ON ST. ERNEST, ABBOT OF ZWIEFALTEN,
IN THE YEAR 1148.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY
Ernest, abbot of Zwiefalten. (S.)
BY F. V. O.
§ I. The early documents on the deeds of St. Ernest.
[1] The Annals of Zwiefalten treat of St. Ernest St. Ernest, fifth abbot of the monastery of Zwiefalten, formerly of the diocese of Constance MG., Scr. vol. XIII, p. 333., otherwise obscure, was handed down to memory in these entries by the Annals of Zwiefalten, completed in the year 1162 Ibid., vol. X, p. 52.:
1141. Abbot Bertold withdrew from his place. Ernest succeeded him.
1146. Abbot Ernest laid down his burden. Which Berthold took up again.
1147. King Conrad went off to Jerusalem with many. On this journey Abbot Ernest suffered for Christ Ibid., pp. 55 and 56..
and a Life written in the twelfth century, Part of these notices which concern Ernest have been set out more fully in a hagiographical document, of which there still exists a parchment copy written in the twelfth century. This copy occupies the first two folios (0m,233 × 0,165) of a volume written by various hands of the same age, in whose remaining 47 folios patristic and theological miscellanies are presented. The whole book formerly belonged to the monastery of Zwiefalten, in which it was marked with the number 189; today it is kept (Hist. fol. 419) in the public library of the city of Stuttgart [W. von Heyd, Die historischen Handschriften der k. öffentlichen Bibliothek zu Stuttgart, vol. I, p. 192, no. 419.], by whose director, the distinguished Otto von Schanzenbach, it was lent to us with the greatest kindness.
[2] now mutilated, Now the Life of St. Ernest contained in it begins without any title and ends incomplete in these words: et alias huius regni divicias propere possidebiti(s) and other riches of this kingdom you will speedily possess, in such a way that the last line of folio 2v is not filled, nor is the last word (possidebitis) fully written, in which, after some little space has been left, a more recent hand supplied the letter s. But very opportunely it came about that, before the text was mutilated, several copies of it were made, which agree so closely with the Stuttgart exemplar just described that they manifestly seem to derive from it while it was still complete, or from one very like it. This will be easily demonstrated after the various codices have been reviewed. I would wish it said beforehand that the edition of Sulger, monk of Zwiefalten, is of little help for establishing the little book according to the critical norm, although he declares that he transcribes the Life "word for word, as it is found in a very old parchment manuscript codex of our library, by a contemporary anonymous author" [Annales imperialis monasterii Zwifaltensis O. S. B., Part one (Augsburg, 1698), pp. 116 – 19.], since he rashly omitted or emended words and sentences here and there. But the copies which come closest to the genuine reading are these, to be considered:
[3] but of which complete copies survive, a. Stuttgart, in the public library, a paper codex of the seventeenth century, Histor. folio volume 430 (formerly of the monastery of Zwiefalten, where it was marked 180). At the end of the Antiquities of the monastery of Zwiefalten there is transcribed (ff. 57 – 59) the Life of St. Ernest, abbot of Zwiefalten, successor of Berthold and martyr, by a contemporary anonymous author W. von Heyd, l. c., pp. 197 – 8., by a religious priest of the same house, Stephan Bochenthaler († 1663), who for eighteen years served as confessor in the convent of Marienberg, in the prefecture of Reutlingen MG., Scr. vol. X, p, 94..
derived from the same old codex, c. At Brussels, among the Bollandist Collectanea of the Royal Library, under no. 8935, there occurs twice a copy of the same Life [J. Van den Gheyn, S. I., Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, vol. V, p. 535.], the one (ff. 81 – 83v) made by Father Gamans S. I., "History of the life and passion of St. Ernest, fifth abbot of Zwiefalten, teacher of the nations and martyr, by an anonymous author contemporary with him," the other (ff. 74 – 80), sprinkled with notes taken from the commentary of Stephan Bochenthaler, which Father Ernest Puschmann S. I. sent from Prague to our predecessors in the year 1753.
[4] Now the men of Zwiefalten, as many as wrote about St. Ernest, indicate clearly enough that a single very old codex was their aid. So Stephan Bochenthaler writes from Zwiefalten to Father Gamans on the kalends of May 1644: "His glorious Passion exists, by a certain contemporary anonymous monk, in very ancient parchments; but we do not willingly send it out without notes and elucidations …" Brussels, Collectanea Bollandiana, cod. 8935, fol. 95.. So too Georg Eiselin, monk of Zwiefalten and prior at Mochenthal, who first wrote the Life of St. Ernest in German: "I came upon a certain book, very old and scarcely legible, where I found the life and martyrdom of St. Ernest, and at the same time this doctrine presented [Wunderschöne Histori vom Leben, Lehr und Leiden S. Ernesten (Ingolstadt, 1594), p. 348.]". Add the testimony of Sulger, reported above P. 608, no. 2.. Then, if the various copies mentioned are compared with the not inconsiderable part of the Stuttgart parchment that survives, it will at once be noticed that very few variant readings occur, if you except the spelling. Among these, it is plain that inverted words flow from the carelessness of the copyists, who either did not know or neglected the sign by which, in the parchment, the places of words to be transposed were indicated. Thus in the paper copies one reads isti viatores in place of viatores isti, propositae passionis flores in place of flores passionis propositae, while in the twelfth-century codex there occurs istia viatoresb and in the margin b. a. etc. Sulger too, who used "a very old parchment manuscript codex," notes, for explaining the proper name Ambronii (Life no. 5), "that Obachias is written in the margin, the first letter escaping." This note tobachias is found in our codex, in which the letter t, its ink almost effaced by the injury of time, is certainly not easily read. Likewise, in the letter of a certain priest Marsilius, which follows the Passion itself for the sake of confirmation, after the words flagellis palo circum … with scourges, with a stake, around … Sulger notes that some word is missing in the original manuscript. This little space is also blank in all the seventeenth-century copies. It is therefore sufficiently established that these were completed after the pattern of that one; and accordingly, in editing the surviving part of the primitive document, it will be useless to bring forward the more recent copies arising from it; but otherwise for the part that has been destroyed.
is neither difficult nor rash. If it is right to give credence to the testimony of Georg Eiselin cited above, at the time when he himself was planning his little work, the ancient Life was still sewn together with a treatise on the praises of the martyrs, which he attributed to St. Ernest Wunderschöne Histori, p. 347.. Fifty years later Stephan Bochenthaler lamented that the treatise had been lost, while the Life remained intact: "Yet in his book he (Eiselin), out of that whole work (On the praises of the martyrs), inserts only a few little pages on the merits of Christ, rendered by him in the vernacular tongue Ibid., pp. 307 – 20.. The rest, as appears from the gap in the manuscript codex, has either perished, cut out, or is wrestling somewhere with moths and bookworms" Bochenthaler, Ernestus elucidatus, no. 182.. Although it was separated from every other writing, the text of the Life had not yet suffered any damage toward the end of the seventeenth century, when Sulger used it. But this happened shortly afterwards, and, the last folio having been ruined, the two remaining were bound together with other very dissimilar fragments. From these was compounded the present Stuttgart codex, Hist. fol. 419, described above.
[6] To this was joined from the beginning the letter of a priest of Armenia Further, the complete hagiographical document on St. Ernest, as it has become known through Sulger's recension and various copies, is divided in two: the legend properly so called, and a letter by which a certain contemporary priest of Armenia, Marsilius by name, testified to his martyrdom. That this letter also existed separately, and was very highly esteemed in the monastery of Zwiefalten, Stephan Bochenthaler declares, as "a parchment monument, easily the oldest of all, hung up by the monks to the divine Ernest in the basilica of the holy Mother of God, renewed, as it seems, at a later time, and set at the head of an oblong panel showing the martyr's agony depicted, which is now preserved in the library" Ibid. no. 163.. This letter from overseas, whether attached separately or following after the tenor of the legend, was preceded by a little preface of the contemporary monks of Zwiefalten, with a little preface of the monks of Zwiefalten. in which they announced that they had been informed of Ernest's passion, as was related to us by his companions and fellow-captives, and moreover by a letter sent to them by a priest of Armenia. "But this preface," says Bochenthaler, "is not by our author the biographer, but was written and prefixed to the letter on an open sheet, as one may see in an old copy of both, before the present history was committed to writing by him" Ibid., no. 124.. It is found also in most of the later copies, and without doubt it was present in the old twelfth-century parchment. For in the letter of Marsilius one reads: on the seventh day before the ides of November, in the year as above, he happily passed to the Lord. And yet the year of the martyrdom is not marked in the Marsilian letter itself, but at the beginning of the little preface. And since Stephan Bochenthaler had this parchment before his eyes and laboured much in his commentary to explain this abridged determination of the time of the martyrdom Ibid., no. 125., it is plain that in the earliest recension of the hagiographical document known to us, the letter of Marsilius was already adorned with a preface not its own.
§ II. The sum of the things contained in these is weighed.
[7] It is easily shown that this letter is fictitious, These things having been duly established, we come to inquire how much credit can be claimed both by the Life itself and by the letter added to it. That the latter was fabricated by some forger in the region of Zwiefalten there is no one who does not see even after a light examination. For although some account can to a degree be given of the phrase in the year as above, since it may perhaps have been a later interpolation, it is surely absurd that there existed some Armenian priest who did not know that the Mohammedans utterly abhor the cult of images, and who asserted in a most weighty instrument that Ernest was forced to adore idols. That this was repugnant to the religion of the Saracens was very well known even to the Europeans themselves who had undertaken the journey through these eastern regions at the same period. Thus Otto, bishop of Freising, one of the chief leaders of the second expedition of the crusaders, after he had recorded, as they relate, the passion of Thiemo, bishop of Salzburg [Cf. the threefold recension of this Passion, Bibliotheca hagiographica latina, nos. 8132 – 34.], which otherwise bears great likeness to the punishment of St. Ernest, added this: That he suffered for the faith of Christ the most faithful tradition holds; but that he broke idols in pieces is hard to believe on this ground, because it is established that the whole body of the Saracens are worshippers of one God Chronicon, book VII, 7; MG., Scr. vol. XX, p. 251.. Nor does it seem less strange that the Saracens should be carped at as pagans by an Armenian priest, they who, as the same Otto witnesses, profess that they accept the books of the law and also circumcision, and that they do not disapprove of Christ either, and of the apostles and apostolic men Ibid.; nor that the church of Antioch, to which the body of the holy martyr, famous for many miracles, was carried away, should not be designated by its proper title, as if he did not know it or thought that it would not be welcome knowledge to the monks whom Abbot Ernest had governed. And if we go to the little preface itself, very closely connected with the letter and most probably manufactured in the workshop of the same forger, we shall discover that Ernest was distinguished with the office of an excellent teacher, since he was sent to Jerusalem not to subdue the Saracens with arms, but together with other orthodox men to sow the word of God by mandate of the lord apostolic; that afterwards, captured by the pagans, he was led into the city of Mecca, which is situated in the region of the Persians [There is no reason why we should argue anything from this geographical error, which the chronicles of this time frequently present.], and there honoured with martyrdom. But it had been provided by a most severe law among the Mohammedans that no Christian should ever enter the most holy city and profane it by his presence. Hence, if the letter of the Armenian priest is considered, the remains of the holy martyr were translated to Antioch, distant almost the whole of Asia. These absurdities suffice, unless I am mistaken, to shake the authority of this document to its foundations.
[8] Which the author of the Life wrongly used, Nor will an examination of the legend itself lead to a better outcome, in which are narrated in order Abbot Ernest's religious career, his sacred pilgrimage to the East, and the martyrdom endured there. Although it has hitherto been valued more highly by various writers [So B. Kugler, Studien zur Geschichte des zweiten Kreuzzuges (Stuttgart, 1866), p. 10.], because the anonymous author, certainly a monk of Zwiefalten, twice promises that he will set forth matters as we have learned from those who were present, … the things which we heard by word of mouth from those who were present Life, nos. 1 and 7.. But he promises this only concerning the tortures endured by Ernest. Now whatever is peculiar in a description of this kind he borrowed from the little preface and the letter of the priest Marsilius discussed above. Which indeed does little to commend the compiler's seriousness.
[9] He sets out the rest in a meagre narrative The years, indeed, which Ernest lived in the world as a boy and youth, before he embraced the order of St. Benedict, the anonymous writer passed over in silence, or rather compressed under this biblical formula: Every tree is known by its own fruit. Luke 6, 44. But the religious life he sketched with a very sober pen, making use of certain commonplaces and the things which we recited at the beginning from the Lesser Annals of Zwiefalten. And since Ernest withdrew from office of his own accord, the author conjectured with the highest probability that his rule had not pleased all the monks. that he did not live with Ernest. But one who, in handling that subject, laboured under such poverty of things to narrate, at the same time shows that he was by no means a contemporary of Abbot Ernest, although one must remember that the Life was written before the twelfth century had passed.
[10] He reports certain true things about the crusaders Next he briefly sets out the preliminaries and beginnings of the second expedition of the crusaders, to which St. Ernest girded himself: namely the slaughter of the Christians perpetrated at the storming of Edessa in the year 1144, the war proclaimed by Eugene III, the disaster which overwhelmed the column of the Christians through the sudden and immense flooding of a certain river, and the arrival at Constantinople, where they were received with lying goodwill by the Greeks and likewise dismissed from there Life, nos. 3 and 4.. but which had been set out more carefully by writers whom he could consult. But all these things, as will be plain from the annotations to the Life, had already been digested at length by other writers; and so one might rightly maintain that what he briefly reported depends on these. This description, as being of very widely known matters, is absent from the Sulger edition. Moreover the hagiographer affirms that the army massed near Constantinople was above seventy times a hundred thousand. This prodigious number too, into which it is clear that the word centena crept in wrongly, had already been handed down by Gerhoh, provost of Reichersberg, in that part of his work On the Investigation of Antichrist Ed. Fried. Scheibelger (Linz, 1875), ch. 77, p. 153. which was written in the year 1161 Ibid., ch. 67, p. 139..
[11] set out more carefully. And how miserably that part of the Teutonic forces perished which Otto, bishop of Freising, began to command after he had separated himself from King Conrad near Nicaea, our contemporary author without doubt learned, besides public rumours, from various sources written already in the middle of the thirteenth century which have come down to us Life, no. 5.. We shall give the relevant passages at the end of the Life. He himself indeed asserts that the battle was fought by the sea, while elsewhere one reads that the engagement was joined in the midst of forest passes. But these by no means disagree with one another, since the coastal region itself, along which the bishop of Freising was pursuing his way, is mountainous, though less so than the route toward Iconium, toward which King Conrad was hastening. And so from this reasoning, by the sea, Kugler wrongly deduced that Otto's army engaged with the Turks twice [Studien zur Geschichte des zweiten Kreuzzuges, pp. 158 – 60. An opinion which that man, more tenacious than was fair, repeated in his work Geschichte der Kreuzzüge (Berlin, 1880), p. 144.]; He invented other things, which is by no means suggested by the hagiographer. Yet he would seem to have brought forward something new, if we could give him credence, namely that this column of the Christians was routed on a certain Lord's day, which, as the distinguished W. Bernhardi reasoned Konrad III (Jahrbücher der deutschen Geschichte), p. 598, note., fell on 28 December 1147. But it is in no way likely that crusading soldiers, in order to observe the Lord's day, rested keeping holiday in the Christian manner, and that unarmed and without guards, when they knew well that they were being sharply harassed by the enemy.
[12] especially about the enemy leader, A grosser fiction next is the king of the Persians named Ambonius or Ambronius, who united the ten under-kings over whom he presided with a boundless heathen multitude. For besides the fact that no king of the Persians extended his rule into this part of Asia Minor, in the manifold chronicles of the expeditions to the Holy Land of this time, both western and Greek and oriental, no prince occurs who is called Ambonius or anything similar. Nor was Sanguineus, who gave Edessa, captured by him, to his soldiers to plunder, one of these under-kings. For Zenqui (Zanghi, Zenki),
very well known among historians as the assailant of the Christian cities of Syria, held sway over Mesopotamia as atabek of Mosul [On the meaning of the word atabek, cf. Recueil des historiens des croisades, Historiens orientaux, vol. I, p. 757. A full biography of the same Zengui may be read ibid., vol. II, latter part, Histoire des atabecs de Mosoul, pp. 30 – 151.], and the governors of the provinces of this region, distinguished with the title of amir, obeyed him, so far was he from being himself an under-king. Moreover, in the year 1147 with which we are dealing, Zengui could not move camp against the Christians, since he had been murdered by his chamberlain on 14 September 1146 [W. B. Stevenson, The Crusaders in the East (Cambridge, 1907), pp. 151 – 2. Among the Moslems Zengui is honoured as shahîd, martyr; but on the true reasons for his slaying, see Rec. des hist. des crois., Hist. or., vol. I, pp. 794 – 95.]. But there rose up as heir of his fierce spirit and of his father's hatred toward the crusading soldiers his son, Nur ed-Din Mahmud, who destroyed the Teutonic forces almost to extermination and throughout his reign warred down the Latins most bitterly [Stevenson, l. c., pp. 153 – 55. The author of that epitome, a diligent collector of facts, is usually lacking in acumen in discerning his sources.].
[13] and about the lot of the captives. Certainly many were reduced to slavery by the victor and cruelly mutilated. This the Annals of Würzburg teach under the year 1147. For thus their contemporary author describes many returning from Syria to Germany: We certainly saw afterwards for a long time, and we still see, which is to see misery, Christian men namely of various ages, freed by the gratuitous mercy of God, returning from that same barbarous captivity, of whom some were blinded, others, which I cannot say without heavy groaning, had their arms and hands cut off at the shoulder, others had the soles of their feet burned and rubbed with salt, others, their eyes torn out, their ears, nose and lips cut off, were rendered useless in every respect. From whom indeed we learned that innumerable men, while they were being compelled to deny Christ, passed through almost every kind of torture, and, persisting with constancy in the contest of faith, merited the unfading crown of eternal glory… But some, terrified by the very sight of the punishments, denied the Creator MG., Scr. vol. XVI, p. 5.. But how foreign these things are to the pageant of a triumph celebrated in the ancient manner, which our contemporary hagiographer imagined and described for himself Life, no. 6.! Nor did Nur ed-Din Mahmud, since he lay in wait perpetually for the arriving pilgrims, send the captives as a kind of gift to his lord, Ambronius king of the Persians, but kept them for himself and turned them to his own profit.
§ III. What is to be thought of the family and nobility of St. Ernest.
[14] To Ernest's noble origin These things being well weighed, he will be seen to act as a sensible man who greatly distrusts a hagiographical document so lightly put together. The things in it which are historically genuine flow from sources where matters are set out more fully and exactly. But many things, unknown to or concealed by the hagiographer, posterity, especially the inhabitants of Zwiefalten, would have wished to know: for instance, about St. Ernest's origin, about the manner in which he held and laid down the rule of the monastery. This desire the aforesaid Stephan Bochenthaler tried to satisfy with a very ample commentary, or rather with innumerable conjectures of little firmness. Let the foundation laid under his whole reasoning serve as proof, by which he intends to show that Ernest was born of the noble lineage of the barons of Stuzzilingin (Steusslingen). from the barons of Steusslingen It is stated thus: "Since out of seventy monks in the year of Christ 1138 only four Ernests are recorded by Berthold, Ernest's predecessor, as having served Christ here [Berthold, Liber de constructione monasterii Zwivildensis, ch. 50, MG., Scr. vol. X, p. 122; and in the Index, s. v. Ernest.], and we count as many in a certain other list of the fathers of an old MS. codex (they had headed it Gradual), whom it becomes certain from other contemporaries named there to have been contemporaries of our saint, the more probable reasoning persuades us to believe that some one of these same was our martyr" Bochenthaler, l. c., no. 17.. A longing for that lost Gradual holds me. Whatever it is, the Annals of Abbot Berthold do not favour it, before all things it ought to have been shown that that list of monks in no way depends on the indications which Berthold gave in his work entitled Liber de constructione monasterii Zwivildensis. Next it must be carefully noted that his intention in composing it was by no means to review absolutely all the monks, and so all the Ernests, who ever inhabited or were inhabiting the monastery, but only those, both monks and laymen, who gave some goods to the monastery as a gift, as the author himself clearly shows in these words: Since we have briefly touched on the estates conferred by the first founders, let us proceed concisely to those which were handed over by others Berthold, l. c., ch. 12.. It should therefore first have been established that St. Ernest is to be numbered among such benefactors of the monastery. Thirdly, Berthold put together the greatest part of his work in the year 1138; but he added and inserted various things at a later time, and wrote the preface under Abbot Ernest, his successor, who held the helm of the monastery from the year 1141 to 1147, and whom he himself addresses in the same place Ibid., pp. 96 – 97.. How does it come about that in the course of the book the Ernest in question is not designated by even a little word of deference or some congratulation? But in fact the only one who could square with our Ernest seems to have already gone to his last day when Berthold was writing his annals, as is plain from the context: Him, namely Otto of Stuzzilingin, his brothers Ernest and Adelbert followed close upon his footsteps, and by his counsel and prompting gave nearly twenty mansi at Oninburron. Each gave his several estates. These three soldiers of the heavenly sanctuary sent many things into the treasury of Christ, and, as we believe, found many things there: "For their works follow them" Ibid., ch. 40, p. 116.. Apoc. 14, 13.
[15] nor does the Necrology of Zwiefalten. But Bochenthaler also tried to prove the same thing by another way, scarcely credible. For in the old Necrology of Zwiefalten, begun before the year 1150 and carried on by various hands, with many names added, into the seventeenth century MG., Necrol. vol. I, p. 240., twenty-seven nobles of one and the same Stuzzilingen family are commemorated, without a particular day being assigned to any monk Ernest. "But who would believe that he alone was not entered by our forefathers in the memorial tables, he who with his brothers and sister easily surpassed all others in zeal to deserve well of them? He is therefore to be reckoned one and the same with the one whose origin we are investigating: who was entered by Reinhard the necrologist, formerly our prelate, on the sixth day before the ides of November, in the manner of abbots and like his sister Tuta, with the derivation of his family suppressed and with the bare appellation which he had received from baptism, in these words: Ernest, monk of our congregation, abbot of this place." Thus he Bochenthaler, l. c., no. 19.. But the eloquent man did not notice that the Reinhard recension of the necrology was made in the thirteenth century, while in the original exemplar, where it would have had to be shown, an erasure filled the place of this Ernest, and among the names written before the year 1150 this bare appellation appears at least nine times, namely on the 10th and 27th of March, the 14th and 15th of April, the 29th of June, the 14th of September, the 21st and 26th of November and the 14th of December: Ernestus n. c. m. MG., Necrol. vol. I, pp. 241 – 67., that is, monk of our monastery or of our congregation. And so the field lies open to the emptiest conjectures. But of these enough and more than enough.
[16] He is also different Stephan Bochenthaler was more successful in turning back the opinion of the Benedictine monks of the monastery of Neresheim, who in his time Bochenthaler, l. c., no. 196. contended that the St. Ernest honoured with popular cult at Zwiefalten was one and the same as their own Ernest, who, set as first abbot over the new monastery of Neresheim in the year 1095, from the abbot of Neresheim. fell a martyr in the following year. For the Annals of Neresheim report these things:
1095. Nernisheim was founded, and Abbot Ernest is set over it. Many began to go to Jerusalem.
1096. Abbot Ernest suffered at Chorozaim MG., Scr. vol. X, p. 21..
But since the other Ernest, proclaimed abbot in the year 1141, having discharged the office five years later, and going away to the Holy Land in the year 1147, poured out his life there for Christ, which has been placed beyond doubt by the excellent document brought forward by us at the beginning, these chronological differences overwhelm by their weight that frail opinion of the monks of Neresheim Cf. Bochenthaler, l. c., no. 16..
§ IV. The fortunes of the monastery of Zwiefalten in the time of Abbot Ernest.
[17] The affairs of the monastery of Zwiefalten, To those who desire to know how St. Ernest, substituted in the year 1141 for Berthold, fourth abbot of the monastery of Zwiefalten, after five years himself withdrew of his own accord from that office, which he had laudably discharged, the Liber de constructione monasterii Zwifildensis, written by his predecessor, can bring some light. For in the year 1138, when Abbot Ouldaricus was already growing old, since he had been at the head of its government for 43 years, the monastery was flourishing in wealth and household. The number of brothers, monks then serving God in this place, was 70, at first prosperous, of bearded brothers 130, of nuns 62… All these had great affluence for food and clothing and abundance of all things MG., Scr. vol. X, p. 122, ch. 50.. But soon matters began to slip. The cause of the evil was the advocate of the monastery, who gravely harmed its prosperous circumstances, so far was he from caring for them. But, since he abused them too insolently and recklessly, he was repudiated by us together with his lord (namely Henry the Proud, duke of Bavaria). Wherefore, moved by excessive fury and, as rumour had it, instigated by his lord, he raged against us and ours with excessive cruelty. Then there were straits on every side, fightings without, fears within. In the end we were laid waste all around with fire and sword, and we feared lest he should do the same within the precincts of the monastery Ibid., p. 115, ch. 38.. But he was compelled to make peace. And we, groaning over the past and fearing the future, girded the whole circuit of the monastery with a wall, fortified like a castle. Which Berthold, carried away by excessive agitation, renews in compressed form at the end of his little work: Lothair being dead, Conrad not yet raised to king, Ouldaricus, the pious father, long paralysed and as though already dead, Henry laying us waste with fire, we began to fortify the whole place with a wall like a castle Ibid., p. 122, ch. 50.. By the drawing of these fortifications around it, I think, the treasury of the monastery was somewhat exhausted. Meanwhile three sisters beloved of God, namely the duchesses of Bohemia, Moravia and Poland, not only had bestowed outstanding gifts while I was then presiding over this place (1139 – 1141), but also adorned the face of the temple with golden crowns, with vessels of gold, of silver, of crystal, of ivory, with gems
and above all with silk vestments. then began to slip. But through I know not how great want, neglect or whatever other cause raging, the greatest part of these was consumed for the food and clothing of the brothers, sold for the restoration of old buildings, for the construction of new ones, and for other diverse necessities; the rest still remains untouched Ibid., pp. 103 – 104, chs. 12 – 15..
[18] To the indignant monks Hence arose the murmurs and complaints of the monks. Which Berthold himself too, at the end of his book, by no means tries to conceal: Some ascribe it to the greatest presumption, condemn as guilty of sacrilege, accusing those who sold at their pleasure some estates conferred on this monastery by the faithful and showed nothing else bought with this silver. I seek to satisfy those who say these things with a sure account, but for these I find little Ibid., p. 122, ch. 51.. And after he has given a strict account of his administration, and above all of the money spent by him, he concludes thus modestly: Necessity, then, which also compelled the disciples, when they were hungry, to pluck the ears and eat, compelled us too to sell certain few little estates, and useless ones, and also, as Jeremiah testifies, to give even precious cloaks for cheap bread. Cf. Matt. 12, 1., Cf. Lam. 1, 11. Whoever, then, accuse us of being guilty of great rashness, which we too do not deny, we ourselves wish from our inmost heart that they themselves may do better things and things worthy of God, and that they may intercede for us from the marrow, that God may pardon what we have committed Ibid., p. 123, ch. 52.. These things at least clearly show that the times under Abbot Berthold in the monastery of Zwiefalten had turned cloudy, that the minds of many had fallen away from their ruler, and that it therefore pleased him better to yield to the storm than to resist. Berthold gave way. Whether Ernest, before he succeeded him, favoured the brothers who opposed Berthold's administration, there is no indication available to assert it. Rather, as is narrated in a contemporary document Ibid., Translatio duarum virginum, p. 92., after that venerable father, namely Berthold, had withdrawn himself from the burden of government for humility's sake … FEARING LEST BY HIS PRESENCE SOME TARES OF SCANDALS SHOULD SPRING UP FOR HIS SUCCESSOR, he gave up his place and withdrew into Saxony, to a certain place which was under the jurisdiction of the abbot of Magdeburg. Here moreover it is hinted that the monastery of Zwiefalten remained liable to the zeal of factions.
[19] Ernest, substituted for him, Nevertheless, that under the new abbot matters flowed prosperously, at least at the beginning, Berthold himself indicates clearly enough, addressing the monks thus in the preface of his little work: You, therefore, as the Lord says in the Gospel, have entered into the labours of others, and have succeeded the workmen sweating in the vineyard of the Lord and bearing the burden of the day and the heat, not to labour much, because of the harsh dispositions of his subjects, but in a manner to rest Ibid., p. 97.. Cf. John 4, 38. On the other hand, as we noted above, in the year 1146 Ernest laid down his burden; which Berthold took up again, and in the year 1152 he again left this place along with the authority. Then in the year 1158 there intervenes the abdication of Abbot Gothefrid, whom Berthold succeeded. Finally in the year 1169 Abbot Berthold laid down his burden, and Conrad succeeded him. He at last remained abbot until his death (1193) MG., Scr. vol. X, Annales maiores Zwifaltenses, pp. 56 – 57.. From these frequent renunciations it is easy to suspect how great was the difficulty and labour in training the monks. But another point too is supplied by the letters which at the same period, certainly before the year 1155, Berthold sent to St. Hildegard, abbess on the Mount of St. Rupert near Bingen, and received from her. For he asks counsel since we are many times burdened by the importunity of certain of our brothers P. L., vol. CXCVII, col. 370., and he, abbot in name only, complains … of the injuries and tribulations which cruel persecutors inflict on me, while they strive to reduce me to nothing Ibid., cols. 284 – 85.. Hildegard exhorts him not to lose heart: As great rewards are prepared for you as are the fights you suffer Pitra, Analecta sacra, vol. VIII, p. 533.. And at the same time the nuns, who had asked her do not neglect to show how we ought to return from the way of negligence to the way P. L., vol. cit., col. 371; cf. Hildegard's reply, cols. 372 – 73., and the monks too, even worse, she rebukes: Your mind is like a cloud that carries storms, now having wrath in negligence, now the filth of cattle in wantonness Ibid., cols. 370 – 71., and she chides them to come to their senses and cast off their depraved manners. But it is so arranged by nature that religious fervour and discipline collapse only little by little and over long delays; and that the evil had already crept in when Ernest was set over the monastery can very probably be accepted. If, in keeping with his most upright character, he dared to attack it, he without doubt alienated the wills of some from himself. And since meanwhile, in the year 1145, in the month of September, Berthold, returning to Zwiefalten, had brought with him from Cologne two bodies from the number of the 11 thousand virgins, which were held to be great gifts, and at the request of the aforesaid father we kept one of the bodies with us and placed the other at St. John the Baptist in the monastery of virgins MG., Scr. vol. X, Translatio duarum virginum, p. 92., and he himself was compelled to depart. the whole goodwill of their minds was turned toward Berthold. Thus Ernest, become unequal to ruling the congregation, since he could not wholly accommodate himself to the manners of many, as our biographer rightly interpreted, was compelled to put off the dignity of abbot, with which the votes of the monks again adorned Berthold.
§ V. He went to his last day in the East.
[20] Having set out for the holy war, It was the year 1146. St. Bernard was travelling through all Gaul and Germany to rouse the Christians to wage holy war on the Mohammedans. There was a great movement in the land, so that Conrad himself, king of the Romans, and Louis, king of the Franks, with dukes and counts and many other nobles, with an infinite multitude of peoples from diverse regions, and also very many from the monasteries, offered themselves to God and with devout and most ready mind most zealously prepared themselves and their goods for this journey [Ibid., vol. XX, Casus monasterii Petrishusensis, book V, no. 31, p. 674. See other testimonies in W. Bernhardi, Konrad III, p. 596.]. And having sketched the lamentable calamity of the Christians, the author of this chronicle, who was bringing his writing to an end about the year 1156, adds this: On this expedition certain men who set out from our place have not yet returned at all. But many of the Christians who had been led away captive by the pagans were redeemed for a price by the Armenians and permitted to return to their homeland Ibid.. There is no reason why we should shrink from adhering to this statement. But since this praiseworthy liberality of the Armenians toward Christian captives does not recur in other chronicles of the same period, and the monastery of Petershausen, situated a little below Constance on the Rhine, is not very far distant from Zwiefalten, one will easily recognize that the fictitious letter of the Armenian priest named Marsilius, exploded above, rests at least in part on the passage just recited.
[21] He perished far from his homeland, by an uncertain manner of death. Among the number of those who did not return to their homeland Abbot Ernest is to be reckoned. He suffered for Christ, the Lesser Annals of Zwiefalten proclaimed. But whether he perished in the battle-line, fighting bravely with arms, or was consumed after the battle by the tortures of disembowelment, cannot be decided. This kind of punishment stirred the indignation and horror of all the western peoples, and Pope Urban II is said to have expressed it in vivid colours: The people of the kingdom of the Persians … those whom it pleases them to punish with a shameful death, they pierce their navel, draw out the head of the vitals, bind it to a stake, and so, scourging them, lead them around until, the entrails having been drawn out, they fall prostrate on the ground [Recueil des historiens des croisades, Historiens occidentaux, vol. III, Roberti monachi Historia Hierosolimitana, p. 527.]. This description Pseudo-Marsilius closely imitated concerning St. Ernest: The pagans, very angry, having stripped his head of its skin and drawn out his entrails through the navel, and fixed a stake in the earth, with scourges around the stake … to be supplied from Urban II: they lead, after he had for some while addressed his fellow-captives, lest they be terrified by his example, his entrails having slipped down to the ground, on the seventh day before the ides of November, in the year as above, he happily passed to the Lord [A similar adaptation is presented in the Passion of St. Thiemo, bishop of Salzburg, martyr about 1102: They opened his side with iron and drew out the entrails or intestines from his belly with a hook, until they wound them around the stake and left the belly empty. So MG., Scr. vol. XV, p. 1238.]. Nor does any strength accrue to these things from the fact that they were as it were copied out by our insipid hagiographer and inserted into Ernest's Life. But the writer of the Casus monasterii Petrishusensis knew the domestic affairs of the Zwiefalten monks, since he used Berthold's book on the construction of the monastery of Zwiefalten, often brought forward by us in argument. And he aptly narrates the hardships of the crusaders: When they were proceeding through the desert and did not find food, many perished of hunger; others, labouring under want, were either slain by the pagans or, reduced to captivity, perished; certain also were crowned with glorious martyrdom MG., Scr. vol. XX, p. 674, no. 27.. And he brings out not even a little word about Abbot Ernest the martyr, no differently from the old Necrology of Zwiefalten, where on the sixth day before the ides of November there is barely stated Ernest, abbot of this place, and that in the more recent exemplar; but in the old one this mention has been deleted MG., Necrol. vol. I, p. 264.. What more? It must be confessed, unless I am mistaken, that many things about St. Ernest are unexplored by us, and especially that his martyrdom is under dispute, so far is it from being placed in safety.
§ VI. The cult of St. Ernest abundantly manifested.
[22] The honours paid to Ernest It remains that we set out something about the public veneration shown to him. This we shall do suitably to our purpose if we keep to the footsteps of Stephan Bochenthaler. For for the most part it will suffice to draw into the briefest form what he himself explained in a most diffuse commentary [The appendix on the cult paid to St. Ernest, which is annexed to the copy of the Life sent to our forefathers from Prague in the year 1753 by Ernest Puschmann S. I. (Brussels, Royal Library, Collectanea Bollandiana, ms. 8935), reports material taken from Bochenthaler, but arranged in another order.]. These things are chiefly to be noted: 1) Some theologians and doctors learned in canon law, whom Bochenthaler reviews Ms. cit., nos. 167, 168., since they recognized that the observance publicly shown to Ernest was furnished with that mark of antiquity with the sacrifice of the Mass, which is required by the decrees of Urban VIII for any cult whatever to become legitimate, not only made commemoration of Ernest in private Masses, but also offered entire sacrifices to God in his honour.
by litanies and psalters, 2) The litanies of the church of Zwiefalten implored his patronage among the holy martyrs in this form: Saint Ernest, pray for us. Indeed Bochenthaler saw Ibid., no. 170. various psalters on parchment, written in an old hand, from which it is certainly established that Abbot Ernest had for some centuries been counted among the holy martyrs and invoked publicly in church and in sacred supplications.
by images 3) In many paintings and images, a catalogue of which is supplied by Bochenthaler, he is represented with the insignia of sanctity and martyrdom Ibid., nos. 191 – 197.. Among these stands out a painted likeness, fixed of old in the series of abbots outside the choir of Zwiefalten, which Bochenthaler describes thus: "The servant of God Ernest stands with upright body, holding the pastoral staff in his hand, his temples rayed, his skull cut, his navel likewise slit, from which wound the intestine protrudes. Before the image of the servant of God Ernest stands a barbarous torturer, covered with a Saracen turban or Turkish cap, grasping with both hands a club, around which the sacred intestines are seen wound as by the executioner. Beneath the image is placed the letter of Marsilius, priest of Armenia, with the little preface of the Fathers contemporary with the servant of God Ibid., no. 191.."
and by the martyrology of Zwiefalten, 4) finally, as Bochenthaler witnesses, in the congregation of Zwiefalten the memory of St. Ernest, like that of other saints, was from of old announced in choir on the day before his feast, and indeed before the other saints to be celebrated on the same day, in this manner: On the seventh day before the ides of November. In Persia, in the city of Meka, the passion of St. Ernest, martyr, with nine others, who, having first been tried by various punishments, since he would not only refuse to adore the idols but also constantly and without trembling broke them, his entrails having been miserably drawn out, merited the palm of martyrdom Ibid., nos. 166, 197.. The passages here recited, as they indicate a public cult according to the circumstances, so by their false statement they confirm that the springs from which they were drawn are muddy.
[23] the supreme ecclesiastical authority has not yet recognized. Further, the abbots of Zwiefalten strove exceedingly that the patron of their monastery should be entered by the Roman See in the roll of the saints, to be honoured by the whole world Ibid., nos. 171, 177.. Thus in the year 1474 Johannes Piscator Ibid., no. 173, note., and afterwards Johannes Langer († 1577), at whose order his image "is seen depicted in encaustic in the windows of the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, among other saints, its patrons, with his head wounded and surrounded with rays, his bowels protruding from his slit belly Ibid., no. 196.." But the unfavourable times that followed, and various calamities with which the monastery had to struggle, probably prevented the matter from being brought to a happy outcome.
In editing the Passion, we use solely the surviving part of the old parchment, from which all the exemplars hitherto known have emanated, namely two folios. Where it ends, we shall use exemplar B = Bochenthaler and exemplar G = Gamans Cf. above, p. 608, no. 3.
LIFE AND PASSION OF ST. ERNEST
Cf. the Preliminary Commentary, nos. 1 – 3, 23.
Ernest, abbot of Zwiefalten. (S.)
BHL Number: 2617
[1] St. Ernest, whose passion In the year of the Lord's incarnation MCXLVII°. I [So the last letter I stands a little apart from the rest of the number, at the end of the line, as if it had been added afterwards.] the venerable Abbot Ernest was crowned with glorious martyrdom in the region of Persia. His passion, for the honour of Christ and for love of the holy martyr himself, eye-witnesses have reported, as we have learned from those who were present, we have resolved to commit to writing in a simple but truthful style. And in this we believe that the doubt of certain people is satisfied if we bring into the midst the very excellent testimony of his conduct from infancy, because, as is said by the Lord: every tree is known by its fruit. Luke 6, 44.
[2] piously brought up at Zwiefalten, Blessed Ernest, then, born in Alemannia [Namely in Swabia, at Stuzziligen, near the river Danube, if you believe Stephan Bochenthaler; but on how frail a foundation this opinion rests we have shown above, p. 611.] of parents not of the lowest sort, was entrusted as a little boy to the monastery of Zwiefalten to be brought up. There he is nourished in every zeal for heavenly discipline, imbued with sacred letters, clothed in the habit of monastic religion. And when he seemed to be ripening in manners, made a priest, in age and in wisdom, ascending each of the grades of sacred advancement, he is at last promoted to the honour of the priesthood. Then, since he strove daily to go from virtue to virtue, by the divine will and with the assent of the whole congregation, he ruled the monastery as abbot for six years. he is put in place as father of the monastery. And when he had ruled it for six years according to his power, and yet could not wholly accommodate himself to the manners of many, at last he gave way to the labour of his own accord, laid down the burden of government On this renunciation, see above, pp. 612 – 13., and disposed in his heart the ascents of a more perfect life. And since, according to Col. 014F the saying of the Lord Himself: no prophet is accepted in his own country, when the Lord willed to crown him with glory and honour, He made him on this occasion go out from his land and from his kindred, like the patriarch Abraham. Luke 4, 24., Cf. Gen. 12, 1.
[3] In the holy war, on account of the slaughter at Edessa In the parts of Persia [This geographical appellation occurs often in the chronicles of this time to signify the Holy Land and the surrounding region.], then, there is a certain city which is called Roas [Edessa, namely, whose Syro-Arabic name sounds in Syriac Urhai, in Arabic Roha. It is the capital of the region which is called by a related name Osroena.]; when its inhabitants were Christians, they were slain all at once by the barbarians. For on the very most holy night of the Lord's Nativity a certain under-king of the pagans named Sanguineus invaded that city with his men, plundered it and burned it. He killed also every sex and age indiscriminately and, gnashing like a beast, he bloodied the very air, so to speak, according to his name, with the blood of the Christians [Out of the very many writers who have described the slaughter at the storming of the town of Edessa, it is helpful to recite the testimony of Otto, bishop of Freising, since our hagiographer's narration comes closest to it: At the beginning of the year of the Lord's incarnation 1145 (otherwise at the end of the year 1144), on the very solemnity of the most holy nativity of Christ, a mournful and wretched calamity befell in the East through the sin of the Christian people. For Sanguinus, prince of Aleppo, of Syria and Mesopotamia, except Antioch and Damascus, but vassal of the king or sultan of the Persians and Medes, surrounded with an infinite multitude of Saracens Edissa, which is now called Rochas, the sole refuge of the church of Jerusalem in respect of its greatness and abundance, and on the very Nativity of the Lord, as I said, broke into it, all the Christians there with the bishop of the city being slain with the edge of the sword or reduced to slavery in miserable captivity; he foully polluted the churches of Christ… and, ours having been utterly exterminated or subjected to tribute, he settled Saracens there to dwell. Otto of Freising, Chronicon, book VII, no. 30, MG., Scr. vol. XX, p. 264. It must be noted moreover that the chronicle was completed before 9 April 1147 (ibid., p. 91). The Saracens, having besieged Edessa from 28 November 1144, stormed it on 23 December; and two days later they received the citadel itself and its garrison in surrender. W. B. Stevenson, The Crusaders in the East, pp. 150 – 51; R. Röhright, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, vol. II, p. 57.]. What more? After the outcry of this crime had resounded in Christian lands, the universal Church shuddered at such a deed written above the word facinus.. Hence every ecclesiastical dignity was indignant, every manly age was exhorting itself to take vengeance on the nations for such a crime, was burning and girding itself [These things are said immoderately. For it is established, on the advice of a most weighty witness, namely Odo of Deuil (De Ludovici VII Francorum regis profectione in Orientem, in P. L., vol. CLXXXV, cols. 1204 – 07), that the plan of undertaking the holy war again was first entered into by Louis VII on 26 December 1146, when the same pious king had held court at Bourges. After three months, namely on 31 March 1146, the bishops and nobles of the kingdom, summoned to Vézelay, ratified it; and finally the supreme pontiff himself, Eugene III, complied with the king's urging. Cf. A. Luchaire, in E. Lavisse, Histoire de France, vol. III, pp. 11 – 12.]. proclaimed Whence Pope Eugene instituted the famous expedition to Jerusalem for murderers and all criminals [Cf. the letter of Eugene III to Louis VII, king of the Franks, dated 1 December 1145 (P. L., vol. CLXXX, col. 1064); but that it hardly became known in Gaul before 1 March 1146 B. Kugler shrewdly shows, Analecten zur Geschichte des zweiten Kreuzzugs (Tübingen, 1878), pp. 24 – 44.] for the remission of sins. In which Conrad himself, king of the Romans, wished to take part with some bishops and other princes of the kingdom [This was the work of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who at last persuaded the reluctant king of the Romans and signed him with the cross at Speyer on 28 September 1146 W. Bernhardi, Konrad III, pp. 530 – 32.]. And all went armed and ready either to die or to avenge the blood of the saints which had been poured out. he gave his name, To this holy expedition this saint of whom we treat joined himself, so fervent with the ardour of suffering that he openly wished, saying: "If not otherwise, may I die on this journey even trampled by the feet of horses, if only I may merit to suffer for the name of Jesus. desirous of martyrdom." But the almighty Lord, who knows how to exceed the wishes of His own, made him triumph by a most celebrated passion.
[4] And what these most devout wayfarers (v. i.) i. v. before correction suffered on this road, how much they endured, how many thousands of them perished by manifold disaster, who could number in full? Overwhelmed by the flooding of a river, In short, to relate one out of innumerable things, when they had settled themselves in camp in a certain valley, suddenly a river flooded the syllable vit added above the line after correction. Which added above the line submerged very many men with their tents in the sea which was near there [This calamity Otto of Freising describes thus (Gesta Friderici, book I, ch. 45, MG., Scr. vol. XX, p. 375): On the 7th day before the ides of September, that is, on the weekday next before the nativity of Blessed Mary, we reach a certain valley near the little town called Cherevach ἐπὶ Χοιροβάκχων, says Cinnamus, glad with the greenness of its plain, conspicuous with the course of a certain little stream through its middle. All, captivated by the pleasantness of the place, arrange to pitch our tents there and to rest there that day, intending to celebrate with great joyfulness the joyful birth of the Mother of God and ever-virgin… In the neighbourhood was the Propontic sea, which is now called by the natives the Arm of St. George, and two above
its shore, whence we were expecting a market, small towns and healthy by nature… I confess, in the whole time of the expedition we never had more joyful encampments; never, so far as the judgment of the senses goes, had the tents occupied a greater circuit. And behold, about the morning watch a certain small cloud arose and produced a gentle rain, which was suddenly followed by so great and violent a whirlwind of rains and winds that, the tents being shaken and loosened or thrown to the ground, it most grievously roused us who after the lauds of matins had betaken ourselves to our beds. A clamour is raised filling the whole neighbouring air; for the little stream, whether from the reflux of the nearby sea or the multitude of the rains, or from cataracts burst in the sky by the vengeance of the supreme majesty, is uncertain, had swollen so greatly and from its swelling had flooded beyond its wont that it covered the whole army… Yet we fly together to the strength of the horses, each one eager, as he could, to cross the stream… But how great a loss our army received there, both in persons and in goods and utensils needful for so long a road, it is not fitting to say. But he who described these things was present. With his testimony agree the French writer Odo of Deuil (l. c., col. 1218) and the Greek Cinnamus, Historiae book II, ch. 14 (P. G., vol. CXXXIII, col. 396), on whose authority B. Kugler has learnedly discoursed, Neue Analekten zur Geschichte des zweiten Kreuzzugs (Tübingen, 1883), pp. 29 – 50.]. Coming to the city of Constantinople they are received dutifully [And when they had come into Greece, they were honourably received by the king of the Greeks. So the Casus monasterii Petrishusensis, book V, ch. 27 in MG., Scr. vol. XX, p. 674. The same the Annals of Magdeburg (ibid., vol. XVI, p. 188): They were received, as it were kindly, by the king of Constantinople.]; near Constantinople but nevertheless only a few are let in for the sake of the market [They pitched camp before the city of Constantinople, and stayed there for some time. But because of the unheard-of multitude of the Teutons, all Greece, shaken with excessive fear, was trembling… The whole army was ordered by the same king of the Greeks to be supplied with all necessaries on the terms of goods for sale. Yet none of the pilgrims presumed to enter that city. So the Annals of Würzburg, ibid., p. 4.], because the Greeks always hold the Teutons in suspicion [And not undeservedly, since the Teutonic column was laying waste the surrounding region and was ravaging the emperor's summer palace itself, destroying almost everything on every side, says Odo of Deuil, l. c.]. Staying there, they rested for some while, and the sea which lies beside the city, a numberless army crossed the sea. which is called the Arm of St. George Which name the strait Bosporus bore., at the order of the king of Constantinople they crossed without fare [Since the emperor Manuel greatly feared that Louis VII and Conrad would join their camps under the walls of Constantinople, he applied every industry and resource so that the king of the Romans should cross into Asia Minor as quickly as possible. W. Bernhardi, l. c., p. 620. And so the king of Greece had provided them ships for carrying the army across, employing notaries to report to him the number of those dispatched. Helmold, Chronica Slavorum, book I, ch. 60 (MG., Scr. vol. XXI, p. 57). So too the Annals of Würzburg, l. c., p. 5: The king of the Greeks, having heard of King Conrad's perseverance, at once orders ships to be fitted out.]. Here by order of the king and the princes the army was numbered [Cf. Helmold just cited. Add Odo of Deuil, l. c.: And although I have written above, and it is true, that countless men of his army had already died, yet we heard from the Greeks, who counted those crossing, that he crossed with nine hundred thousand five hundred and sixty-six. Likewise the Annals of Pöhlde (MG., Scr. vol. XVI, p. 82): He crossed the sea which is called the Arm of St. George, and the number of those signed was reviewed, and there were found 70 thousand warriors, without the unarmed and common crowd.]. It was reckoned at above seventy times a hundred times a hundred thousand On this number cf. the Preliminary Commentary, p. 610, no. 10..
[5] Wherefore we cannot run over the very wide field of this history, but we have resolved to pick from it only the flowers of the passion set before us (f. pr. passionis) pr. pass. f. before correction. That we may therefore relieve the readers' weariness, let us hasten briefly to the glorious triumph of the blessed martyr.
The column of the bishop of Freising having been routed, After they had come to the city of Nicaea, the king and his brother Otto, bishop of Freising, parted from one another [The Annals of Würzburg have this, l. c., p. 5: The king and the whole multitude, crossing over the Propontic sea, which is commonly called the Arm of St. George, came to Nicaea and rested there only three days. At length on the fourth day all the foot-soldiers follow the bishop of Freising, Conrad read Otto by name, who was the brother of King Conrad, and, marching by the upper road, they pass on to Antioch of Pisidia. Likewise Odo of Deuil, l. c.: He came, then, to Nicomedia, where, a scandal having arisen, his men made a schism. The emperor made for Iconium; but his brother Otto, bishop of Freising, and many nobles with him, held to the coast.]. For the bishop the syllable nim written above the line, having taken about XIIII thousand [With about fifteen thousand, report the Annals of Pöhlde, l. c., f. 84. Cf. Kugler, Studien zur Geschichte des zweiten Kreuzzugs, p. 150.], among whom was also the aforesaid abbot, proposed to go to Jerusalem. But the Lord, as it pleased Him, disposed their journey far otherwise. For the king of the Persians In the chronicles of the Middle Ages Asia Minor is held to belong to Persia., named Ambonius or Tobachias added in the margin, having heard of the coming of the Christians, terrified, united the ten under-kings over whom he presided with a boundless heathen multitude and directed them against those whom he understood had already invaded his borders [The hagiographer has wholly erred in calling the leader of the Saracens, who held the supreme command in this war, Ambonius or Ambronius. Cf. the Preliminary Commentary, no. 12. But who that Ambronius was is entirely hidden. Whether the word is derived from the common Arabic word amîr, leader, or from the proper name Amrus, whence in Greek Ἀμβρός, which occurs very frequently in Arab writers (cf. the Annals of at-Tabari, ed. de Goeje, Indices, pp. 413 – 25), let experts judge.]. But the pagans preferred to meet the Christians not by fighting but by ambush. And the aforesaid Sanguineus, who had perpetrated that crime against the Christians above Cf. above, no. 3., was one of these under-kings. He truly ere written above V., according to the Prophet, the rod of the Lord's fury and the staff of His indignation, showed himself as much as possible against the Christians in these days; for against the aforesaid expedition, which accompanied the bishop, he contrived every evil by ambushes This passage about Sanguineus we weighed in the Preliminary Commentary, no. 12.. Cf. Isa. 10, 5. Whence, when on a certain Lord's day they were resting by the sea, keeping holiday in the Christian manner, he burst unexpectedly, armed, with his army upon the unarmed, killed those who ran to meet him, seized those who fled, so that few of so great a multitude were found surviving who were not held either captured or slain [Annals of Würzburg, l. c., p. 5: When, then, almost all were wasting away, many too consumed by hunger, thirst, sickness and daily toil, at last the Saracens, having explored their weakness, leap out upon them in a sudden assault and, no one resisting, mangle them, tear them apart, kill the older men, and lead the younger into captivity to be weighed down by miserable slavery. Gerhoh (De investigatione Antichristi, book I, ch. 70, p. 143) describes the disaster still more closely: When they had come to the narrower places of the mountains, there the Turks, having posted armed men, engaged in open battle with part of the army, and, attacking them at once in front and behind and from the crags above, slew a very great multitude of them; where also Bernhard, count of Carinthia, fell. There also very many, besieged at once by the narrowness of the places and by wedges of armed men, with whom they could not engage, leaving all their possessions and desiring to save only their lives, took to flight through the rough and steep places of the mountains. And the Casus monasterii Petrishusensis report this concisely, l. c., book V, no. 28: Upon these, then, the army of the pagans came and slew almost all of them.]. Ernest, wounded, is captured Here the oft-mentioned athlete of Christ is gravely wounded, captured, bound, dragged, and by the divine will reserved for a more glorious triumph [Perhaps it will not be out of place to set here a very similar passage taken from the Passion of St. Thiemo, bishop of Salzburg († about 1102): The venerable hero, whom our pen serves, is captured, dragged, and at last made a worthy victim to God through the martyrdom singularly reserved for him (Tengnagel, Vetera Monumenta contra schismaticos, p. 75, Ingolstadt, 1612). Cf. Bibliotheca hagiogr. latina, no. 8134.]. The bishop, however, with a few barely escaped in a little boat [The fortunes of Otto, bishop of Freising, Gerhoh touches thus, l. c.: Otto, bishop of Freising, with not only his shoes but also his feet worn away, spent too with hunger and cold, when he had come to a certain maritime city, was refreshed by the compassion of the citizens and, having received some things from them on loan, he too made his way by sea to Jerusalem.]. But the pagans, weary with slaughter, nay, sated with the blood of the Christians, spent the night there and stripped the spoils of the slain. Setting out on the morrow, they led away about eight thousand captives. Yet because these, being weak, failed on the march, they killed them in great part.
[6] with the flower of youth And the aforesaid Sanguineus, exceedingly and beyond measure elated by the enormity of this crime, so that written above the line he might publish his triumph on this occasion in every region of Persia, chose four hundred youths from those same captives who excelled in form, strength and age, and, clothing them in finer garments, sent them as a kind of gift to his lord, Ambronius, king of the Persians On this triumphal pageant, cf. the Preliminary Commentary, no. 13.. Among these the blessed Ernest was not undeservedly held foremost, because he was tall in stature, comely in face, composed in manners. and at Mecca he is urged to desert the Christian faith. And, as the outcome afterwards proves, he excelled all in wisdom and eloquence [Since, as the biographer witnesses, Ernest's wisdom and eloquence had not yet been known, it is hard to understand how the monks of Zwiefalten, in the little preface which is read below (no. 9), could have extolled his eloquence as being for sowing the word of God by mandate of the lord apostolic. Besides, it is an empty fiction that Ernest, like other abbots and bishops, set out to the Holy Land for that reason.]. And when
they had all been presented together, bound, in the city of Mecha (i. c. M.) written in another hand above coram rege. before the king, he ordered them to stand around in the manner of a crown [This last phrase occurs almost the same in the Passion of St. Thiemo: And when the agonothete of Christ had come to the place of the contest, the most wicked king, abominable to God, ordered all the Christian captives, bound, to be present at this spectacle; and he made them stand around the man of God in the manner of a circle (Tengnagel, l. c., p. 77).]. Looking at them more carefully, he greeted them blandly through an interpreter, saying: "Be welcome, friends; a thousand times be welcome, dearest ones." And he added: "Do not be afraid, nor groan more deeply like captives or strangers. First, if you adore my god, if you are willing to adhere faithfully to me, you will as soon as possible be free from these bonds; and moreover you will speedily possess money and the other riches of this kingdom" [Here the twelfth-century parchment ends in the middle of the line; the last letter s, which is of another hand, is separated by some points from the rest of the word.].
[7] The idols having been broken, But after the aforesaid athlete of God Ernest had charitably admonished his men to the fear of God and strengthened them with all his powers [On the following narrative of Ernest's martyrdom there is no reason for us to linger, since it is plucked from the letter of the priest Marsilius, and indeed often word for word. This document was examined with even balance in the Preliminary Commentary, no. 7.], they were compelled to adore the idols. St. Ernest, refusing this, is subjected to various punishments and torments. he was put to death by a bloody punishment. But when he is led to adore the idols and is driven as if by force with the others, kindled by the divine spirit of the Lord G. he broke the idols with stones. The pagans, when they had seen this, roused to anger, first drawing the skin from his head and drawing out his entrails through the navel and cutting him with scourges, fixed him to a stake. But the blessed Ernest, blessed in the Lord, did not cease amid such great and grievous torments, praising God, to call the others to constancy and martyrdom, until, his entrails having fallen to the ground, he gave up his spirit to God, the founder of all things.
[8] Which the letter of the Armenian priest, And that we may also confirm by a letter the things which we heard by word of mouth from those who were present, a certain Marsilius, priest of Armenia, a man devoted to God, redeeming the body of that same holy man together with other bodies of martyrs, directed such a venerable writing to the Germans and especially to those dwelling at Zwiefalten, which, touched by the Spirit of God, he sent in the following words.
[9] received by the monks of Zwiefalten, In the year [In the margin of B: This little preface is by the monks contemporary with Ernest. In the commentary "Ernestus elucidatus" (f. 109) this note goes before it: Circular letter of Marsilius, priest of Armenia, on the passion, redemption and translation of St. Ernest and his companions, with the little preface of the contemporary monks of Zwiefalten.] from the nativity of the Lord one thousand one hundred and forty-eight, the lord Ernest, abbot of this monastery and an excellent teacher, arranging to go to Jerusalem together with other orthodox men to sow the word of God by mandate of the lord apostolic [Equal to this testimony is the title of teacher of the nations which the Greater Annals of Zwiefalten confer on Ernest: 1147. The kingdom of the nations in the four parts of the world was laid waste by the Christians. And Ernest, fifth abbot of this place, was made teacher of the nations, and Berthold was restored (MG., Scr. vol. X, p. 56). But since this part of the Greater Annals was completed in the year 1196, and the Passion was written about the same time, it can hardly be discerned which testimony has the advantage in antiquity. Only this difference intervenes, that in the hagiographical document it is more clearly indicated on what occasion St. Ernest was made teacher of the nations. The first, W. Eysengrein, who knew and copied out our Passion, attributed to Abbot Ernest a notable volume on the praise of the martyrs (Catalogus testium veritatis locupletissimus, f. 99v, Dillingen, 1565). Which after him Antonius Possevinus (Apparatus sacer, s. v. Ernestus), Io. A. Fabricius (Bibliotheca latina, s. v. Ernestus) and G. Eiselin (Wunderschöne Histori, p. 347) kept repeating, using almost the same words. The latter moreover handled the manuscript book with his own hands. But the only occasion of that opinion was that in the same volume the Passion of St. Ernest, by an anonymous author, and a little work on the praises of the martyrs were bound together. How frail this foundation is there is no one who does not see.], was captured on the journey with his colleagues by the pagans and led into the region of the Persians, into the city of Mekka, as was related to us by his companions and fellow-captives, and suffered for Christ. Concerning whom this following letter from overseas was sent to us by a certain priest of Armenia, Marsilius by name, in these words (anno-transmissae) omits G.:
[10] confirmed, We make known to you, dearest brothers, the passion of the servant of God Ernest, abbot of Zwiefalten. That servant of God, captured by the pagans with many others, compelled to adore idols, refusing this, suffered perpessus G. many and diverse torments. At last, when he had broken their idols with stones, the pagans, very angry, having stripped his head of its skin and drawn out his entrails through the navel, and fixed a stake in the earth, with scourges, around the stake [omits G., but adds in the margin: Here the word was repeated again in the doc.: "palo".] [agitatus adds G, but notes in the margin: That the sense may be complete, I have added this word "agitatus", for it was missing in the original; B notes in the margin: the word agitatus is missing. Better to be supplied: ductus. Cf. above, p. 613, no. 21.] …, after he had for some while addressed his fellow-captives, lest they be terrified by his example, his entrails having slipped down to the ground, on the seventh day before the ides of November, in the year as above [(a. q. s.) omits G., but adds in the margin: "in the year from the Nativity of the Lord, 1148".], he happily passed to the Lord. His body, then omits G., I, Marsilius, priest of Armenia, redeemed together with eleven captives for the love of God for thirty-five gold pieces, and committed the body of the blessed man to the earth; but those I allowed to return free to their own homes. And there suffered with him nine others, and taught the martyr's burial. that is, Cunrad, Adelbert, Walther, Senfrid, Eugebotto and three others [adds in the margin B: Some name is missing, or "four others" should have been written. G notes in the margin: rather four, and adds in another hand: I would prefer to divide Eugebotto into two words, so that it is Eugebert and Otto; and so with the three anonymous ones there will be nine companions in all.]. After a short time had elapsed, his body was carried away by the Christians into the city of Antioch and was buried in a certain church next to the church of the holy apostles Simon and Jude, famous for many miracles.