial of St. Ida has come down to us beyond doubt, and it is the very one that is now seen and venerated by all. Piously moved by these things therefore Henry Scheuctius, made abbot of Fischingen in the year 1465, which was the fifty-first year after the fire of the whole monastery in which the head of St. Ida triumphed unharmed, gave new honor to the tomb of St. Ida. For he built it up with larger carved stones in the manner of a certain mausoleum, in splendid and conspicuous work, in the year 1496. In which form it is seen also today. Moreover this Abbot Henry exposed the head of St. Ida to the public cult of the faithful, and himself venerated it; and because he was not a professed member of the house, but was asked for from the monastery of St. Gall by the conventuals of Fischingen, he understood that the other parts of the body of St. Ida were still preserved in the tomb. For the older religious of that time, namely of the year 1465, could readily have full knowledge of this matter from their elders, who either were present at the translation of the sacred head, or at least knew eyewitnesses. Wherefore the said abbot, having received this information, that the tomb of St. Ida might thereafter be more glorious and devotion in the minds of the faithful toward the holy tomb, as the common asylum of the wretched, might be more increased, built it magnificently of cut and polished stones; which he certainly would not have done, unless he had held it for certain that this precious treasure was still hidden in the earth.

[10] whose frequent cult is proved by miracles "Christopher, abbot of Fischingen, elected in the year 1574, a most accurate investigator of the antiquities of the monastery of Fischingen, in the preface to the legend of St. Ida printed in the year 1590 at Fribourg in the Uechtland, speaks thus: By a special favor of God in our church this precious pearl, namely the sacred relics of the matron St. Ida, are kept most entire. These the merciful and almighty God does not disdain to make famous with miracles and benefits; wherefore devout souls to the tomb of St. Ida, as to the common

asylum in afflictions, are accustomed to flee. So far he. The Rev. Lord Balthasar Wuoher, bishop of Ascalon, suffragan of the most illustrious lord prince and bishop of Constance, a man of known learning and leaving among those after him a name for sanctity, already in the year 1582, on the 14th of November, in a report to the Most Holy Lord Pope Gregory XIII, which, being to be cited elsewhere, we here give entire, says thus:

To our Most Holy Lord, Lord Gregory, by divine Providence Pope XIII, it is humbly set forth … how the monastery of Fischingen of the Order of St. Benedict, of the diocese of Constance, situated in the county of Thurgau, according to common report is the oldest in the whole dominion of the Swiss, and perhaps also in the diocese of Constance. Since it is established that monastic life was led in that place before one thousand three hundred years. Fifty years ago, however, the subjects of the monastery fell away from the Catholic faith, adhering to the heresy of the Zwinglians: who however at this time, by the diligence, care and labor of the prelates, and the doctrine and learned sermons of the conventuals, have been in great part brought back to the confession of the true Catholic faith. Moreover not far from the said monastery there once lived a certain countess of Dockenburg, Itta by name, leading a solitary life in great sanctity, whose holy body, buried in the church of the said monastery, is religiously worshiped and venerated by many pious persons, so that in her memory the subjects of the monastery and other faithful have out of singular piety set up and founded a certain confraternity, afterward also confirmed by the Ordinary himself, by whose devout order it has come about that very many works of mercy are now and then done. In order, however, that divine worship may be increased, and the people be more kindled from day to day, stirred by some spiritual honor, the abbot and convent and the whole people contend with suppliant prayers that their church and the abbot himself as pastor be adorned with miter or infula with its privileges and appurtenances, especially that he may consecrate and bless chalices, corporals, priestly vestments, bells and things of this kind, since that monastery is far distant from Constance, the episcopal residence, and the journey too is most difficult, especially in wintertime. By obtaining this benefit it is trusted that not only will the authority of the abbot and his convent, but also the piety and obedience of the people and subjects be advanced, and from day to day the worship of God and devotion toward the Holy Apostolic See will be increased.

Balthasar, bishop of Ascalon and suffragan of Constance.

Done in the Monastery of the Vineyards on the 14th day of Nov. in the year 1582.

From these things it is clearly established that our elders, and indeed in the first times after the death of St. Ida, namely in the years 1200, 1300 and 1400, piously venerated the present tomb as the undoubted place of her burial, and in which the relics of her sacred body are still preserved. To wish therefore to call these things back into doubt and to assert that our predecessors, together with the sacred head, raised from the tomb all the other parts of the body of St. Ida, none being left in it any longer, no one of sound mind will be able to believe; since prudent reason itself, the constant tradition of our elders, the continual veneration of the holy tomb from the very death of St. Ida, never interrupted down to our present times, and the most sweet odor around the tomb, which certain devout souls often perceive and deserve to perceive, effectively prove and persuade us of the contrary. Nor should it be passed over in silence that the Rev. Lord Abbot Joachim ordered a certain most pious person, Catherine Lendein, from Swabia, endowed with notable virtue and devotion, to pour out prayers at the tomb of St. Ida, for an intention that he had formed known only to himself. She did so, and afterward, being asked by the abbot what had come to her mind during her prayers, she answered in this way: It seemed to me as if someone from the tomb were crying out to me: Raise me, raise me. And the Lord Abbot asked this inquisitively, whether perhaps almighty God would deign through the prayers of this devout servant to reveal how the matter stands concerning the relics of St. Ida. And these things the reverend Lord Abbot Francis, his successor, having heard them from the mouth of his predecessor himself together with others of the convent, wished to be especially noted here.

* From codex 8545, of which we spoke in num. 2, it pleases me to copy what is reported there both on the head and on certain other relics. First, indeed, p. 95: Nothing grieved the most pious prelate Joachim Seiler more than that the most venerable head of St. Ida and other remains of the same saint had been so lost at the time of the apostasy, that not even a trace of where they had been dispersed any longer survived. Various persons therefore went off into various opinions, yet could divine nothing certain. Nevertheless the Most Rev. Lord Abbot himself did not cease to search on all sides, sparing no expenses, by which he seemed to have drawn nothing but water in a sieve, until … it was reported by two men most worthy of belief that this precious treasure, carried there with other ecclesiastical ornaments by Abbot Henry Stoll, was preserved even to this day at Winterthur, and that the place and the iron door by which this treasure was guarded had been pointed out. But the lord consul of the people of Winterthur, who was otherwise a friend to the Lord Abbot, and others secretly asked, denied the whole matter, asserting that if such bones had been there, doubtless, in the manner of other places of the reformed religion, they would have been buried in the cemetery. Yet at this the prelate most thirsty for sacred relics did not yet rest, he redoubled vows upon vows, and behold, two lords of Winterthur, visiting the Rev. Lord Abbot out of courtesy, while among other things they were going through the chapel and tomb of St. Ida, of their own accord, our people dissembling, declared that the head of this countess was kept at Winterthur. Whence the Rev. Abbot no longer hesitated that what he had up to then so anxiously sought was certainly held at Winterthur. But when he understood that this sacred head was guarded in a well-fortified and barred sacristy, in which the lords of Winterthur had their public treasury, to which access lay open to no one except three different sworn key-bearers of the commonwealth, it now seemed to him that he would lose his oil and labor over recovering the precious treasure, unless God, to whom all things are possible, should assist his pious intention. — Then, p. 111: Placid II Vogt, made abbot in the year 1735 on the 6th day of June, found an occasion of advancing the cult of St. Ida into more remote regions also, when from a letter of Rev. Fr. Anthony Hermann, S. J., who is sacred confessor to the queen of Poland, he understood that the same most serene queen of Poland and duchess of Saxony would count it as a piece of happiness if she could obtain something of the sacred remains of this saint. To satisfy the most pious desires of this queen, in the year 1743, on the 24th day of January, he sent to Dresden a quite notable particle of the sacred remains of St. Ida enclosed in crystal, with some booklets and images added expressing the history of St. Ida. How most graciously the most serene queen accepted the sacred relics sent is clear even from this, that she ordered the sacred particle to be divided in two, of which she kept one for herself, and offered the other herself to the most serene king, and at the same time suggested the plan of erecting a proper altar in honor of St. Ida in the new church to be built at Hubertusburg at royal expense; of the happy success of which plan Fr. Anthony Hermann gave the reverend lord prelate great hope in his replies.

§ V. Of the feast of St. Ida.

[11] [The celebration of the feast of St. Ida is attested both by documents of Fischingen,] "The solemn celebration of the feast of our holy patroness Ida, even with a great concourse of the faithful in the monastery of Fischingen on the 3rd of November, is very ancient; for Fr. Albert of Bonstetten, cited, already in the year 1481 testifies that the feast of St. Ida was celebrated each year at Fischingen after All Souls' Day, and since his legend is only a translation of another very old German one into Latin, it cannot be denied that the feast of St. Ida was solemnly celebrated a long time before the aforesaid father, after the year 1300 or even 1200. The Latin legend preserved in the archive of Fischingen, although it is very old and perhaps earlier than Father of Bonstetten himself, yet it too was taken from older ones, and it has the same concerning the celebration of the feast of St. Ida in these words: And so from the earth to the heavenly temples she passed over in Christ on the feria following the day of All Souls, at which time too her anniversary day is carried out each year. That the same feast is solemnly celebrated in the monastery of Fischingen on the 3rd of November from of old is testified also by Lord John Dolder in the year 1583, and likewise by the Venerable Canisius in the year 1590 in the following words: The memory of St. Ida after All Souls' Day is solemnly celebrated at Fischingen by constant custom to the present day. The same is held by other writers. Likewise the very ancient parchment martyrology of Fischingen at the 3rd of November has thus: At Fischingen the natal day of Blessed Ida, widow. Thus a manuscript calendar of the year 1586, at the beginning of the breviary of the monastery printed at Venice in the year 1556, at the 3rd of November has thus: St. Ita, our patroness, a highest feast, that is, of the 1st class.

[12] and by anniversaries founded there, "The public cult, as also the antiquity of the chapel dedicated to the honor of St. Ida, and also the celebration of her feast on the third day of November, are effectively proved by the anniversary founded by the very noble Lady Anna Schwendis, born of Braiten Landenberg, and still celebrated by the monks of Fischingen, which, the words being turned from German into Latin, is noted both in the letter of foundation and in the books of anniversaries of the monastery of Fischingen. On the fourth day of November Lady Anna Schwendis, born of Braiten Landenberg, established an anniversary. In the name of Christ, so read the words of the letter of foundation, and to the honor and praise of the venerable St. Ida, in the monastery of Fischingen for the salvation of her soul and of her relatives, five Masses, on this condition, that at each ember season one Mass be said in the chapel and at the altar of St. Ida for several: the fifth, however, be said each year with singing (these are the words of the letter) on the feast of St. Ida, which is the second day after the feast of All Saints. This anniversary was founded by the aforesaid noble Lady Anna Schwendi in the year 1504, as may be seen in the said letter, which is preserved in the archive of Fischingen, and from these things the antiquity of the cult of the chapel and of the feast of St. Ida can readily be concluded. This feast was celebrated at Fischingen, moreover, both in choir and in the forum and throughout the parish, under double rite of the first class with an octave and a proper office to be set below, and indeed still under Abbot Christopher, who assumed the rule in the year 1574, and the three following abbots, James, Benedict and Matthias, until the reform of the breviary of the monastery in the year 1612.

[13] [and by the solemn blessing, and other offices customarily done in honor of St. Ida.] On the solemnity of St. Ida the Catholic people were blessed by the abbot in the sacrifice of the Mass from of old with the following solemn blessing: May our almighty God bless you, and by the intervention of our holy patroness Ita fill you with sacred virtues. — The response is: Amen. — And may he help you, that as this saint without shedding of blood entered the heavenly country, so you without the injury of sins may enter the glory of eternal happiness. — R.: Amen. — Where may it fall to you too to behold the Son of the eternal Father, with whom may there be for you everlasting rule of life and joy. — Amen. — Which may he deign to grant whose kingdom and empire remains without end for ever and ever. — Amen. — And may the blessing of almighty God, the Fa+ther and the S+on and the Holy+Spirit descend upon you and remain always. — R.: Amen. — And his peace, etc. So a manuscript book, on parchment, by Brother Adam Oechslin, a religious of the monastery of Fischingen, under Abbot Christopher, in the year 1587, on the 24th of January. That all these things, as also the translation of the holy head of St. Ida with the two arms from the tomb, were done with the foreknowledge and approval of the Most Reverend Lord Ordinary and bishop of Constance, is established from the diploma of the most eminent Lord Andrew, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and bishop of Constance, in the year 1600, on the 19th of February, by which he ordered that the feast of St. Ida on the 3rd of November be celebrated most solemnly through the whole county of Kirchberg, both in choir and in the forum. In that diploma, moreover, which we shall give entire below, among other motives of this decree he alleges that the same feast is solemnly observed at Fischingen, in these words: St. Ita, buried at Fischingen, a monastery of that name is in Thurgau, flashed with miracles, and therefore in that same place she has been honored every year with solemn sacred rites. This is a clear testimony of the Most Reverend Lord Ordinary himself on the solemn celebration of the feast of St. Ida at Fischingen, given already a hundred years ago, and so the antiquity of the celebration of this feast at Fischingen can no longer be denied. Further, that the celebration of the feast and her translation took place with the approval of the Most Reverend Lord Ordinary is established from this, that the monastery of Fischingen was fully and immediately subject to him as regards monastic discipline and spiritual matters until the exemption granted by Gregory XV in the year 1622, on the twentieth of May, and that he visited it each year either in person or by his delegates; whence a translation and celebration of this kind could not have been done without his foreknowledge and approval. Now indeed this feast with its octave is observed by the present-day monks with greater solemnity and pomp. For on the vigil of the same feast, by the unanimous consent of the chapter of the year 1698, they fast in the convent; and outside the convent the other claustrals, and also guests arriving, are refreshed only with Lenten foods; a proper office is recited as from of old, but corrected and emended to the form of the rubrics; the Mass said is from the common neither of a virgin nor of a martyr, except for the introit, prayer, secrets and postcommunion; matins at the twelfth hour of the night on the festival of St. Ida, because of the prodigy by which a deer lit by twelve lamps led St. Ida to the night prayers of the monks from Au to Fischingen and led her back, is celebrated with a threefold pealing of all the bells, a running together of the people, and the Ambrosian hymn finally with musical instruments; lauds are sung with organs, and are done with ministers and incense, as solemn vespers of the first class: to the first office, moreover, which the abbot celebrates pontifically, there come in procession the parishes of Tusnang, Buchlsee and Au, and this indeed from immemorial time, the other two from the year 1700. The public cult of St. Ida from ancient and immemorial time is proved also by the votive Mass of St. Ida, already three hundred years ago or more celebrated every Friday of the whole year in the chapel of the venerable Ida with singing and a running together of the people. That this Mass was sung from of old and beyond the memory of men was testified by Benedict, abbot of Fischingen, in the year 1600, on the 1st of May, with three other sworn witnesses: John Meylin of ninety years, Henry Scheüchi of eighty and John Ladmann of seventy. Since therefore among these witnesses one numbered almost a whole century of his life, and the others the best part of it, and yet did not know the beginning of this votive, public and solemn Mass, either by themselves or from the tradition of their elders, it cannot be denied that from the time of the testimony given, namely the year 1600, at least two preceding centuries, if not three, must be granted for the beginning of this Mass, and so this votive Mass has now been celebrated for more than three hundred years. Indeed it is very probable, since its beginning is wholly unknown, that it was begun from the time of the translation of the sacred relics of St. Ida made after the year 1300 or 1200, as the archive of Fischingen has it. After the sixteenth century, moreover, under Abbot Placid this solemn votive Mass was by dispensation changed into a private one, which is carried out by the primissary every Friday, of St. Ida, in her chapel and at her altar. But if on that day the rubrics forbid a votive Mass, it must be anticipated or supplied on the following Saturday. If, however, a votive Mass cannot be said in the whole week, at least a read Mass according to the rubrics must be applied by the primissary in the chapel and at the altar of St. Ida, according to the mind of the foundation, on the Friday. In like manner there is also said another votive Mass of St. Ida every Friday of the whole year by the brothers and sisters of the confraternity of St. Ida, founded in the year 1580. This votive Mass, moreover, has hitherto been read by the Lord Abbot himself. Throughout the whole time of the year, as often as at lauds and vespers according to the rubrics the suffrages of the saints are said, so often by the monks of Fischingen, both inside and outside the monastery, a proper commemoration of our holy patroness Ida is sung and recited: and our elders report that this took its beginning at the time when St. Ida was first honored in the divine offices by the said religious. Similarly in the Mass, in the suffrages of the saints, she is invoked with other saints and patrons by the same monks, as also in the greater litanies. So before Mass, and compline, and at prime, the confession, as also the solemn monastic profession, is made also in the name of St. Ida, and that from ancient and immemorial time. So too in the litany recited before a sick person to be anointed with sacred oil St. Ida was invoked. Which runs thus: Kyrie eleison. — Christ, hear us. — Savior of the world, help him. — St. Mary, pray for him. — Holy Virgin of Virgins, pray for him. — Holy Mother of God, pray for him. — St. Michael, pray for him. — St. Ursula with your companions, pray for him. — St. Ida, pray for him. — All holy virgins and widows, pray for him, etc. So an ancient manuscript ritual of the monastery of Fischingen, on parchment, in the year 1589.

§ VI. Of the ancient office and Mass in honor of Blessed Ida.

[14] The Office and Mass of St. Ida given entire. "The proper office, which formerly and from immemorial time the monks of Fischingen, still a hundred years ago, recited on the solemnity of St. Ida, so that its beginning is not held, as it was found in an ancient vesperal and antiphonary still preserved in the monastery; the rest are held in the summary, num. 12. This office, moreover, has been transcribed thus word for word.

Antiph. at Vespers. The famous day is here, on which, loosed from the bond of the flesh, our holy Patroness was taken up with the angels, where she rejoices with the dwellers in heaven. Alleluia.

Chap. I called upon the Lord, the Father of my Lord.

Resp. This day shines, — worthy of everlasting praise, — on which our mother and patroness, — excellent Ida, went to the heavens. ℣. Let us rejoice in the Lord, celebrating this day and devoutly praising our Lord on this day.

Hymn.

Heaven's citizens, applaud,

And you, brothers, sing together:

The orbit of the sun has brought back

The solemnities for our mother.

Hence therefore let the psalms resound,

Hence let the lessons sound out *,

And let the sweet-sounding songs

Of hymns be multiplied.

Let us strive with all our efforts,

Let us join prayers to prayers,

That by the merits of St. Ida

We may enjoy the joys of heaven.

She, although here given to a husband,

Yet betrothed to Christ,

Keeping the espousals of both

Together unblemished.

She shone with many signs,

And appeared as what she was,

Let the Church give thanks

In seeing the wonders.

To us, glorious mother

And most clement patroness,

Be to the joyful kingdoms

For us the safer way.

That we may here obtain pardon

Of all sins,

Whereby after so great labors

We may gain the end with you.

Christ, we frail ones pray,

That you loose our crimes,

Who are the Son with the Father

Ever with the Holy Spirit. Amen.

℞. Pray for us, blessed mother and patroness Ida. ℣ That worthy…

Antiph. at the Magnificat. How the soul of our most blessed mother and patroness Ida enjoys the Lord in the heavens, and what honor, the works of power of signs at her tomb most frequently and clearly show, alleluia.

Prayer. Lord of ineffable power, by whose providence the moments of our life run, be present to the prayers of your servants and grant that we who venerate the sacred memory of our most glorious mother and patroness Ida may also by her shining merits happily deserve to behold the most limpid majesty of your Only-Begotten. Who with you lives…

At Matins, invitatory. On the feast of our mother — with pure mind, with ready heart, — come duly with jubilation — to sing psalms.

Hymn.

The faithful whole

Let it praise the Son of God,

The sacred festival is here

Of most sacred Ida.

Whom from the tumults of the world

The pious Lord chose,

Through whom perdition perishes

And the merit of life is given.

By Christ she is sweetly called,

Is spiritually loved,

Is endowed with kindly glory,

Among the hosts of the saints.

We pray you, most holy one,

Absolve our crimes,

That we may deserve as free men

First to serve the prince.

Hence therefore, handmaid of God,

Happy Ida, through the ages

Reigning with Christ, may you ask

Pardon and grace for us.

Be power, honor, glory,

Might and prayer

To the deifying Trinity

Through infinite ages. Amen.

In the 1st Nocturn Antiph. Most blessed Ida, born of noble stock, was joined in marriage to a certain count of Toggenburg.

That according to the conjugal law she might be faithful, she received from her spouse a ring of Arabian gold.

This after some time she set out together with garments in the rays of the sun.

A certain raven, reaching that place, seeing the ring, carried it off with it to its nest, where it was rearing its young.

A hunter of the count, coming down the mountains for the sake of tracking wild beasts, heard the young croaking above a fir.

At once climbing the fir, he found the ring and was seized with great gladness and fitted it to his finger.

℞. Grace is poured abroad. [There follows lesson I: this with the others is the legend of the most blessed widow herself].

℞. Born of most noble stock, our patroness

Ida adorned with first devotion the famous blood with which she shone, and flourished like a palm tree, living in the heavenly court. ℣. She burned with the love of God, spurning the vain joys of the world.

℞. Blessed Ida was joined by the bond of matrimony to a count; yet Christ dedicated her to himself as bride. ℣. She had received from the count a ring which was of the purest gold.

℞. Many ravens flying together from the valley, it came about that one made for that place where the garments had been laid, and carried the wedding ring with it to its nest. ℣. It happened so, the divine will so willing.

℞. Some days having passed, the count sent a hunter to seek wild beasts. He in hunting heard the young croaking above a fir. ℣. And when the hunter, carrying out the count's order, had come down the mountains.

In the 2nd Nocturn. The hunter, ignorant of the fortune, wore the ring for a long time as if it were his own.

His fellow servants, seeing it, looked at each other with their eyes, of whom one recognized the ring.

Illustrious count, what is this matter I know not? For I have seen your wife's wedding ring fixed on the finger of the hunter.

And so it is no wonder that he has practiced obscene pleasures of the body with her.

Filled with great fury, the count seizes the hunter, and orders him to be tied to the tail of a wild and untamed horse.

Then, roused as if by a certain heat, seizing Ida he threw her down into a place four hundred cubits deep.

℞. In your comeliness and your beauty…

℞. The hunter, climbing the fir, found the aforesaid ring, and fitted it to his finger. ℣. The hunter, ignorant of the fortune, rejoiced greatly.

℞. And when the other servants had seen the ring fixed on the hunter's finger, they looked at each other with their eyes. ℣. For a long time the hunter, ignorant of the fortune, wore the ring as if it were his own; but his fellow servants, seeing it.

℞. The count, seizing Blessed Ida, threw her down from the higher part of his fortress into a place called Rapenstein, full of horror and rough. ℣. Roused with great fury and a certain frenzy, the count, seizing Ida his wife.

℞. When Blessed Ida was thus atrociously treated, relying only on divine help, she prayed to God from her heart that she should not be so cruelly extinguished. ℣. Vowing that she would never seek again her husband's marriage bed nor another's so long as she lived.

In the 3rd Nocturn Antiphon. The all-powerful God mercifully assented to the prayers of our most blessed mother Ida, that she breathed upon the earth without any injury of the body.

℣. You have loved justice.

Gospel with homily: The kingdom of heaven is like to a treasure hidden.

℞. After the hunter had found Blessed Ida in the cave, at once he turned back his foot and laid open the matter in order to the count, exclaiming: Praise be to God and the blessed ones above, that your wife still enjoys the use of this light. ℣. If I deceive you, cut off my neck: for she herself has told me that she was unjustly afflicted with this punishment.

℞. The count, casting himself at the feet of Blessed Ida, asks that she return home with him, and begs pardon for the sin he committed against her. ℣. And when the count, the hunter being joined to him, had come to the place, he confessed that his wife had undeservedly borne the injury inflicted and all suspicion.

℞. There was at that time also a monastery of sacred virgins at Fischingen, who, perceiving the holy course of life of this woman, often asked her that, keeping the same manner of life, she should inhabit their monastery. ℣. After the fame of her wonderful holiness had spread.

℞. Shining on the throne of heaven, clothed in a mantle, among the stars of glory a new star of grace, the most holy patroness Ida beats back the darkness of perfidy. Who pours back the light of gladness on the sorrowful, the joy of pardon on the fallen. ℣. Through her suffrages infinite miracles are done.

Prayer. O God, who have consecrated the holy solemnity of this day in honor of our most holy mother Ida, be present to the prayers of your servants, and grant that we who have begun to celebrate her feast may be raised up by her prayers and help. Through the Lord.

At Lauds, Antiph. Praise be to God and the blessed ones above, that your wife still enjoys the use of this light. Alleluia.

The count answered that this was not to be believed, since she would not have reached the ground except torn into a thousand parts.

If I deceive you, cut off my neck: for she herself has told me that she was unjustly afflicted with this punishment.

At length persuaded by these words he girds himself for the journey, and with the hunter joined to him goes on to the place pointed out.

And when he had come there, he casts himself at the feet of the woman and begs pardon for the sin he committed.

Chapter. I called upon. ℞. In your comeliness.

Hymn.

Of our deserving patroness,

And excellent woman,

With songs of memory

Let us sing a hymn of glory.

At whose assiduous tomb

Many miracles are done,

Steps are granted to the lame,

And sight is given back to the blind.

Therefore, excellent mother,

Most pious finder,

Pray for us to the Lord,

God and King of all.

With our prayers we ask,

And we all piously beg,

That to the eternal fatherland

Christ may lead us after this life.

That we may be allowed to see you,

And that with you there may shine on us

The light of light and eternity,

Grant, blessed Trinity. Amen.

℣. Pray for us.

Ant. Hail, our sweet mother, with our prayers in this exile we beg, cause to be driven off Satan, the keen and most cunning enemy, through whom, alas, thrice and four times we rush into sins, grant that the most kindly heavenly Father may save us.

Prayer as above.

At Terce Antiph. The most blessed woman was accustomed each day to frequent the monastery of Fischingen to hear the morning prayers.

Chap. with prayer as above.

At Sext. A certain deer always went before our patroness in her going and returning, with its horns bearing twelve lights. Alleluia.

Chapter. You have delivered me… ℣. In your comeliness…

Prayer. Grant, we beseech you, Lord, to your faithful so worthily to celebrate the solemnities of Blessed Ida, that they may experience the help of the intercession of her who pleased you, and may, by your mercy, receive the fellowship of her blessedness. Through the Lord.

Commemoration of St. Ida at Vespers. In this place therefore the sick experience how much it is fitting to honor the handmaid of God, where the dumb deserve to receive speech, the sterile fertility, the weak the power to walk, and shut ears hearing.

And this office the Most Reverend Lord Abbot Francis in the year 1702 reduced to a better form, and had it printed for his monastery at the episcopal press of Constance.

Mass of our Holy Patroness Ida. All from the common for one neither virgin nor martyr, except for what is set here.

Introit. Let us rejoice…

Prayer. O God, who gladden us by the annual solemnity of Blessed Ida, grant that we may also follow by the example of pious conduct her whom we venerate by office. Through the Lord.

Secret. Receive, Lord, the gifts we bring on the solemnity of Blessed Ida, by whose patronage we trust to be delivered.

Communion. As the hart desires the fountains of waters, so my soul desires you, O God.

Postcommunion. May the mysteries we have taken help us, Lord, and at the intercession of Blessed Ida may they make us rejoice in everlasting protection.

Votive Mass of our Holy Patroness Ida. All from the common for one neither virgin nor martyr, except for what follows.

Introit. I have known, O Lord.

Prayer. Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that recalling the memory of Blessed Ida, we may be protected by her merits and prayers.

Secret. Look propitiously, Lord, on the vows of your people, and cause us to rejoice in the suffrages of her whose memory you grant us to celebrate.

Postcomm. We suppliantly ask you, almighty God, that at the intercession of your saints you may multiply your gifts in us and dispose our times.

* codex constrepent

§ VII. Of the chapel, tomb and images of St. Ida.

[15] In the chapel built in ancient times in honor of St. Ida, "The antiquity of the public cult of St. Ida is sufficiently proved by the chapel erected in her honor. When, however, or by what abbot the first chapel of St. Ida was built, is not certainly established for the reasons alleged. The antiquity of the chapel, though, is suggested by the anniversary of the year 1504 of Lady Anna Schwendi, born of Braiten Landenberg, to be celebrated in the chapel of St. Ida. Similarly the antiquity of the chapel is held from the anniversary of Benedict Keller of Balterschwill, to be paid with one Mass; he gave for the fabric of the chapel 5 pounds of oboli, commonly pfennig. The beginning of this anniversary, however, is not known, whence it is very probable that it is older than the former, especially since of this family no one has survived within the memory of men. No less is the age of the chapel of St. Ida proved by the votive Mass every week, perhaps already from the year 1200 or 1300 sung in the same chapel, as we heard above.

[16] in the year 1554 an altar was erected. First after the apostasy, so far as I find, Abbot John Rudolph erected in her chapel an altar in the year 1554 and had it dedicated in honor of St. Ida by the bishop of Constance, as may be seen from the table of dedication. At the same time illustrious and excellent Lord Christopher Mezler, governor of the scepter of Constance as if by a certain predestination and divine rod, famous defender of the old religion, and Desiderius John Rudolph Reuthe, prelate and abbot of this monastery, sacred to St. Benedict, this altar was piously consecrated to St. Ida, the most upright matron, and to Saints Martin and Nicholas, bishops, and likewise to Anthony the confessor. This whole business for the confirmation of Christian and Catholic skill was settled in the year from the birth of Christ 1554, on the day sacred to St. Matthias the Apostle. Abbot James enlarged this sacred chapel in the year 1595. Abbot Placid, moreover, in the year 1622, as Rev. Fr. James Buecher, an eyewitness, expressly has in his Fischingen chronology, built it anew, and brought it to a larger and magnificent form, adorned with three altars, and had it dedicated by the Rev. Lord John Anthony Fridd, canon of the cathedral church and suffragan of Constance, under the honor of St. Ida in the year 1627.

[17] There stands the tomb to which many go on pilgrimage out of piety. In the chapel of St. Ida stands her tomb, built by Lord Abbot Henry Scheütin in the year 1496 of larger carved stones, in the manner of a mausoleum in splendid work. On top Blessed Ida is represented as dead, and on the front that authentic miracle of the candle put out by the demon and relit by the dead woman. That from this sacred tomb an argument for the immemorial cult of our holy patroness Ida can be drawn is established from the most frequent pilgrimage of the faithful to the aforesaid tomb continued to this hour, customarily made throughout the whole time of the year, especially in summer, not only by the Swiss and Swabians, but also by Bavarians, Alsatians, Rhaetians, Tyrolese, Salzburgers, Austrians, making pious offerings and hanging up votive gifts; and since the said tomb is hollow within, the faithful and pilgrims, for the sake of vow and devotion, place in it their heads, hands and feet. On every Saturday of the year too, in honor of St. Ida, in her chapel the Litanies of Loreto are sung by her religious with a running together of the faithful. Nor should it be passed over in silence that many ecclesiastics too, devoutly praying at the sacred tomb of St. Ida, are very frequently deemed worthy of a most sweet odor, far surpassing every natural one. That pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Ida is very ancient, moreover, is testified by Father Albert of Bonstetten, already often cited, in the year 1481; and indeed he himself by the prayers of Lord

Abbot and the other religious poured out at the said tomb he devoutly commends himself. The same may be seen from the letter of the Rev. Lord Balthasar, bishop of Ascalon, suffragan of Constance, in the Monastery of the Vineyards, given on the 14th day of Nov. in the year 1582 to Gregory XIII. The formal words of the letter are: Whose sacred body (Ida's), buried in the church of the said monastery, is religiously worshiped and venerated by many pious persons. The same is testified, in the year 1590, by Rev. Fr. Canisius in these words: The tomb of St. Ida is piously visited and honored by many down to our times. It pleased the Most High, finally, for the greater honor of his most devoted servant Ida and for the greater solace of the pious faithful, to preserve the sacred tomb unharmed at the time of the apostasy, to which the monastery of Fischingen, as we have already recalled above, alas, was subject for about fifteen years. For although the apostates overthrew and destroyed altars, images and all sacred things, yet they left the venerable tomb of St. Ida untouched. There stands also in the chapel of St. Ida from of old a lamp burning continually day and night, and likewise a wax candle before the tomb, which is lit during the conventual Mass, and during vespers and compline sung by the monks. From of old, moreover, three wax candles of greater weight and size were lit, as the traces still left at the tomb testify.

[18] [At Fischingen, the effigy of St. Ida is represented on window shields, on a seal,] Since Blessed Ida among the monks of Fischingen after the most holy Virgin Mary is the chief patroness and tutelary, everywhere in their places and dwellings images of St. Ida, in the parish churches, of which eight are numbered, and in the chapels subject to them erected altars, dedicated to the honor of this saint, as also images and statues of the same blessed woman are seen, carried in public processions and honored. In the sacred furnishings of the monastery of Fischingen there is preserved a plate, enclosed in a larger wooden panel, of silver, as also a statue of silver of the height of three and a half feet, although it displays only the form of the upper part of a person, representing the image of St. Ida. The same religious, that they might be able more and more to stir up Christ's faithful to greater devotion toward St. Ida, and to spread it far and wide, have had images of the same saint engraved on copper and printed, with so very happy a chisel, that art and feeling in some of them conspire in one and almost contend for the primacy. So many different forms and figures, new and old, of such images are numbered, that they rise to the number of forty; and such images, larger in folio and smaller, are most eagerly desired, not only by domestics, but also by pilgrims, wherefore each year some hundreds are sold. So too merchants sell medals representing the effigy of this saint in silver metal, and images painted on parchment, everywhere and in abundance. The Lord Abbots of the monastery of Fischingen in their abbatial letters use the following formula: We by the grace of God NN. abbot of the monastery at St. Ida's in Piscinae. On the window shields which they give here and there, besides the insignia of the monastery and of themselves, they always have one or another mystery of St. Ida represented. Thus the window shield of Abbot John Meylin of the year 1513 represents St. Ida receiving light from a dead man, and the abbot himself on bended knees a suppliant before St. Ida. This shield is still to be seen in the valley of St. Urban in the church of the same saint, which, although it is now non-Catholic, yet this window shield remains entire and unharmed. There is another shield of Mark Schencklin, the first abbot after the apostasy, of the year 1542. This represents the ring carried away by the raven, found by the hunter, the casting down of St. Ida from the fortress of Toggenburg, the dwelling of the same saint in the desert, the deer shining before and leading St. Ida to the night prayers at Fischingen. See the same on the window shield of Abbot John Rudolph of the year 1554. The successors of these predecessors, as abbots, follow the example. The venerable convent of Fischingen, moreover, for its lesser conventual seal uses the effigy of St. Ida. Many outsiders too, writing to a conventual of Fischingen, form the inscription of the letter thus: To the very Rev. NN. capitular of the monastery of Fischingen at St. Ida's. Indeed not even non-Catholics sometimes fear to use this inscription.

[19] and in very many images, The immemorial cult of our holy patroness is confirmed by the most ancient images, always painted and carved by our elders with rays and glory around the head, as may be seen in the Life by Father Albert of Bonstetten in the year 1486, committed to the public press by the author himself, in the year cited. For in this St. Ida is represented with a candle put out by the demon. There is preserved at Fischingen a very old painted panel of St. Ida with a deer lit up by twelve lights, which shows a religious virgin of the order of St. Dominic on bended knees a suppliant to St. Ida. That this panel is very ancient is shown by the foreign and altogether unknown dress of St. Ida, and similarly by the writing altogether blotted out by age. A very old window shield sent from the noble Lord Rudolph Escher, proconsul of Zurich, Zurich being still Catholic, to Fischingen around the year 1499, shows St. Ida receiving light from a dead man. An image of St. Ida carved from wood is preserved because of its antiquity. This was formerly placed beside the Blessed Virgin on the altar of her own chapel erected in the year 1513. There is still preserved in the monastery of Fischingen a certain small little bell of bronze, gilded inside and outside, with which formerly in the chapel of St. Ida the signal was given for performing sacred rites. That this is very ancient is sufficiently indicated by the very letters of the writing impressed on the handle of the same little bell. The writing in German runs thus: S. Idda, bid für die abgestorbene Seelen; St. Ida, pray for the faithful departed. For the rest, since the use of this little bell too exceeds all human memory, it is very probable that it already existed 200 or 300 years ago or more.

[20] of which some seem to reach back to earlier times. When the chapel of St. Ida, erected by the Rev. Lord Abbot Placid in the year 1622, but in the year 1704, on the 24th day of April, was again destroyed, on the wall above the sacred tomb of St. Ida, the plaster first being scraped away, there appeared the history of the life of St. Ida in the very ancient chapel, which Abbot James made broader in the year 1595, represented in colors. Namely the betrothal of St. Ida to Count Henry, the finding of the ring, and the casting of St. Ida from the fortress, the finding of St. Ida in the desert, the journey of St. Ida to the night prayers of the monks with a deer carrying light before her, the lighting of the candle by a dead man. And since this history was formed with a very ancient brush, it was drawn by a certain painter Leonard Rüssi, citizen of Wil, in the year 1704, on the 28th day of April, that it might be commended to posterity, which from the ancient habit of the garments will readily judge the antiquity of the painting. For I hold for certain that this painting was either painted with the old chapel itself, or at least made with the tomb built in the year 1496. For the rest, a certain one of the pilgrims below this painting wrote his name on the wall in red chalk in the year 1576; from which the antiquity of this painting somewhat shines forth (*).

* From codex 8545 there is to be added, p. 46: There is preserved in our archive an image of St. Ida in the monastic habit of a nun, holding in one hand a rosary, in the other a staff, which represents the mystery of the same St. Ida with the deer shining before… This image is drawn in colors after the likeness of that which was found in the Constance breviary in great folio, printed by order of Lord Bishop Hugh of Landenberg by Erhard Ratdolt, at Augsburg, in the year 1499. This breviary the Rev. Br. Jodocus Hessi, professed at Ittingen of the Carthusian Order, gave as a gift to the parish of Winterthur in the year 1511, still Catholic, and although it is now non-Catholic, yet this breviary is still preserved there with the aforesaid image in the library.

§ VIII. Of the feast of Blessed Ida outside the monastery of Fischingen.

[21] The feast of St. Ida was prescribed in the missal of the church of Constance "First it pleased the Most High to render his devout servant Ida more and more glorious through the fame of her sanctity, and to raise high through prodigies this lamp on the golden lampstand of the Church, that it might shine for all who are in the great house of the world. When therefore the fame of the sanctity and miracles of St. Ida had gone out widely into every region, the Rev. Lord Ordinary decreed that her memory be honored with public cult through the whole bishopric of Constance, which on account of its extent is more like a kingdom, as some say, than a diocese, and is bounded by more than two hundred German miles, a thousand Italian, and contains under it not one or another city, but several provinces, Switzerland, Swabia, Breisgau, Wittenberg, Hercynia, Allgäu, etc. The feast of St. Ida is celebrated, then, on the 3rd of November, by order of the Lord Ordinary, in this whole bishopric by way of commemoration both in the Mass and in the canonical hours, from the common of one neither virgin nor martyr; and that from very ancient time, as witnessed by the most reverend and most illustrious Lord John George, bishop of Constance, in the preface of the missal of Constance published by his authority and command in the year 1603, in which among other things he speaks thus: Moreover, the clergy, by the kindness of God, being now in some part trained and formed in the Roman rite, a breviary was committed to the press and happily completed in former years, in which to the life all things contained in the Roman breviary published by command of Pius V, supreme pontiff, and nonetheless the offices of the peculiar holy patrons of our church of Constance according to the most ancient use of the diocese of Constance, lest anything could be justly missed, were inserted. To the same form, which might be approved by the Most Holy Lord Clement and agree with the decrees of the sacred Council of Trent in the continuation of the twenty-fifth session, he resolved to bring back not only the daily book of the divine offices but also a new missal. But overtaken by death, he passed on to his successor what was lacking to the work. We therefore, following in the footsteps of our predecessor, and desiring to bring to the desired end a work so very holy and necessary, have ordered this missal, conformed to Roman use, exact so far as could be done through the propers of this our bishopric, to be committed to the press, and this, as far as we were bound by the care entrusted to us, and the reason of the time seemed to demand, we have taken care that to that source from which all religion and divine worship took its beginning, we mean the Roman Church, we should call it back with the greatest zeal to the solidity of that rock, and in such a way, nevertheless, that we have judged that the proper and peculiar Masses of our holy patrons, as has already been said, for the received custom approved by the supreme pontiffs, are by no means to be omitted. So far the said bishop.

[22] and breviary. See also the Constance breviary by decree of the most reverend, most illustrious Lord Prince Andrew of Austria, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, deacon of the title of Santa Maria Nova, bishop of Brixen and Constance,

published in the year 1599, where the feast day of St. Ida is assigned to the 3rd of November. The same Rev. Lord Bishop in the preface to the said breviary among other things also speaks thus: We have had the breviary of our diocese of Constance printed, not without very heavy expense, and we have rendered it absolutely Roman, except that we have inserted in their due places the offices of the saints who are tutelars of our diocese of Constance, so that hereafter the greatest and least of you may without difficulty duly and in the Roman way fulfill the task of his daily prayer. The same is confirmed by the most reverend and most illustrious Lord Rudolph Marquard, bishop of Constance, in his attestation of the year 1692, on the 23rd of February, in the following words: Just as not only in our Constance breviary from very ancient time, as of other saints, so also of this saint the memory is recalled every year, and in the very tremendous sacrifice of the Mass. Hence by decree of the most reverend, most illustrious Lord Prince Andrew of Austria the feast day of St. Ida, inserted in the public breviary and missal in the year 1599, is celebrated to the present day in the aforesaid manner by all subject to the Lord Bishop of Constance.

[23] The cult of St. Ida in the fortress of Kirchberg and neighboring places. In Swabia, in the fortress of Kirchberg, in which St. Ida was born, with a great running together of faithful and nobles, her feast on the 3rd of November is most solemnly observed, both in the forum and in choir. Similarly in the whole territory and district of Kirchberg, also in the places attached to it, in the monastery of Wiblingen of the Order of St. Benedict, in the parish of Reglisweiler and the fortress of Orsenhausen, etc., by the precept and irrevocable decree of the year 1600, on the 19th day of February, of the Lord Ordinary the Eminent Cardinal of Austria, bishop of Constance, the feast of St. Ida on the 3rd of November is solemnly celebrated each and every year, both in choir and in the forum, by the faithful of both sexes, present and future. The words of the diploma are: Wherefore, the name of the Most Holy Trinity being implored, by a perpetual and irrevocable constitution we decree, order and establish and command, that the feast day of St. Ida, which will be the 3rd day of the month of November, be hereafter for perpetual times solemnly celebrated each and every year in the whole territory and district of the county of Kirchberg, also in the places attached to it, in the monastery of Wiblingen, in the parish of Reglisweiler and the fortress of Orsenhausen, by Christ's faithful of both sexes, present and to come, in choir and in the forum. In faith and testimony of which things premised we have ordered and caused the present letters to be made therefrom and fortified with the affixing of our pontifical seal. Given at Constance, in our episcopal hall or palace, in the year 1600, on the 19th day of the month of February, indiction XIII. — In Switzerland, in the landgraviate of Thurgau subject to the cantons, the feast of our holy patroness Ida on the 3rd of November is solemnly celebrated both in choir and in the forum, by the faithful of both sexes, present and future, in the whole barony of Tannegg and in its parishes, namely in the parish of Syrnach, Bichellsee, Tusnang, Au, Bettwisen. The feast of St. Ida is likewise celebrated, both in choir and in the forum, on the 3rd of November in the whole dominion of Lommis, and similarly in the whole territory of Spiegelberg. In the territory subject to the most illustrious prince of St. Gall the feast of our holy patroness Ida is celebrated. In the very famous monastery of Maggenau of nuns of the Cistercian Order, under double rite, and that already from of old and from immemorial time. In the venerable monastery at Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels, of nuns of the order of St. Francis, under double rite already from of old. In the same territory subject to the most illustrious prince of St. Gall on the 3rd of November there are holidays observed in honor of our holy patroness Ida: the Valley or Forest of the Brothers, the district of Lower Schönaw, the vogtei of Buemberg, the vogtei of Einstall, the estate of Upper Schönaw, the estate of Reuthi, the estate of Oberblaicken, the estate of Eisgatten, the estate of Schlattberg, the estate of Buechhorn, the district of Wallenweill, the hamlet of Möricken, Herderen, the district of Bueswyll. In the canton of Uri in Switzerland in a certain place, commonly Baunen, where the Swiss pact took its beginning, there stands a chapel, filial of the parish of Seedorf, built in honor of St. Ida and adorned with three altars. The inhabitants of that place most solemnly celebrate the feast of St. Ida on the 3rd of November in choir and in the forum. To this chapel throughout the whole time of the year there is a quite frequent pilgrimage of people of Uri and Schwyz for the sake of a vow, and many works of power are done through the intercession of our holy patroness Ida; and above others sick mortals who suffer from teeth, cough and fever bring back healing from there. The beginning of this first sacred chapel is wholly unknown because of its antiquity: although around the year 1580 its middle part was consumed by the inundation of a torrent, it was shortly restored and enlarged. Fifty years later, it was again wholly carried away by an inundation of the river; wherefore the inhabitants built it in a safer place, in which it is now seen, with three altars and adorned with no mean brush. The image of St. Ida carved from wood and placed on the high altar, because of the amiability of the face, usually stirs the onlookers wonderfully to devotion. In the parish of Lommis, of the landgraviate of Thurgau, a chapel and a very beautiful altar have been erected in honor of St. Ida, in which Christ's faithful piously and religiously venerate St. Ida, and sacred rites are frequently performed. The feast of our holy patroness Ida is celebrated, on the 3rd of November, both in choir and in the forum, by the nuns of the monastery of Wonnenstein, of the third Order of St. Francis, in the Swiss canton of Appenzell, and that with the consent of their Rev. Lord Visitor, Lord Conrad Ferdinand Geist, suffragan and vicar general of the Lord Bishop of Constance. In the very famous monasteries of Muri in Switzerland, and also of Engelberg, both of the Order of St. Benedict, on the 3rd of November the feast of St. Ida is celebrated by way of commemoration, with a twelfth lesson at matins.

§ IX. Of the other signs of the cult paid to St. Ida.

[24] St. Ida was also honored by the other districts of Switzerland, "In the preceding we have assigned the places in which the feast of our holy patroness Ida is celebrated in the Mass and the divine offices; nor yet are there lacking very many other places in which St. Ida is piously honored and venerated by Christ's faithful. In Switzerland, in the canton of Lucerne, in the town called Malters, there stands a chapel sacred to St. Ida, in which St. Ida is propitious, and is honored with great veneration of the people, and it is frequented by various pilgrims, and many works of power are done through the intercession of St. Ida, and it has as it were grown into a custom that those suffering from headache bring some icon of St. Ida to their heads, and through this are often freed. In the landgraviate of Toggenburg, subject to the most illustrious prince of St. Gall, there stands a chapel called Müllenreuthi, belonging to the parish of Mosnang, and sacred indeed to St. Joseph, where through the seasons of the year the divine offices are often carried out, yet at the side of the altar there has been placed an image of St. Ida carved from wood, which Christ's faithful piously honor, and devoutly invoke in their necessities, as is witnessed by the wax votive gifts hung up by them. In the same landgraviate there stands the church of Gäwill, filial indeed of the parish of Kirchberg, where on the altar an image of St. Ida is seen painted and is religiously honored by Christ's faithful. Nor is it a wonder that St. Ida is honored by the faithful in this church, for she herself too, at the time when she lived with the count her husband in the fortress of Toggenburg, often religiously visited this church, as being neighboring and next to the fortress of Toggenburg, and took part in the divine offices. Throughout the whole diocese of Constance churches, chapels, altars in honor of St. Ida are solemnly consecrated by the Rev. Lord Ordinary, statues of wood or painted images of this saint are set on altars or in churches, as also in other neighboring dioceses, and indeed distant ones; similarly images of St. Ida are seen erected on roads and in streets or painted on houses outside. Very many families too, especially in Switzerland and Swabia, fix images of St. Ida within their houses, and piously venerate her as domestic patroness.

[25] and in Italy Devotion toward St. Ida seems to be arising also among Italians, especially among the people of Lodi in Lombardy. of the diocese of Lodi For the most illustrious Lord Bartholomew Menatti, bishop of Lodi and formerly apostolic nuncio to the Swiss, moved by a singular devotion toward St. Ida, resolved to extend and propagate her cult also in his diocese and neighborhood: wherefore through Ulrich Uttenberger, canon of Lucerne and episcopal commissary, he asked me for Lives, images and medals of this saint. To satisfy this devout petition, I sent him six booklets on the Life of St. Ida, some images and six metal medals. He answered in this way to what he had received:

Most Rev. Father, most honored lord. The gifts offered of images, medals and booklets of the admirable Life of St. Ida, which, by order of Your Most Rev. Paternity, were transmitted to me by the Lord Canon Nicholas Ulrich Uttenberger, have arrived most welcome, not only in satisfaction of my own devotion toward so great a patroness, but also that I may more easily extend her cult in this city and diocese; which indeed I hope will come about, since a noble man of this my city, as a proof of grateful spirit for a grace obtained, has vowed to bring out her Life in Italian. Wherefore also for greater knowledge and instruction about her I shall suggest looking at what the most illustrious nuncio Scotti, formerly apostolic legate in Switzerland, says of the same holy matron [in] Helvetia profana et sacra. I meanwhile return most friendly thanks to Your Most Rev. Paternity, who has so willingly obliged me, and if I can bring forth anything further, I offer all to its commands, ever remaining and to remain

Your Most Rev. Paternity's most devoted from the heart

Bartholomew, bishop of Lodi.

Lodi, 7 Dec. 1697.

On receiving this letter, I was eager to know whether that nobleman, of whom mention is made in the letter, had completed his work on St. Ida in the Italian language; wherefore after three years I wrote again on this matter to the most illustrious Lord Menatti; who in turn replied with the following:

That noble man of this city, who as a proof of grateful spirit for a grace obtained had already resolved to bring out in the Italian language the wonderful Life of the holy matron Ida, has not yet completed the work, being hindered by other public cares, especially in these times so dangerous for our Lombardy. This I know, he has filled many pages in writing, in an elegant and learned style, and as soon as he is free, he will dispatch what remains to be finished. After it has been printed, I shall satisfy the petitions and commands of Your Most Rev. Paternity the more gladly, the more liberal are the effects of your devoted will that you offer toward me. Returning singular thanks for this, I remain and shall ever remain

Your Most Rev. Paternity's most devoted from the heart, servant,

Bartholomew, bishop of Lodi.

Lodi, 1 April 1701.

And these things on the celebration and cult of our holy patroness Ida, beyond doubt she is honored in still other places; but since this is not yet established to us, what has been said may suffice to prove the argument of the title.

[26] In the year 1705, Vincent Pichi, There is not to be passed over in silence here the deed of the most reverend, most illustrious Lord Vincent Pichi, of the marquises of Albinea and counts of Rescio, archbishop of Laodicea, apostolic nuncio sent by Clement XI to the Swiss, apostolic nuncio, visits the fortress of Toggenburg. who, in the year 1705, on the 12th day of May, came from Lommis to Fischingen, and on the 14th of the same, after taking dinner, with his whole retinue climbed the Mount of St. Ida, and there beheld with his own eyes the ruins of the fortress of Toggenburg, destroyed long ago by the people of Appenzell, which St. Ida inhabited for some years, and from which she had innocently been thrown down, and showed a special affection of devotion toward this saint: and he made commemoration of her in the tremendous sacrifice of the Mass. The officials of the same most illustrious prince, moreover, asked to be inscribed on the roll of the confraternity of the same saint, namely the very reverend and very noble Lord Odoardo Anthony Polifero, secretary, and Lord Bartholomew Bonnova, prefect of the court (*).

* These things from codex n. 8545 p. 34 should be added: From very old manuscripts communicated to us from Winterthur, we have it that already before the apostasy processions were instituted from Vitodurum, commonly Winterthur, to Fischingen to St. Ida. Then namely at the years 1509 and 1510, when in their way the citizens of the new city of Winterthur, who until then had frequented the collegiate church of old Winterthur as their own, had not long before obtained a parish of their own in this city at St. Alban's, they began also to increase very much their superstition, to seek out sacred relics too, undertaking various vows and pilgrimages to the saints of God at Berenberg, to the provostship of Embrach, and to their lady at Fischingen at the Mother of God in Au. The author of these manuscripts was Lawrence Bosshard, canon of the collegiate church of Blessed James on the Holy Mount near Winterthur. He wrote these things, however, when already made an apostate, and persevering in apostasy he died in the year 1530. Berenberg was a monastery under the third rule of St. Francis, founded near the castle of Altenwülflingen in the year 1360 by the counts of Kyburg. Embrach was a collegiate church having a provost, sixteen canons and six chaplains.

§ X. Of the miracles and sanctity of St. Ida.

[27] Many writers assert that St. Ida flashed with miracles, "That miracles and very many benefits are granted by almighty God, at the intercession of our holy patroness Ida, to those who ask, is testified with unanimous consent by both old and modern writers of the Life of St. Ida. Fr. Albert of Bonstetten testifies that the sacred tomb of St. Ida is famous for miracles, some of which he reports, and that it is visited and honored by very many; so in his Legend of the year 1486. The venerable and excellent Fr. Canisius in his history of the year 1590 says: We list in a few words the undeniable miracles of St. Ida: for these are the reason why the sacred tomb of Blessed Ida is visited and honored by many to the present day, and it is held by experience itself that God, on account of the merits of St. Ida, bestows various benefits on Christ's faithful, indeed frees them from diverse sicknesses and readily hears them in their petitions. Fr. Heinrich Murer, after some miracles narrated, concludes thus in the Life of St. Ida, fol. 298: Let the miracles listed suffice: and to list more would be superfluous, for the truth of these is so manifest to all, that no one can call the sanctity of St. Ida into doubt. Above all, however, those receive maternal and beneficent aid from Blessed Ida who feel themselves infested by specters, or tormented by grave headache or leprosy. Similar things are held by other writers too, whom see, if you please, especially Fr. Bucelin, who in his Constantia Rhenana at the year 1184 speaks thus of the death of St. Ida: St. Ida, countess, nun of Fischingen, is received into the heavens, that from there she may more powerfully be patroness to the devotion of the faithful; to this day duly invoked and honored she prodigiously gives help in every necessity. Fr. Basil Finck speaks thus of the miracles of St. Ida: Persevering in a religious austerity of life to her last breath and flashing with many prodigies while still in life, and with more after death. At the end: She is in fact patroness of those who suffer the harassments of hell. Finally he concludes: Dead she rests with everlasting miracles. For confirming our title, a testimony beyond all exception is the episcopal breviary of Constance, which on the feast of St. Ida in the ninth lesson among other things has thus: Whose sanctity God willed to be attested by miracles. Who, moreover, would be of such great audacity as to presume to assert that the Rev. Lord Ordinary inserted these things in the public breviaries of the clergy without previous and authentic inquiry? There is added another testimony of the Rev. Lord Ordinary Cardinal Andrew of Austria, bishop of Constance, in his decree of the year 1600 cited above; for among other things he speaks thus: St. Ida, dead at Fischingen, flashed with miracles. Thus the most illustrious Lord Ranutius Scotti, formerly apostolic nuncio to the Swiss, in his Helvetia profana et sacra, writes thus: Mori questa sancta a di 9 settembre del 1100, et ivi sepelita e per li grandi miracoli operati in essa da Dio. [This saint died on the 9th of September of 1100, and was buried there, and for the great miracles worked in her by God.] Nor is there to be passed over a martyrology, printed in the German idiom in the year 1599 at Dillingen, which to a brief narrative of the Life of St. Ida attaches this clause: Buried at Fischingen at the altar of St. Nicholas she is famous for miracles. An effective testimony for confirming the miracles and works of power of St. Ida can be taken from the very ancient proper of the monastery.

[28] which is also evident from the running together of the faithful. There is preserved in the monastery of Fischingen an ancient wooden panel, on which are noted certain miracles done by the intercession of St. Ida; these have come down to us from our elders as beyond doubt, especially since, examined again through notaries and sworn men by order of Abbot Christopher in the year 1580, they were found and approved as authentic. The sacred tomb of St. Ida, erected in the year 1496 by Abbot Henry, as we heard above, proves the authentic testimony of miracles and benefits received; for unless Christ's faithful obtained more frequent benefits through the merits of St. Ida, pilgrims to this sacred tomb, as to the common asylum of the wretched and languishing, neither would flow in in so great a number, nor would devotion toward this saint be more and more increased in the minds of the faithful. For from the increase of devotion the obtaining of benefits is rightly concluded. Such miracles and benefits are proved also by various wax votive gifts hung up here and there in great number in the chapel of St. Ida, which are multiplied more and more. And since it is most certainly established among the devout faithful of Christ far and wide that very many benefits are obtained from God through the intercession of St. Ida, these are no longer noted or examined by the religious of Fischingen, although the father confessors could report and list countless ones of this kind. For the rest we have already noted above that our patroness Ida is propitious and prodigious not only at Fischingen, but also at Baunen, at Malters and in other places. There could also be called as witnesses for confirming this matter as many as have been heard in their petitions at the invocation of our holy matron Ida, whose multitude would plainly make up an excessive number.

[29] The sanctity of St. Ida, men of the greatest weight As regards the sanctity of St. Ida, it is proved thus. Since St. Ida led a most holy life on earth, she left a great name for her sanctity and a most sweet odor among those who came after; extol with praises, wherefore the fame of her sanctity at once spread far and wide, and moved Christ's faithful to her cult, not only private, but also public, and indeed ecclesiastical. And since no one called her glory and blessedness into doubt, her images and statues already by our elders were always and everywhere painted and carved with rays and glory around the head, as may be observed in the preceding article in the most ancient images. The diocese of Constance names many and great saints; among whom, however, not the least is numbered and honored our holy patroness Ida, whose sanctity has so prevailed that by persons of both sexes she has from immemorial time been called and proclaimed holy mother Ida and patroness, and as such is everywhere most devoutly honored. Wherefore without the greatest scandal not only of the pious faithful, but also of heretics, with whom, alas, Switzerland abounds, the name of her sanctity can no longer be called into doubt; and thus this great saint by the voice of the people and the voice of God, after the example of certain other saints, has already from of old been canonized. For the rest, that the sanctity of our holy patroness Ida does not lie hidden from the Apostolic See, and indeed that it at least approves it and stirs up Christ's faithful to the veneration and cult of this saint, we shall tell below. There are not lacking too men of the greatest weight, conspicuous for piety and learning, and beyond all exception, who proclaim the sanctity of St. Ida with wonderful praises and encomia. For the most illustrious dean of the monastery of Einsiedeln, Fr. Albert of Bonstetten, extols St. Ida with the following elogia in the year 1481: Wonderful contemplator of the Divinity, follower of all virtues, rule of purity, mirror of modesty, beauty of widows, honor of the female sex, author of religion, crown of nobility, full of good works, seventh firmament of the heavens, shining in the Church of God and growing famous for miracles. The Rev. Lord Balthasar Wuoher, bishop of Ascalon, suffragan of the most illustrious prince the Lord Bishop of Constance, a man of known learning and leaving among those after him a name for sanctity, already one hundred and eighteen years ago, namely in the year 1582, on the 14th day of November, in a letter given to the Most Holy Lord Pope Gregory XIII from the Monastery of the Vineyards, of the Order of the Holy Father Benedict, among other things testified about the sanctity of St. Ida, as we said above, and as is also held in the summary, num. 14. The most eminent Lord Andrew, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and bishop, gives clear testimony for the sanctity of St. Ida in his decree of the year 1600, on the 19th day of February, cited above. For in that decree it is proved from sacred scripture that the invocation of saints is holy, wholesome and useful; afterward he concludes in these words: These things, as they are true of other saints, so they are without doubt true of St. Ida, sprung from the house and family of the counts of Kirchberg, who five hundred and fifteen years ago endured her life innocently, dead at Fischingen, a monastery in Thurgau, buried there she flashed with miracles, and therefore in that same place she has been honored every year with solemn sacred rites. And a little later: We could not but assent to a petition full of piety, as it would redound first of all to the glory of God, and to the debt of honor to St. Ida on many counts, especially in her homeland, and finally also to the notable benefit of the people, if this patroness were honored with good recollections, public prayers and pious and solemn institutions. Behold from so great a prelate of the holy Roman Church a clear testimony to the sanctity of St. Ida.

[30] and writers confirm it There is not to be passed over in silence what Fr. Bucelin, monk of Weingarten, cited above, brings forward in his various little works for the sanctity of St. Ida. In Constantia Rhenana, at the year 1172, he speaks thus: A most illustrious and truly wonderful star fills the diocese (of Constance) with great splendor and glory, St. Ida, recently the wife of Henry, count of Toggenburg, born a countess of Kirchberg, a most holy woman. At the year 1176: Persuaded by the prayers of the nuns of Fischingen of the Order of St. Benedict she betakes herself there, embracing the cowl, yet enclosed in a narrow cell, instituting a plainly angelic manner of life, and she renders that place, in other respects most holy, much more illustrious. At the year 1184: About this time the most lucid star of our diocese, St. Ida, is received into the heavens, that from there she may more powerfully be patroness to the devotion of the faithful, whom to this day, duly invoked and honored, she prodigiously helps in every necessity. So far he speaks in Constantia Rhenana. In Germania sacra, however, printed in 1655, in the second part, under the word Fischingen, he has thus among other things: St. Ida, nun of the same place and of God, most illustrious in the glory of miracles while she lived and after death, is honored. In his Benedictine Menology, brought to light in the year 1656, at the 3rd of November: In Switzerland, in the monastery of Fischingen, St. Ida, widow, countess of Toggenburg, most famous for virtues and miracles. So far Fr. Bucelin, most renowned for piety and learning. The fame of the sanctity of St. Ida will be most keenly defended by all the brothers and sisters inscribed on the roll of the confraternity of the same saint, of whom from the year of institution 1580 until the present 5th day of April of 1704 there are numbered 6012, namely of those already resting in God 2809, and of men, clerics, regulars and seculars of both sexes 3203. This illustrious confraternity in honor and under the patronage of St. Ida took its beginning in the very famous monastery of Fischingen in the year 1580, under Abbot Christopher, and on the 27th of June of the same year it was confirmed by the most eminent prince and cardinal of the Holy Roman Church Mark Sittich, archbishop of Salzburg and bishop of Constance, and afterward in the year 1617 it was adorned with splendid indulgences by Paul V, supreme pontiff. With all zeal the sanctity of St. Ida will be defended, besides other dioceses, by the very ample bishopric of Constance, which for many centuries now has honored St. Ida as a known and undoubted saint. Every year too throughout this bishopric pastors and curates announce the feast of this saint on the 3rd of November to Christ's faithful from their pulpits. There will stand for the sanctity of St. Ida bishops, prelates and abbots, all the writers of the Life of this blessed woman, who by their decrees and writings proclaim St. Ida to the whole world as a great and indeed wonderful saint.

[31] and it is attested both by the recitation of litanies, As a crown I set here the litanies of St. Ida which my most pious predecessor Abbot Joachim, a man of great piety, drew from the doctrinal notes of Rev. Fr. Canisius, S. J., on the Life of the same saint, and again with the permission of superiors brought to light, from which the sanctity of St. Ida readily shines forth.

Litanies of the holy matron Ida, brought to light with the permission of superiors in the venerable monastery of Blessed Mary the Virgin at Einsiedeln, in the year 1661.

Kyrie eleison. — St. Mary, pray for us.

Holy mother Ida, pray for us.

St. Ida, most devoted servant of Christ.

St. Ida, pattern of those who truly love God.

St. Ida, grace and honor of Christian nobility.

St. Ida, virgin chaste and pure before the marriage bed.

St. Ida, faithful bride of chaste marriage.

St. Ida, apostolic mirror of widowhood.

St. Ida, moaning turtledove.

St. Ida, star shining in the midst of the cloud.

St. Ida, despiser of the pomp of this world.

St. Ida, lover of sacred solitude.

St. Ida, mirror of Christian patience.

St. Ida, most strong conqueror of demons.

St. Ida, lover of poverty.

St. Ida, gracious patroness of your confraternity.

St. Ida, consoler of the afflicted.

St. Ida, refuge of the poor.

St. Ida, kindled with the love of God.

St. Ida, most special patroness of our country.

St. Ida, our dearest mother and patroness.

Lamb of God. — Pray for us…

Prayer of Rev. Fr. Canisius in her Life. Almighty everlasting God, who are wonderful and mighty in your saints, and in your faithful servant Ida have deigned to work great things, we suppliantly entreat your majesty that you kindle in our hearts her spirit with which she served you, and grant that her holy intercession may profit us for the restoration of body and soul, that you may guard us from Satan and every evil, and deign in your mercy to confirm and make solid in the true faith and in every good. Through the Lord.

[32] and by the institution of a confraternity under her name. In testimony of the sanctity of their patroness the people of Fischingen adduce also the confraternity instituted under the name of St. Ida. Concerning which these things are read in the documents transmitted by Father Chardon. "This confraternity took its beginning around the year 1580 in the church and monastery of Fischingen, and was confirmed on the 27th of June of the same year by the most eminent prince and cardinal of the Holy Roman Church Mark Sittich, archbishop of Salzburg and bishop of Constance. The chief cause was the Ven. Fr. Peter Canisius of the Society of Jesus, who, intent on every cult of St. Ida, not only labored that some confraternity be erected in honor of St. Ida, but also himself by words and deeds caused his name to be inscribed among the first of the same congregation. Afterward this same illustrious confraternity was adorned in the year 1617 by Paul V, supreme pontiff, with splendid indulgences. This confraternity of the most glorious St. Ida is mentioned also in his letter to Gregory XIII, 1582, by the most reverend Lord Balthasar, bishop of Ascalon, suffragan of Constance, as is held in question two, fol. 5 (namely what we gave above, num. 10), and again through the whole of question ten (namely what will be given below, num. 35), more things are recorded of the growth of this confraternity.

§ XI. Of the labor spent for the elevation of the cult of St. Ida.

[33] [The people of Fischingen, that the cult of St. Ida might be approved at Rome, at first not heard,] "Around the year 1606, the most illustrious and Rev. abbot and prince at St. Gall, Bernard, sent Rev. Fr. Jodocus Mefler, a professed of the monastery of St. Gall, to Rome for the sake of study. He, by the commission of his Rev. Lord, labored very much that an office or proper of St. Ida at least for the abbey of Fischingen be approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and that permission be granted to celebrate her feast, as was customary from of old. Wherefore when for this reason the most eminent Cardinal Bellarmine had long been informed by him, he brought this answer: since nothing is found on this saint in the martyrology, and nothing is established to the Congregation about the history of her life, the Congregation does not willingly approve things of this kind, of which it has not been fully informed, and so unless something further is shown it will with difficulty be brought to approve histories of her life; but that the Fathers of Fischingen may well recite the common office of that saint, and this he said that those Fathers could do on his authority, since the difficulty here is not so much in the saint herself, as in the history of her life. When this was written on the 10th of October 1610 to Fischingen, and it was added that if the reverend abbot were willing to bear some little expenses for the honor of so great a saint, the business could readily be finished through a commission made by the Congregation of Cardinals, the Rev. Lord Matthias Stehelin, at the time abbot of the monastery of Fischingen, allowed so desired an occasion to slip by, on account of the poverty under which the monastery of Fischingen was then laboring. The aforesaid Rev. Fr. Jodocus Mefler, returning shortly afterward from Rome to the monastery of St. Gall, either himself composed the lessons of the second nocturn, which today are recited throughout the diocese of Constance on the festival of St. Ida at matins, or had them composed and printed at Rome, and offered and gave them as a most welcome gift to the Rev. Lord Matthias Stehelin, abbot of Fischingen. After an interval of several years, namely in the year 1643, the most illustrious and Rev. abbot and prince at St. Gall, Peres, inflamed with the same devotion toward St. Ida, urgently asked from the Sacred Congregation of Rites permission to celebrate the feast of St. Ida in his monastery and territory; from which he received the answer that the sanctity of St. Ida must first be authentically proved, since she is not in the Roman martyrology. Wherefore for a long time the reverend prince, through letters of some of his people, wished to be informed by the Rev. Fathers of Fischingen what foundations proving the sanctity of St. Ida they could allege. These were gathered with great care, and sent by the most reverend and most illustrious prince of St. Gall to Rome. But since the desired effect did not at once follow, the people of St. Gall, weary of the Roman style, did not further move this pious business.

[34] by a commissary delegated by the bishop of Constance, It was taken up again in the year 1691 by the Rev. Lord Francis, abbot of the monastery of Fischingen, and he sent to the Rev. and Most Serene Prince of the Holy Roman Empire and bishop of Constance Marquard Rudolph, that he might interpose his authority at Rome for elevating the cult of St. Ida; and the most clement prince, especially devoted to this saint, promised, and on his counsel designated a commissary, who should duly examine all things at Fischingen for this purpose, and shake out the ancient documents. By whom this report was given.

Report of the episcopal commissary sent to Fischingen. — Most Serene and most reverend Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, and Bishop, most clement Lord. Since Your Most Illustrious Highness, at the instance of the reverend prelate and Lord Francis, abbot of the monastery of Fischingen of the Order of St. Benedict, has most clemently enjoined on my slenderness too, according to the tenor of the adjoined commission issued in the office of the vicariate, that on certain points according to the mind of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and especially on the immemorial cult, the fame of sanctity, virtue and miracles, and also the recitation of the office and Mass of St. Ida, widow, in the said monastery of Fischingen, or where otherwise it might be necessary, I should assiduously inquire, and thereupon report most humbly in writing: therefore, with the reverence and submission that is fitting, I began this business on the eighth day of the month of November, there being employed and thereupon requested as apostolic notary Lord John George Schenckle, candidate in sacred theology and the laws, parish priest in Rorschach, and I assiduously and accurately inspected, read through and went over the individual literary documents, authentic instruments, printed books, paintings, images and antiquities, concerning all and each of which I present to Your Most Illustrious Highness the following most humble report.

And first as regards the immemorial cult of St. Ida. Thereupon he lists those things which have already been brought forward above; and he makes the end of his information thus: The Life of St. Ida was also written by Rev. Fr. Albert of Bonstetten, dean of the monastery of Einsiedeln, already once alleged, printed in the year 1481, with engraved images adorned with rays and glory, where he says that he translated this legend from an obsolete Latin into German. Where he also specially mentions that the tomb of St. Ida was at that time religiously visited, and

that the faithful poured out their prayers at it, to which he also commends himself. This legend, written in compendious form, the very noble Lord Gaspar Moser, public notary of the city of Wil, being ordered to judge whether it was in all things conformed to older documents, testifies that with all diligence applied he saw and reviewed all to be conformable. The same is asserted by Lord J. Dolder, public notary and scribe of the court of Tannegg, in the year 1583. Likewise Peter Canisius of the Society of Jesus, in the same tenor, wrote the Life of St. Ida in the year 1590. There are cited also by others Francis Guilliman, De rebus Helveticis, book I last chapter; Rev. Fr. George Stengel, S. J., vol. I De Iudiciis divinis, ch. 22, num. 1; Rev. Fr. Nicholas Avancini, S. J., in his Poesis dramatica, part 4; Rev. Fr. Michael Pexenfelder, S. J., Histor. 39; the Benedictine Calendar of Rev. Fr. Aegidius Rambeck, monk of Scheyern, at the third day of November; Rev. Fr. Gabriel Bucelin, monk of Weingarten, in his Menology and Constantia Rhenana; Rev. Fr. Dionysius Luxenburger of the Capuchin Order of St. Francis in his Historiale, and many others.

Done at Fischingen, on the 9th day of Nov., in the year one thousand six hundred and ninety-one, indiction 14.

L. S. John Hugh Messler, doctor, commissary, specially deputed.

John George Schenckle, apostolic notary, specially requested.

[35] to which the officials of Frauenfeld added testimony, There were then present at Fischingen the officials of the landgraviate of Thurgau, who, requested in writing by the episcopal commissary, in the name of His Most Serene Highness, on the sanctity and cult of St. Ida, testified as follows.

Attestation concerning the sanctity of St. Ida by the Lord officials of Frauenfeld. — Since the Most Reverend and Most Serene Prince of the Holy Roman Empire and Lord Marquard Rudolph, bishop of Constance, lord of Reichenau and of Oeningen, has requested in writing us the undersigned provincial prefect and other officials of the landgraviate of Thurgau, that we should authentically testify, both from hearing and from our own knowledge, concerning the immemorial cult and veneration and also the fame of sanctity, virtue and miracles of holy mother Ida, who rests in the very famous monastery of Fischingen situated in this landgraviate: assenting to the just petition of the same aforesaid Highness, we say and testify under the faith and fidelity by which we are bound to our superiors, that we have always heard from our elders that the holy countess of Toggenburg, named Ida, has flourished in the fame of sanctity, virtue and miracles from immemorial time in the monastery of Fischingen of the Order of St. Benedict, and that she has been a singular patroness of this county of Thurgau and of Toggenburg, and of the other most praiseworthy cantons of Switzerland. We testify the same from our own and certain knowledge, that even to the present time she flourishes more and more, that her tomb is religiously visited by the faithful people both neighboring and foreign, through whose patronage very many benefits are obtained: and besides that each year the third day of November is kept as a holiday in choir and forum at Fischingen, and that there is erected there a very ample confraternity in honor of this saint, on whose roll we the undersigned too, to our singular solace, have been entered. In faith of which we have subscribed the present attestation, confirmed with our rings.

Fischingen, 8 November 1691.

L. S. John Ulrich Püntiner of Braumberg, prefect.

L. S. Joseph Ignatius Rueplin, landammann.

L. S. Anthony Sebastian Reding of Biberegg, chief secretary.

To this attestation the Rev. and Most Serene prince and bishop of Constance added another attestation of his own, and both were sent to Rome. Which he subscribed thus:

In our residence of Meersburg, on the 23rd day of February, in the year 1692.

L. S. Marquard Rudolph, bishop.

[36] they at length obtain the confirmation of the cult in the year 1724. "The matter being again further deferred, the successor of Rudolph in the year 1705 gave a suppliant letter to the Most Holy Lord Clement XI for the elevation of the feast of St. Ida to the rite of a double feast. There supplicated also for obtaining the same grace the most illustrious Catholic cantons, namely the most humble and most obedient sons and servants of the holy Roman Church, the praetors, landammanns and senates of the praiseworthy Catholic cantons in Switzerland, namely Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug, Fribourg and Solothurn. Then in the year 1714 the same bishop of Constance sent an attestation on the immemorial cult of St. Ida, and in the year 1715 a new supplication for the elevation of the rite of St. Ida to the Most Holy Pope Clement XI. Which same thing, in the same year and on the same day, the canons of the cathedral church of Constance sought from the Holy See. Then in the year 1723 there came out at Rome the Summary of the Animadversions of the Rev. Father Lord Promoter of the Faith, a Response to the animadversions, a new Memorial in the same year, and at last in the year 1724 a pontifical brief followed.

[37] Which is clear from the letters given to the abbot of Fischingen. So far has been described the work that the people of Fischingen carried on that the cult of the blessed widow be raised from simple rite to semidouble. The same is clearly indicated also by two letters, preserved in the Brussels codex n. 8545, which the Rev. Lord Battaglini wrote from Rome to the abbot of Fischingen on the 15th of July 1724: Today, the day dedicated to St. Henry, a most happy end of so many labors and bitternesses, the beginning and completion of our desired consolation. Now praise be to God, we have won that cause, for which I have borne assiduous labor for five years, as may be seen from the attached sheet of the most illustrious and reverend Lord Promoter of the Faith Prospero de Lambertini, on the elevation of the office of St. Ida of Constance, on the 15th of July 1724, for the grace of the elevation of the office from the common from simple rite to semidouble rite for the city and diocese of Constance. — In the next I shall send the public instrument to be presented to the Most Serene Ordinary and to be published through the whole diocese, because today the most illustrious Secretary could not be addressed, so that he might in the customary way set down that word has been had with His Holiness. Yesterday I was almost in despair, hearing the contradictions of the Lord Cardinals; but God has appeased their hearts, already the servants are coming in crowds and by custom there are given what are commonly called gratuities, namely to some a scudo, to others less, to others more. Now at this moment there is the approval of the Holy See and it is the same as if it were a canonization. This glory God has granted to Your Most Rev. Paternity; after some months with easy business I shall obtain for the diocese of Constance proper lessons, namely those reported by Abbot Cajetan. I congratulate Your Most Rev. Paternity, who will deign with all pomp to give signs of gladness with torches and guns of gunpowder and the sound of bells.

Rev. Martin Battaglini.

Rome, 15 July 1724.

Since from the whole commentary that we have copied it appears that at the Holy See there was treatment only of the confirmation and elevation of the cult, it will escape no one that the Rev. Lord Martin Battaglini, in using the word canonization, by no means intended that solemn canonization in which, according to the common opinion of theologians, the Roman pontiff is judged safe from the danger of erring.

On the 2nd day of September of the same year, the same wrote these things to the same abbot: The joy of Your Most Rev. Paternity has so multiplied mine, already conceived from the day of the most happy victory, that I can scarcely express it in conceiving your consolation. Believe me, I have experienced such contradictions, straits, wearinesses, that I firmly believe this to be the miracle of miracles of St. Ida, that she obtained from God that contradicting hearts be softened. When I was already almost in despair, when going about for information I heard contrary votes, in the act of voting all kindly concurred and at once I had a secret message from one Most Illustrious Lord, but I remained as if stupefied for an hour.

[38] Of the cult of St. Ida in the church of Lausanne. What was done that the church of Lausanne might observe the feast of Blessed Ida is clear from the following contained in the same codex n. 8545, p. 10. Claude Anthony, bishop of Lausanne, at Fribourg in Switzerland on the 15th of June 1725, gave a letter to the abbot of Fischingen. I have received the most courteous letter of Your Most Reverend Lordship written to me under the date of the 28th of April, to which I should certainly have replied sooner, had I not been occupied until now over mountains and hills in the business of the visitation of this diocese, and being still to be occupied further; now satisfying my obligation I would say that with the greatest joy I shall strive to promote the cult toward Blessed Ida. Wherefore I have prepared a suppliant letter to the Roman Curia, among other things also for approving the office of this so wonderful saint, which I drew from the Fischingen proper communicated to me by the Rev. Father my preacher. A little below, p. 11, that preacher is clearly designated by his name: Very much indeed did he labor for introducing and promoting the cult of St. Ida in the diocese of Lausanne, and especially for the proper lessons to be inserted in the proper of that diocese, Rev. Fr. Christopher Widenmann, of the Society of Jesus, preacher at Fribourg in Switzerland.

Finally Joseph, abbot of St. Gall, by a letter given at Hoost-Wyll, on the 20th of October of the year 1725, informed the abbot of Fischingen that it had been decreed that the feast of Blessed Ida be celebrated by him and by the chapter.

[39] Of the new church built at Fischingen in the year 1718. Incited by that piety with which they were moved toward their patroness, the people of Fischingen, at the initiative of their abbot Francis Troger, a native of Uri, in the year 1703 had a new sacred house of Blessed Ida built, but the Rev. Lord Abbot Francis deferred until the year 1718 the consecration of the new church, now built from the foundations, in that he was expecting from day to day the elevation of the feast of the same St. Ida from simple rite to a higher rite to be obtained from Rome (for which for a whole thirty-three years he tirelessly labored, not without great expenses). But in the year 1718, altogether despairing of obtaining the aforesaid grace, with most urgent supplication he invited the most reverend and Most Serene Lord John Francis, bishop of Constance and coadjutor of Augsburg, to consecrate the new church of St. Ida; but there was no need of urgings: for the Most Serene Lord of Constance not only most graciously assented to the prayers, but would yield to no other this honor by which, as he said, he could promote the cult of the most powerful patroness of himself and of the whole very broad diocese of Constance. Wherefore it became us to respond with all our strength to so very praiseworthy a zeal of the Most Serene bishop. On the designated day therefore the Most Rev. Lord Abbot not only ordered some of the conventuals and other very noble men to accompany the Most Serene bishop from Constance to Fischingen, but himself with others came to meet him as far as Lommis, from where the aforesaid Most Serene Lord with the Most Rev. Lord Abbot of Fischingen Francis and his whole retinue, among whom also was Rev. Fr. Nicholas Neyer, S. J., the bishop's confessor, a copious escort of horse and foot from the subjects of the abbot of Fischingen, partly going before, partly following, amid a festive pealing of bells on all sides and an explosion of engines of war, very many triumphal arches being also erected here and there along the road, and symbols of honor hung up, by which both St. Ida and her excellent devotee the Most Serene bishop were honored, was brought to Fischingen, about three hours distant from Lommis, where, received most solemnly in procession in the Roman rite, and led to the new church of St. Ida, he imparted the solemn pontifical blessing in the usual way. The following day, which was the 7th of November of the same year 1718, the Most Serene prince the new church with the principal altar and another at the tomb of St. Ida, both in honor of the same saint, for the other five altars having been earlier, some years ago already, by the Most Rev. Lord Abbot

Francis consecrated for daily use, he consecrated in solemn rite, and, the consecration being completed, at once he deigned to be the first to celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass on the newly consecrated altar at the tomb of St. Ida. The following day, the 8th of November, was observed as a festival, on which all the parishes of the neighborhood had come in procession, and a sermon in praise of St. Ida was delivered to the people by the Most Rev. and very noble Lord Francis Joseph Schorno, canon and custodian of the collegiate church at St. Pelagia of Bischofszell and also of St. Stephen at Constance and visitor general, as a confrere of the most praiseworthy confraternity of St. Ida. This being finished, the Most Rev. and Most Serene prince himself sang a solemn pontifical Mass in the newly consecrated church; who then on that same day, as a zealous promoter of the cult of St. Ida, was honored with a notable comedy and with what they call artificial fire. On the ninth day of November, having celebrated the sacrifice of the Mass, the bishop from the seventh hour until the twelfth hour tirelessly administered the sacrament of confirmation; the number of those confirmed was 1824; finally on the 10th, being about to return to Constance, he would not undertake the journey without first hearing the sacrifice of the Mass at the altar of St. Ida and bidding farewell to his beloved, as he said, patroness. Afterward the Most Rev. Lord Abbot himself accompanied the same Most Serene prince with the same pomp with which he had been received as far as Lommis. Returning to Constance, on the 12th of November, by a letter given to the prelate of Fischingen he showed how great gladness of spirit he had conceived at the dedication of the church. The architect of this new church of St. Ida was Brother Christian Hueber, coadjutor of the Society of Jesus, Tyrolese by nation. So from the letter of foundation enclosed in the first stone in the year 1704, on the 10th day of April.

§ XII. Prodigies done through the merits of St. Ida.

[40] A brief narrative of certain miracles worked through St. Ida Lest anything of glory be taken away from the blessed woman who is honored among the people of Fischingen, there are also added, what is by no means foreign to our Acts, from the Brussels codex 8545, graces granted at the intercession of St. Ida. We read, p. 39: In the year 1712, the wife of Lord John Louis Hirtzel, formerly in the name of the canton of Zurich supreme governor of Thurgau, sterile for some years, most happily gave birth through the merits of Blessed Ida to a most beautiful little boy. Then (ibid. p. 63 – 78): Verena Huoberin of Fischingen healed from a lethal disease, in the year 1649. Matthias Breittinger and Anna Meyerin, a married couple of Aureatenses in Swabia, sterile for seventeen years, obtained male offspring. John Melchior Cocher, consul of Frauenfeld in Thurgau, most happily freed from an abscess around the year 1654. John Lawrence Kautt, born at Engen in Hegau, camerarius of the venerable chapters of Frauenfeld and Steckborn and parish priest of Diessenhofen on the Rhine, in the year 1655 healed of deafness. John William Cocher, son of the aforesaid consul of Frauenfeld, thrown down in the street, recalled to life, around the year 1656. Maria Anna Redingin of Biberegg was healed in the year 1658. Catherine Rigolatin, wife of Lord Captain James Lügstenmann, healed in the year 1662. Maria Magdalena Müllerin, from Toggenburg, a native of Jonschwil, healed around the year 1664. John Henry Heuser, a native of Rapperswil, healed in the year 1672. Sebastian Hohlenweger, by nation of Surlac, tiler of our monastery, and Maria Brunschwilerin in the year 1687 were granted male offspring. Francis Sebastian Rogg of Frauenfeld, licentiate of Sacred Theology, protonotary, deputy of the venerable chapter and parish priest of Weinfelden, in the year 1705 freed from deafness. Around the year 1706, Maria Ida Kellerin, a girl of six years, afterward joined in marriage to the sacristan of Tusnang Benedict Wartmann, was healed of a disease. Lord John Benedict of Hospital, canon and parish priest at St. Pelagius of Bischofszell, in the year 1727, relieved of a disease. In the year 1701, Benedict Burri, born elsewhere at Steffert, but then living at Scheurli near Sonnenberg with his parents, still an infant of four years, was recalled to life. In the year 1726, on the 6th day of June, at Fischingen, Urban Brisch of Monwangen near Stocken, healed of a disease, paid his vow. Maria Ursula Schmidin, born Kellerin, wife of Lord Francis Louis Schmid of Bellikon, at one time secretary of the monastery of Fischingen, healed around 1729. In the year 1730, Catherine Bollingeri, from Schwendi, of the parish of Tusnang, healed. An infant, whose parents were Joseph Mayenhofer and Anna Maria Schererin of Fischingen, in the year 1730, preserved from death. John Peregrine Rodmann of Fischingen, in the year 1732, freed from a disease. In the year 1737, Maria Gertrude Mahlerin from Steinhausli, freed from a disease. John Meder, from Upper Schönaugia, in the year 1738, preserved from greater harm. James Eisenring, born at Lenggenwil, in the year 1738, relieved of a disease. Maria Anna Stehelin of Fischingen, in the year 1740, obtained a happy childbirth. Anna Maria Koppini from Wallenvill, injured by a heavy fall in the year 1741, was healed at the tomb of St. Ida.

(Page 78). Catherine Maijin, from Anetsprungen, healed in the year 1742. In the year 1742, on the 8th day of October, John Treyer, miller of Sustdorf, paid his vow for his son healed. Catherine Schuopin of Fischingen, in the year 1743, healed of deafness. Anna Maria Stehelin from Scherliwald healed in the year 1744. Charles Schaffmeyer and Anna Maria Rottmundin, natives of Buchhorn, from Swabia near Ravensburg, obtained health for their daughter. Peregrine Wismer from Halden, of the parish of Au, in the year 1738 obtained health for his son. Gaspar Hardegger, John John and John Schever, born at Gams in Switzerland, took part in war in Italy in the year 1598 under Captain Thanner of Appenzell; they were seized by so malignant a fever that they were as if at any moment about to die. On the advice of Nicholas Schönenberger, a tailor from Mosnang, they bound themselves by a vow to Ida and recovered. Barbara Schneiderin from Balterschwil, around the year 1730, and Maria Catherine Speckerin, from the same place, in the year 1744, relieved of deafness.

§ XIII. Critical inquiry.

[41] [The documents brought forward by no means prove that the woman honored at Fischingen is Ida of Toggenburg,] And these are the things that were transmitted concerning St. Ida from the Swiss parts to our Fathers, and which, perhaps going beyond the laws of brevity, we have thought fit to present to readers. Now, if in reviewing the several heads of the matters we omit all those documents pertaining to what happened in the sixteenth century and after, and hold to those only by which we are brought back to the earlier age, which is the fifteenth century, we see that nothing has been handed down by which we might safely climb further. But from the documents of this fifteenth century only this remains unshaken in every part, namely that in the middle of the fifteenth century the monks were persuaded that there lay buried at Fischingen some woman devout to God, whom on the credit, as it seems, of a certain legend written in the vulgar speech they called Ida of Toggenburg. Nor do we conjecture that they had any document older in age by which to strengthen the tradition, from the very commentary which they wished to be made out of arguments gathered from every side. For besides the codex of St. Gall [Verzeichniss der Handschriften der Stiftsbibliothek von St-Gallen. Halle, 1875, p. 193.] marked num. 603 and belonging to the fourteenth or fifteenth century, I have found no codex that would display this legend to us. Indeed the legend that is in the St. Gall codex, written not in Latin but in German, in no way differs from the version of Albert of Bonstetten See Illustrirte Schweiz, 1874, 1 Heft, p. 51 ff.. Since this document, moreover, is deeply silent about the time when such wonders were done, those seem to have acted as diviners who, induced by no other motive, as it seems, than that monastic discipline is read to have been restored among them at that time [Usserman, Germaniae sacrae prodromus. Chronic. Petershusanum, p. 376. Cf. p. 384.], referred the death of Blessed Ida to the thirteenth century. But we are prevented from assenting to them by the silence of contemporaries, and above all of Conrad of Pfäfers: who M. G., vol. II, p. 176., recording those supreme calamities that at the beginning of the thirteenth century wretchedly depressed the family of Toggenburg, did not touch on Blessed Ida with even a little word; although Henry, whom the people of Fischingen keep writing of as the husband of Ida, would have been, if this divination held, joined most nearly by blood to the father of that Dietlem who brought death on his brother Frederick. This argument, although negative, yet in the present case obtains all its proper force, both because of the greater intimacy that obtained between the people of Toggenburg and of St. Gall, and especially because of a certain agreement in the events. Nor is the argument weakened if you bring forward Rixner's book entitled Turnier-Buck, because on folio XCIIIIr among those who took part under the Emperor Frederick in the year 1179 in the tournament of Cologne, namely the eleventh there, he names Henry of Dockenburg, yet in such a way that on folio XCVII he writes of Deckelnburg. For anyone who has read through the whole tournament in Rixner will confess that the same man is noted in both places. But from the diploma under num. 6 in Jung Histor. antiquissimae comitatus Bentheimensis, three books, p. 11. it is established that Count Henry at the year 1150 gave certain goods to the church of Osnabrück, then Sandhoff records another Henry, nephew of the aforesaid Antistitum Osnaburgensium res gestae, part I, p. 120, 121.; finally in a certain posthumous work of Hamelmann [Opera genealogica historica de Westphalia et Saxonia inferiori, edited by the care of Wesserbach, p. 418.] it is read that Henry of the family of Tecklenburg took part in the tournament of Cologne in the year 1179. So the people of Fischingen with scarcely any probability attempt to draw that Rixner, to whom scholars give little credit, to their side. Add that Rixner, who teaches many things unknown to others, passed over in silence who was the wife of Henry. For the rest, the surname of Henry is not so much to be cared about, since neither is it set down in the individual apographs, and in some it was added for this reason, lest an uncertain name should make the thing narrated less credible. Therefore no one will wonder that Gerbert Iter Alemanic. (ed. 1773), p. 84. and Mabillon Vetera analecta. Iter Germ., p. 6. determined that Ida underwent these more savage fates in the seventh century, that von Arx Geschichte des Kantons St-Gallen, vol. I, p. 299. and Wegelin Geschichte der Landschaft Toggenburg, vol. I, p. 61. called the legend of Ida a fable, if Neugart Episcopatus Constantiensis, vol. II, part I, pp. 157 and 158. has declared that the lack of documents lays out no road for determining whether the positions of the people of Fischingen agree with the truth. But do not these things seem to tend to this, that the decree of the Holy See confirming the cult as from time immemorial be accused of falsity? By no means, because from the aforesaid there stands the hypothesis by which it would be admitted that there lies buried at Fischingen a certain venerable woman who died with a great fame of sanctity, to whom the people made supplication; which is enough for the witnesses brought forward about the cult held from time immemorial to be absolved from the crime of falsehood. Yet the people of Fischingen fell short of the truth, when from what was done as the fifteenth century was approaching its end, they contend that Ida was honored in the liturgy from her death. And so until documents of better mark come forward, we reckon this Life, which also moved Bellarmine to wonder, among the fables.

[42] indeed nothing certain can be affirmed about the body buried at Fischingen. Here perhaps would be the place to inquire what is to be thought of the opinion of scholars who maintain that the legend of Ida has flowed from mythology, and how great a connection there is both between this

Life of Ida and that which, as Wegelin witnesses Op. cit., vol. II, p. 298 and 299., Thomas of Rankweil sang in the Montfort legend of the father of the Toggenburg stock, who, a Roman by nation, threw down from a wall his daughter suspected of illicit intercourse. It would be of use also to look into whether the fates of Ida, akin to those of Genevieve, do not relate in differing ways the same legend sprung from one seed [Cf. above all what is reported in Act. SS., vol. I of February, p. 721 ff., of St. Agatha.]. But this is the proper work of those who treat scientifically of the literature of the Middle Ages. We, however, having done what is ours, shall raise a second doubt concerning the body of the blessed widow preserved at Fischingen. The studious reader already knows how the defenders of this opinion plead their cause, so that he must confess it greatly to be regretted that the people of Fischingen took no pains, by digging up the earth, to raise the sacred body, and were content with those signs which by their nature are subject to many fallacies. Until that has been done, the case will remain undecided, and the opinion of one denying that a body lies buried there will keep its probability. And these things indeed had been written when, having obtained the book of D. Kuhn, whose title is Turgovia sacra Vol. II, p. 15 ff., I was raised to the hope that I might come upon new documents by which to change what had earlier been established; but the hope deceived me. The learned man indeed attacks those who do not assent to the legend, but with documents long since known, which we reckon worthy of little credit.

LEGEND OF ST. IDA

Ida, countess of Toggenburg, in Switzerland. (S.)

BHL Number: 4148, 4149

Published, as we said in the Preliminary Commentary, num. 1, from four apographs preserved in the Brussels codex num. 8930, in such a way that in the right column is placed the recension taken from a parchment of the monastery of Blaubeuren, O. S. B., near Ulm, and in the left the other recension. In this, moreover, for the noting of variant readings, num. 1 designates the apograph of the Fischingen codex, num. 2 the Anonymous, num. 3 the Lessons … of the divine office.

[1] It is read [In the margin: At the beginning some things are mutilated because certain letters are cut away.] ^a then in certain earlier munnta. German monuments and in their faithful documents, that Blessed Ida came from those counts of Kirchberg, whose dominion among the Swabians is seen even today glittering with huge honor, and that she married the noble count of Toggenburg, who resided in the castle of his name, built on a high and shady wood on an ancient piece of ground added to it, toward the summits of the mountains which the river of the Thur valley and the torrent of the Töss cleave apart, by whom she had been betrothed with a ring of exchanged gold, and much jeweled, as the freeborn are accustomed to such things. It happened once, when she had passed many years in the use and enjoyment of sweet marriage, that the venerable Ida wished her jewels to be cleansed by the rays of Phoebus and the reflection of the sun itself, placing them on the walls of the castle, and withdrawing from there, thinking all things safe, the happy and modest mistress. There is a certain valley, almost right around the burg, thorny and very rough, called Rappestain. In it, namely, ravens had made nests for themselves, living there with a multitude of offspring; of whom one made for the roofs of the fortress, picked out the betrothal ring from the woman's ornaments, gliding down carried it to the little bed of their young ravens, as it is of their nature often also to commit thefts. How was it done? The count of Toggenburg, the bedfellow of our recruit, sent out his hunters to track wild beasts; one of whom in that valley heard the young ravens cawing and climbing at the top of a pinnacle, he climbed as far as their nest, and found, wonderful to say, Ida's ring that had been taken. He went away glad, supposing the thing to have been given by favorable fortune. The unhappy man, putting it on his finger, thereafter was accustomed to wear it, ignorant corrected inscius. of the matter and of the future. Some of the chamberlains seeing the ring, and recognizing it, looked at each other in indignation. But one, who had turned over in his mind that it was certainly that of the betrothal and who had much mouth, met his lord in private, so maleficent with this obscenity of words: The truth escapes me, count, he said, almost as one in jealousy. And why does that fellow courtier wear on his finger the ring with which you betrothed the mistress to yourself? It renders him suspect of illicit love of her, and I will not keep silent about it. To him the lord replied: May God in his piety avert this: that the ring is kept anywhere but among my wife's jewels, I know no otherwise; ignorant of the theft of the beast and of the things that God had disposed by grace at length to be done in his little woman. And again the other strove to babble, suggesting: I shall prove it by most evident signs. The traitor, bringing his fellow, weary of the innocent man, drawing off from his thumb the pure and shining gold, said: Is not this, lord, the true gem with which you adorned your wife, when she had been brought into your bedchamber in those first days, the deceitful woman? The count saw and recognized it at once. Kindled therefore with huge fury he ordered the hunter to be bound at once to the tail of an unbridled horse, and the horse itself to be run with him from the top of the little mountain down to the bottom, until, enormously injured, he breathed out his spirit. Alas, detestable crime! Then at once, turning to his wife's chamber, the madman, behold, seizing with mid force his faithful and just flesh and blood, the harsh man threw her from the wall of the burg and from its height, through the ivy and briers of the mountain, four hundred cubits down to the deadly ground and into a kind of chaos.

[2] In this same fall Blessed Ida supplicated in her breast the Virgin-born, and considering such things in rumination she also weighed them: Help me, Lord, and defend my soul, and deign to protect my body from the torture of the limbs, and let not death now take me from life; and from the contagion of man the days that you grant me hence living, I will dedicate to you, and will complete them in your praise with the greatest effort, as far as I can. And so she vowed and pledged. The prayer of the just handmaid of the Lord was heard in the sight of the most excellent Son. The noble matron remained unharmed and helped by God the greatest and best. For, wonderful to say *, she rose after so rough a fall, she wandered here and there through the deserted and rocky thicket, very estranged from all accustomed refreshment, sustaining herself only with wild grapes and sloes, singing hymns to Christ, assigned to punishments, and supposed long since turned to ash, nor now bone joined to bone. What happened further? The aforesaid count, after the passing of time, also caused another hunter following, with a keen-scented dog, again to go through the often-mentioned valley in pursuit of stags or fawns or a fierce bear or a foaming boar, where Old Toggenburg, for so that fortress is usually named, is seen raised toward the clouds by its architect; and when the forester came to the sacred footprints of the excellent hermitess, the dog, barking, signaled the scent of the blessed feet, of those too that had been set down, when for the sake of food she had wandered now this way now that in the desert at some time; nor did the thirsty leader make an end until it led its master to a certain grove and inside as far as the cave, in which the venerable Ida, the handmaid of God, dwelt and soldiered for her Savior. Having recognized her and spoken with her in a few words, the hunter, making again for the heights codex culinaria. of the roof, brought a most pleasing message to his lord; inflated with gladness, he said: Have immortal thanks, best of counts, to the God of gods, who has preserved your wife as nothing else surviving in so very inhuman a fall. For even today she breathes the vital airs, I would have you know. To which the lord: By no means whatever. For from so great a height the profane woman fell, that I believe nothing other than that she has been scattered into a thousand parts. But on the contrary the faithful Achates: Yes, lord, thus affirming with a supreme oath, if my lady is not in this life and living, you may have the authority of beheading me for it. I have certainly seen the lady, and joined right hand to right hand, and given her pledge, and received words; who among other things brought up that injury suffered from you, and that so incredible a fall and disaster was without any merit, and she cleared herself as innocent. And what again? The count flying off with the companion publishing these things, they caused the dog to go over the ancient footprints of the woman dedicated to God through the valley and the byways of the roads, until they found her alone in the caverns, awaiting the outcome of the matter. She, on seeing the guests, came out with downcast face, very humbly and modestly. The husband leapt to the feet of his wife, confessed that he had proceeded too unjustly and excessively rigorously, as a suppliant begged pardon for his offense, and entreated that he be forgiven, having been badly informed. To these things she gently answered: Rise, once my sweet husband, rise. May Jesus Christ forgive us our zeal. And he rose, gave a kiss to the hermitess, begging that she would not disdain to go with him to her own and to visit her household gods, and he promised that for the injury committed and the evil done her he would without doubt repay a thousand kinds of the best things; moreover, he stipulated that the one who suggested such false things to him should die at once and be cast down. To him the lady, not at all wavering, said: May Christ avert this also, that any man should pay by death for wicked me, which I neither wish nor so order. And as for what you press on, dearest husband, that I should return with you too to our castle house, this I again and again refuse, for henceforth I wish in no way to be defiled by you. — Not so, said the lord sobbing; I wish to repent of this wrong in a thousand ways codex modum.. Do not hold me as worth nothing, nor abandon your true and old husband. And again Blessed Ida said: You cast me from you untimely without fault, nor will I hence at last obey you. I have chosen for myself another husband, my Lord of Olympus, Jesus Christ, whom I am most bound to obey, as the creator and savior of the human race. He preserved my prison when you gave it over headlong, and may he prefer of his own accord, as I hope, to preserve me too, and my little soul from diabolical loss and from all adversity. To him I have devoted my body, and wholly brought it near. You therefore, my count, I again entreat, if our once sweet nuptials have any right between us, to build me a dwelling, and to prepare a house set apart from men, fit also for the service of God. In it I will cling to my husband, and lead a celibate life, burning with all my bowels in his immaculate love, nor will I ever enter the age and the wholly infected world; for I have been impiously cast off and thrown out from it into the waste of the desert. At length the magnificent count assented to these things, admonished by her eloquent voice, he understood the honorable petition, finally, to be supported by reason, and he questioned his one-minded and full-blooded wife thus as to what place she sought. She answered for a moment: In that meadow ^b through which the mountain itself is climbed, which is commonly called Hürenli, around the basilica of which the Virgin Mother stands patroness; in these meadows I choose a place, here I desire to dwell in the courts of the Lord.

[3] There was built by the same count of Toggenburg a certain dwelling, as she had begged

his wife; which she entered, for many years in it burning and fervent in the praise of God with the highest study by night and vigil. She was accustomed besides every night to attend as often as possible the matins which the brothers of the monastery at Fischingen, which was built at the foot of the aforesaid mountain under the rule of the most holy father Benedict, paid to God, and the duties of praise. Her always, as they say, a swift deer, carrying twelve candles on its branching horns, went before, kindly accompanying the nun as she went out and returned. And since this ardent worshiper of Christ had lived to God in that way, and the report of her by no means drowsy sanctity spread to the ears of many, this alms was provided for her in atonement by the inhabitants from that place. At that time a certain building of nuns, indeed most religious ones, was attached to the abbey at Fischingen and placed within its enclosures. These most devout nuns, on receiving what report was reporting of that countess, meeting her, begged her not to disdain to enter their dwelling with them and to be associated with them. To them in a few words Blessed Ida assented, yet with this condition set down, that they should fit up for her a dwelling of an enclosed woman, so that she could speak to the others and receive her needs only through a window; which was finally ordered and arranged. Behold meanwhile, friend, good reader, the adversary of human frailty and that enemy of souls strove to hold her in hatred. For that artificer of adversity himself very often used to throw at the roofs and walls of her little cell, with stones, as was supposed, trying in his way one who inwardly worshiped God, and perfectly loved him above all things, whether he could bring her, spirited as she was, to a fall and frighten her from her practice. And when one night he put out her fire by the hearth of the little house, she looked out to the tomb of a certain buried count of Toggenburg, and she, a most upright friend of the heavenly ones, fearlessly addressed his corpse in these words: Rise, she said, listen for a few words, excellent kinsman, hold out a light, that with your help I may kindle the fire put out by the fraud of Pluto. The dead man obeyed her, rose, misshapen, and offered to the blessed widow a living light, and addressed her thus in rhythm in the codex riggmo.: Take, Ida, the light which I have lit for you. My name is of the count of Toggenburg. She took the burning * light, she who in all things adverse to her showed a Socratic countenance, and bore herself so providently that neither that Lucifer from hell nor his angels could hinder her in anything to her end. So indeed this dweller in heaven, so did she obtain this grace for those who serve her from the Godhead of godheads, that the guile of Satan and his machination will not harm them either. She frees especially those who implore her from pain of the womb and of the head, and from much adversity. She at last, according to the course of nature, wholly a contemplator of divine things, a worker of all good virtues, the norm of chastity, the mirror of modesty, the ornament of widowhood, the glory of women, the increase of religion and the crown of nobility, full of good works and, like the northern star, flashing in the Church of God and in wonderful deeds, on the third day before the Nones of November, that is, the day next after the commemoration of all souls, being called from this light to the bosom, as is piously believed, of the holy father Abraham, departed, and on that day her anniversary too is celebrated today at Fischingen, she being buried there in the church near the altar of the most holy bishop Nicholas, where her tomb is miraculously seen and venerated by most in the margin populis. who go on pilgrimage there too.

ANNOTATIONS.

Before the legend, after the manner of a prologue, this letter of Albert of Bonstetten, dean of the place of the Hermits, was written in the codex of Blaubeuren.

To the venerable father and lord in Christ, Lord Henry, abbot of the monastery at Fischingen, his much to be honored lord, Albert of Bonstetten, dean of the place of the Hermits, sends abundant greeting.

You have especially besought me lately, abbot and father, concerning the legend of the blessed and illustrious Ida, once countess of Toggenburg, the inhabitant and matron of your happy monastery, that I should turn it from our mother tongue into Latin. I have begun at last to do it and have brought my mind to it, although from among your brothers, and likewise in the bosom of the kindly monastery of St. Gall, you could have found very many far more polished and more skilled than I to undertake that work, who from the vast Bedan flood or the Notkerian spring would have made it splendid and elaborate, and whom in the wrestling school of writing it is not for me to go before. Yet I did not wish to oppose you, father, but to comply with your will, nor to put off at length the matter itself, worthy of Hebrew, Greek and Latin alike: the translation must be made not word for word, but from sense to meaning, without prolixity and long ambiguity, for the glory of his divine name, and your most abundant merits toward me. As far as I could, I have done it, very hastily. Would that I could instill honey-flowing sweetness with it in those who shall read it, and that from that fire of ours some spark of devotion might fall. This I now send and give to you. I give it as material useful to you, and may it be for you to take it up with pleasure; nor do I seek to be affected in turn by any other remuneration and munificence, than that with your fellow soldiers before the coffin in the shrine of the same lady you often, in your numbered devout prayers, commend me, so that with you piously seeing to it you may obtain from the All-Sower that after this light I, singing her praises on a slender oat pipe, may at last reach through to the heavenly harmony. Farewell everywhere, blessed father, greatly lovable, my whole desire. From the Hermitage, the 7th day before the Kalends of September, in the year MCCCCLXXXV.

* codex Num mirabile dictu?

* codex audens.

[1] [St. Ida, falsely accused of the crime of adultery, is cast from the fortress of Toggenburg] Blessed Igitur adds 3. Ida omits 3., born prognata 2, 3. of the noble stock of the counts of Rigberg Kirchergensium2., whose dominion, race and ac 3. name are still famous with the greatest honors among the Swabians, was joined in marriage to a count named Henry of Toggenburg. He lived in a very high and well-fortified fortress, surrounded by the forests of the monastery of Fischingen Fisgingensis 1., and situated on the summits of the mountains which divide into two parts the river coming from the Thurtal. She had received from Henry a wedding ring consisting of Arabian gold, that she might be faithful to him according to the conjugal law. When after some time she had set this out together with garments in the rays of the sun, leaving them, she thought that all would remain untouched. But a great valley lies between the mountains named Rappeinstein Rappenstein 3., rough with a multitude of briers, and in a way inaccessible; in which place ravens generally make their nests and rear their young. Many ravens flying together omits 3. from the valley to make for the mountains, it came about, the divine will so willing, that one, flying off from the others, made for that place in which the garments had been laid, and carried the wedding ring with it to its nest, where it had its young. When this had been done, some days having passed, the count sent a hunter to track wild beasts, and when the hunter, carrying out the count's orders, came down the mountains, he heard the young croaking above a fir; climbing this and finding the aforesaid ring, he was affected with much gladness, and fitted it to his finger, and for a long time, ignorant of the fortune, wore it as if it were his own. When dum 3. the other servants saw this, they looked at each other with glances of their eyes; of whom one from the number, when he had recognized the ring, namely that it was the one with which the count had bound himself to Ida by the bond of everlasting marriage, came to the count, addressing him in this way: Illustrious count, I do not know what the matter is. For seeing your wife's wedding ring fixed on the hunter's finger, I have been led plainly to believe that she has complied with his will, and ac 3. has practiced obscene pleasures of the body with him. On hearing this the count answered: May God avert that omen. Again rursusque 2. the informer: I will prove this very thing by a most certain sign signis certissimis 2, 3.. And he brought the hunter, drawing the ring from his hands, and saying: Do you not, lord, now see clearly that this is the ring with which, as with a kind of pledge, you bound to yourself your wife omits 3. Ida? When he had looked at it, he ordered the hunter to be seized on the spot vestigio 2. and to be bound to the tail of an untamed horse; then he drove the horse through the precipices of the mountains, that so torn to pieces he might most wretchedly close the last day of his life. Then roused with great fury and a certain frenzy, seizing Ida his wife he threw her down from the higher part of his fortress into the place Raffenstein Rappenstein 3., full of horror and rough, four hundred cubits deep.

[2] The innocence of St. Ida is recognized. But truly, when she was thus atrociously treated, relying only on divine help, she prayed to God from her heart that she should not so end her life by a cruel death, vowing that she would never seek again the marriage bed of her husband or of another, so long as she lived, but that she would preserve hereafter most entirely the vow of chastity for the love of God. The most mighty and merciful God therefore assented to her prayers, so that she breathed upon the earth whole and with no injury inflicted on her body, and going about there among those caves, and finding no foods suitable for a person, she lived content with no other food than the roots of the earth; in which kind of life the most tender and noble woman could not long have lived on earth, had she not persevered in the perpetual love of God and in sacred prayers, by whom too without doubt, as happened also to other holy persons, beyond nature, she was supported by a certain divine help. When the count had been deprived of the hunter, he took on another in place of the slain one, and on a certain day assigned him to hunting, and sent him with a keen-scented dog, outstanding at seeking wild beasts. This he carried out very diligently, and he betook himself to that sloping place where St. Ida lived on roots and let the dog go. When it scented a person, it diligently explored all the hiding places, until it came to the place where she was staying, so that the hunter supposed nothing else than that it was on the track of some wild beast. So he keenly urged it on, until it reached the cave where St. Ida was; who was sitting with her eyes plainly cast down on in omits 1. the ground, suffused with a most honorable shame. On seeing this, he turned back his foot and set out the matter in order to the count, exclaiming: Praise be to God and the blessed ones above, that your wife still enjoys the use of this light! The count answered the hunter that this was not to be believed: since she would not have reached the ground except torn into a thousand parts. The servant answered: If I deceive you, cut off my neck. For she herself has told me that she was unjustly afflicted with this punishment. At length persuaded by these words, he girded himself for the journey, and with the hunter joined to him went on to the place pointed out. And when he had come there, and Ida had come forward most modestly into the sight of the count, he cast himself at the woman's feet, and begged pardon for the sin he had committed against her. Then addressing him in most calm tones, she said: Raise yourself from the ground. God you in possession of your wish

might do. He therefore complies with her and presses her with entreaties to return home with him: for whatever he had before sinned against her would thenceforth be made good by kindness, fidelity, love and every sign of good will; and he would even condemn to death the informer who had falsely convicted her of this crime; for he said he confessed that his wife had suffered the greatest injury and had undeservedly borne the whole suspicion. Far be it, answered Ydda, that anyone should undergo the peril of death on my account. But as for what you ask, that I should again dwell with you in our former house, that you shall by no means obtain. For the yoke by which I was once joined to you in matrimony is void and dissolved. Again the count said: Do not treat me so asseris 1., and do not repudiate me your husband, for everything that was before neglected by me in the law of matrimony you will now see most surely made good by my diligence and fidelity, and every mark of injury will be blotted out in everlasting forgetfulness. To which she further replied: Since I have been driven by you from the allurements of this life, I do not seek our old marriage, but I have chosen for myself a spouse from whom I shall not be torn away for eternity, namely Jesus Christ, who quem 1. out of the gravest peril of life has defended me from all affliction of the body, and who will deliver liberavit 1. from everlasting destruction and keep custodiit 1. not only this frail body, as I have good hope, but also the soul; therefore I ask you to prepare for me a place where, now separated from the world, I may live to God. The count thereupon asks whither her mind inclined. She asks for a hut built under the very famous mountain Hürnlin, at the chapel whose patroness was est 3. the Virgin Mary.

[3] St. Ydda embraces the monastic life. This indeed she obtained. And when she had spent exegisset 3. many years there, she was accustomed every day to attend the monastery of Fischingen to hear the morning prayers, and a stag always went before her, bearing twelve lights on its antlers. When she had done fieret 3. this for many years and the report of her admirable holiness had spread abroad increbuisset 2., she was helped with alms. There was moreover at that time also a monastery of holy virgins at Fischingen, situated not far from the monastery of the brothers of the Order of St. Benedict. These too, perceiving the holy course of this woman's life, often asked her that, contented retenta 3. with the same manner of life, she would dwell in their monastery. To their petition she assented with a willing mind, on this condition however, that they should appoint a place for her apart from the others. They therefore agreed that a chamber should be made for her separate from the others, in which she alone should abide with no one disturbing her; this omits 3. was so closed up that no woman could enter in to her, nor could she go out to anyone. But the evil spirit, when he saw her diligence in divine worship, tried in wondrous ways to get the better of her, especially by casting horrible terrors upon her; for he quite often shook the step climacterem 3. of her hearth and also lay in wait for invidebat 3. her, put out the fire, and spilled her food and drink. And when at a certain time he had returned with the same annoyances, she went to the window through which the other virgins dedicated to God communicated with her, and addressed a dead man who had been a count of Toggenburg: Arise, she said, and restore to me the light taken away by the slanderer. At which he, being roused, with no delay gave back to her a burning candle. Ydda said: Receive from my hands this light, I who am begotten of the blood of the Toggenburgs. With these words she received the light, and to the end of her life her spirit was free from the impostures of the devil. Wherefore great grace and privilege were given her by almighty God; for all who commend themselves to her prayers can in no way be deluded by the devil's tricks, and, to comprise it in one word, all bodily sicknesses si illam animo invocamus adds 3., especially strangulation strangulatum 3. of the womb, she can easily drive away by her prayers to God. And so from earth she passed over in Christ to the heavenly temples, on the third day of November (t. d. n.) ad diem omnium animarum ferias consequentem 3.. At which time also her anniversary is kept every year. And her body, carried to the monastery of blessed Benedict, was committed to burial at the altar dedicated to St. Nicholas.

MIRACLES OF ST. YDDA

Ida, countess of Toggenburg, in Switzerland. (S.)

BHL Number: 4150

Edited from the manuscript of Blaubeuren, of which above, Preliminary Commentary, no. 1, according to the transcript of the Brussels codex no. 8930.

Extract from the miracles of the same blessed widow.

[1] In a fire the head of St. Ydda is preserved unharmed. In the year of the Lord 1440 the wooden buildings of the monastery of Fischingen were consumed by a gulf of fire, alas how miserably, and within all the church's ornaments, among which also the blessed head of the aforesaid holy lady, which had been placed in a figure made to resemble her; and the image indeed was turned to ash by the flames, but the true head remained unharmed: on the third day after the burning of the church it was found unharmed [a].

[2] A woman from paralysis, And another thing follows no less astounding. Two Alpine folk of Mount Hyrenlius ^b, a very honest married pair, were skilled in labour and rich in many children: of whom paralysis struck the wife so that she lost the use of speech and was stripped of the strength of her limbs. Her husband, very much troubled, betook himself to the dead body of the Lord's attendant, and there devoutly besought God that by the merits of the most glorious lady and blessed convert He would deign to rescue his stricken wife. Returning home in good hope, he met his wife healed, and at once asked her at what hour this excellent work had been done. And she set out for him the hour and the time, and the mountain-dweller understood that it had truly been done at that time at which he had prayed before the tomb of the most worthy advocate.

[3] and a boy Moreover, not long after, they changed their home to the town of Rapperswil, healed from suffocation by St. Ydda. which lies by the lake of Zurich ^c and is seen on the shore most strongly fortified; in which it happened that a certain citizen's boy by chance fell into the lake, so that when drawn out he was thought to have just breathed his last to the very marrow. There is a great crowding together of the fellow-dwellers of the town, and woe and no small lamentation of the sorrowing parents and kinsfolk over the child's death. At which the Alpine man at once brought forward in their midst the miracle done some while before upon his wife through the intercession of blessed Ydda, counselling that they too should vow to bring the boy to her tomb. This being done by the parents as soon as possible, and a little prayer besides being poured out to God, that little boy, as one roused from sleep, gave forth wailing cries and recovered.

[4] Indeed more miracles were performed through her. These things and things far more miraculous than these did the All-Parent do, and is wont to do often even today, for the merits of His most renowned handmaid, whom I pray we may at last so honour after Him in this sea of the turbulent world Word supplied by correction., that she may always be our zealous helper and most faithful advocate with God most high and most good.

ANNOTATIONS.