ON ST. MARIANUS OF LÜNEBURG, MARTYR, IN THE PRINCIPALITY OF LÜNEBURG,
AT AN UNCERTAIN TIME
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY
Marianus, martyr, at Bardowick in Saxony. (S.)
BY C. D. S.
[1] The cult of St. Marianus in the town of Bardowick Bardowick or, as it is called in the scholia to Adam of Bremen in a Leiden codex of the twelfth century, the village of the Bardi M. G., vol. VII, p. 322., — the Bardi, moreover, are numbered among the Northern peoples by the same Adam Gest. Pont. Hammab., I. 3 (ibid., p. 285). and in Helmold [Chronic. Slavorum, book I, chs. 16, 25, 26 (in Leibniz, Scriptor. rerum Brunswic., vol. II, pp. 553, 559, 561).], — was a not undistinguished town of ancient Saxony, nay, if you believe report, the oldest of all northern Germany: for they say it was founded two hundred and thirty-five years before Rome. Yet no mention of it is found in written monuments before Adam of Bremen in the eleventh century. It is situated on the river Elvenovius (which they say was formerly called Lunovius), not far from the place where the more recent city of Lüneburg now stands. Some have written that it was endowed with an episcopal see by Charlemagne, and that its first bishop was St. Suitbert, but on not sufficiently certain authority; it seems rather to have belonged to the see of Verden from the time the ecclesiastical hierarchy was established in that region. It was however adorned with a college of canons, whose possessions and rights the Lutherans seized after the overthrow of sacred things in the sixteenth century. Whoever desires more may consult the History of Bardowick, which Henry Meibom the younger published among his father's dissertations and his own Rer. Germ. vol. III, p. 51., or what Christian Schlöpken set out more fully and accurately concerning the same history in the German idiom [Chronicon oder Beschreibung der Stadt und des Stiffts Bardewick vor und nach der Zerstörung. Lubeck, 1704, in 4°.].
[2] was famous at least from the beginning of the fourteenth century, How celebrated the cult of Marianus was at Bardowick is shown above all by a Calendar prefixed to an old missal and seen by Schlöpken, where the memory of Marianus the martyr was indicated to be celebrated on this 3rd day of November; besides, the Seal for causes which the chapter of the collegiate church of SS. Peter and Paul of that city used, on which beneath the images of the apostles was engraved the effigy of a bridge and next to this a martyr praying: that this shows Marianus is demonstrated both by the historical traditions to be mentioned a little below, and by a panel which until the end of the sixteenth century was seen hanging in the collegiate church (doubtless transferred there from the church or chapel of St. Marianus, of which there will soon be talk), distinguished by this inscription: St. Marianus was martyred here on the bridge. In documents too preserved in the archive of the same church there is recorded a Vicarage in honor of Marianus the Martyr founded at the end of the thirteenth century by Nicholas Bartholdi, dean of the chapter, which was also increased with revenues by Henry Greving, canon of the church of Bardowick, who died in the year 1344. And in another memorial book of that chapter the death
of two canons is noted in these words: 1347. On the day of Marianus the martyr died Theodoric de Monte; and 1365. On the next day after that of Marianus the martyr died Lord Bertram, vicar of the church of Willehad Schlöpken, op. cit., pp. 117, 118.. And further, in the time of the Emperor Otto the Great, in the tenth century, Bruno, bishop of Verden, is said to have given a shrine adorned with silver statues for laying up the relics of St. Marianus the martyr Ibid., p. 161..
[3] and a chapel built in his honor in that place in the fifteenth century; That a chapel was also built in honor of St. Marianus in the place where he was said to have gained the palm of martyrdom is shown by the following diploma copied by Schlöpken from the archive of Bardowick:
John, by the grace of God and the apostolic see bishop of Verden, to our beloved in Christ the venerable Lords the dean and chapter of the church of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul of Bardowick of our diocese, greeting and sincere charity in the Lord. Inclined to your devout petitions, by the tenor of these presents we grant you the power to found a chapel in honor of the saints Valerius the confessor and Marianus the martyr, near the bridge where there is a common crossing over the river Elmenow, below the town of Bardowick, in a fitting and honorable place there, and to endow it when founded with suitable goods and revenues, and when endowed to commit and confer it on a discreet priest. And to all of Christ's faithful who devoutly visit the said chapel and admit their prayers there, and reach out helping hands for the preservation of the same chapel, we mercifully relax in the Lord forty days of indulgences from the penances enjoined on them. In testimony of which matter we have ordered and caused these present letters to be fortified with the affixing of our seal. Given at Rodenborg in the year of the Lord 1465, on the very day of Crispin and Crispinian Ibid., p. 331.. But I do not know on what authority the same Schlöpken said Ibid., p. 212. that this chapel was founded in the place where the church of St. Marianus had formerly stood, and concluded from this that the same church already existed when in the year MCLXXXIX on the night of Simon and Jude then Henry the Lion, Duke of Brunswick, took the city of Bardowick and burned it and destroyed it to the foundations, the churches excepted [Chronicon Bremense of Henry Wolter (written after the year 1463), in Meibom, Rer. Germ. vol. II, p. 55.]. Certainly he brings forward no witness of that matter. The same chapel, in the year 1540, by order of Ernest, Duke of Brunswick, an assiduous favorer of the Lutheran sect, was leveled with the ground, because the piety of Catholics toward the relics of St. Marianus offended the eyes of the Lutherans Schlöpken, op. cit., p. 372., nor was it ever afterward raised from its ruins.
[4] but his history very uncertain But as certain and famous as the cult is, so uncertain is the history of St. Marianus. There do exist his Acts, of which P. John Gamans in the year 1641 transmitted to our predecessors a double apograph from the Passional of Böddeken and from a codex of the Charterhouse of Cologne, and earlier of St. Simon of Maastricht, and a codex formerly of the Bollandist museum, now of the Royal Library of Brussels 8931, preserves them, from which we shall publish them. But whatever is narrated in those Acts (whose age is unknown to us) or sermon comes down to these few things: that Marianus the deacon preached the gospel in the district of Bardowick and was killed there on the bridge by which the banks of the river Elvenovius were joined.
[5] and his age. As regards the age, moreover, in which the holy martyr lived, the traditions of Bardowick plainly do not agree. For one affirms that he applied himself to spreading Christian doctrine in that region in the time of the apostles, another at the end of the eighth century. The former was followed by Henry of Herford, O. P., of Minden (d. in the year 1370), who writes in his Chronicle or book De rebus memoriabilioribus: Two of the seventy-two disciples of Christ were sent by Blessed Peter the apostle into Germany, one to Trier on the river Moselle, namely Maternus, and the other, namely Aegistus, to Bardowick on the river Elmenow, with Marianus, who was his archdeacon, and at Bardowick they received the crown of martyrdom, and their bodies still rest there, that of Aegistus in an unknown place, that of Marianus in the high altar at St. Peter's in that same town Ed. Potthast (Göttingen, 1859), p. 6.. The other was found recorded by Schlöpken in a certain old codex (whose age, however, he does not indicate) in these words: The devout Marianus, disciple of Willehad, served the gospel of Christ in the church of Bardowick by preaching daily, and preached the word of God to the people of that place and to the surrounding peoples In Schlöpken, p. 109.. According to this, then, Marianus would have been a disciple and companion of St. Willehad, whose work Charlemagne used for converting the Saxons Cf. Adam of Bremen, book I, n. 12 – 15 (M. G., vol. VIII, p. 287).. Our Acts, however, prudently abstain from settling the controversy. This only is drawn from them, that Marianus was crowned with martyrdom before the end of the eighth century, since namely they report that part of his relics was laid in the church of Verden, now the cathedral, and the church of Verden was raised to an episcopal see around the year 782 Henr. de Hewordia, Chron., ch. 69 (ed. Potthast, p. 32)..
[6] Mention of St. Marianus in the martyrologies. No ancient martyrologies record Marianus up to the sixteenth century. At that time he was first announced at the 3rd of November by the Lübeck-Cologne edition of the martyrology of Usuard: At Bardowick, St. Marianus, deacon and martyr; and by Molanus: At Barduyc, a cathedral city, St. Marianus, deacon and martyr. Strangely, however, Greven erred, indicating in his martyrology: In Brabant, in the district of Bardewic, St. Marianus, deacon and martyr, and he was followed by Canisius or Walasser. For no district of Bardewic is found in Brabant, but in Flanders not far from Aalst there is the village of Baerdeghem, which perhaps the said writers intended, deceived by the likeness of the name. More correctly Ferrari in his General Catalogue: At Bardowick in Saxony, St. Marianus, deacon and martyr.
At Tournai there was preserved in the year 1661 the body of some St. Marianus, martyr [Analectes pour servir à l'hist. eccl. de la Belgique, vol. III (1866), p. 108 end.]; but certainly he cannot be imagined to have anything in common with the Marianus of Bardowick except the name.
LIFE OF ST. MARIANUS.
Marianus, martyr, at Bardowick in Saxony. (S.)
BHL Number: 5524
From apographs of the codices of Böddeken and of Maastricht or Cologne. Cf. above, num. 4. — It has seemed not worth while to note the variant readings, as being of no weight.
Here begins the passion of St. Marianus, deacon and martyr, who is venerated on the day before the Nones of November.
The holy and glorious levite and martyr of Christ, Marianus, devoted to God, departed to the Lord on this day for the Catholic faith and the honor of the holy gospel. For following the footsteps of Stephen the protomartyr and of other foremost martyr-levites, as though not reckoning himself worthy of the priesthood, he remained until the end of this temporal life in the order of the diaconate, and by daily reading and daily preaching the holy gospel in the church of Bardowick, which through one of the disciples of Blessed Peter the apostle, namely Egistus, had been raised to a cathedral church, he faithfully served almighty God by these and other various works of piety. For he so fervently sowed the word of God to the people of that place and to the then surrounding peoples that, as is sung of Christ: Jesus began to do and to teach, so too of him it is to be judged that he not only taught, but it is deservedly without doubt to be believed and firmly maintained that he so acted in imitation of Christ. For in heart and mouth and life he bore himself so devoutly and laudably that, nothing reprehensible being found, as the right hand in respect of the left, he thrived and shone among the arid and dark Gentiles. But at the devil's instigation the common sort of the Gentiles, returning to him not good for good, but for sorrow rather evil for good, pursuing him, thirsted so ferociously for his blood that according to the doctrine of Christ, who says: If they persecute you in one city, flee into another, he had to flee from the church in which he had long served the gospel of Christ. As he came, then, on to the bridge of the river Elmenow, near the city of Bardowick, his pursuers, seizing him there, although they found and discovered him clothed in the dalmatic, a true levite of Christ, yet setting aside the fear of almighty God, ferociously killed the saint of God on the said bridge with swords and other weapons. He was then indeed gloriously consecrated a martyr to God, and this appears visibly to the eye even to the present day through various miracles and especially in his sacred garment, the dalmatic, in which he was killed. For his body having been entombed by the faithful, when afterward half of his bones were laid together in the church of Verden, now the cathedral, and the other half in the church of Bardowick, now collegiate, together with the aforesaid dalmatic, his blood, with which the dalmatic was stained at his killing, still wonderfully appears in it to eye and hand: for almighty God mercifully and wholesomely works no small miracles, especially by driving out and curing fevers and other sicknesses, through this dalmatic so stained with his blood. For it has been found many times that a great many persons devoted to God, weighed down especially by fevers and other bodily infirmities, calling upon St. Marianus of God with their whole heart and hoping to attain the grace of God from his merits, who with due devotion had themselves clothed with that dalmatic, at once were made safe and sound by it, and returning immense thanks most attentively with their whole heart to almighty God for their soundness and health, to the honor of the holy martyr, they laudably persisted in that thanksgiving to the end of their life.
With soul therefore and worship, most beloved brothers, let us devoutly and solemnly recall each year the festivals of this holy martyr Marianus, that we may effectively feel him praying for us both in the present age and in the future for the health of body and soul.