Meinulphus

ON ST. MEINULPHUS, DEACON, AT BÖDDEKEN IN THE DIOCESE OF PADERBORN, IN THE WESTPHALIAN CIRCLE,

MORE PROBABLY IN THE YEAR 857, OR THEREABOUTS.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Meinulphus, deacon, at Böddeken in the diocese of Paderborn in the Westphalian circle. (S.)

BY C. B.

§ I. The site of the monastery of Böddeken: the memory of the Saint in the sacred Fasti: by what older writers his Acts were drawn up, and which are to be published.

In the bishopric of Paderborn of the Westphalian circle, between Büren and Paderborn, not far from the right bank of the river Alme, and from the castle of Wewelsburg lying next to it, which is distant about three French leagues southwards from Paderborn, [An account of the monastery of Böddeken and the various namings of it and of the Saint:] is situated a not undistinguished monastery of Canons Regular of the Congregation of Windesheim, which, although it is found from time to time called Böddike or Böddiken, Bodike, Bodiken, Budiken, Budekem, Bodekem, Bodechen, Bodehem or Bodicken, is nevertheless commonly named in Westphalian Bodeke or Bodeken, Bödeke, Böddeken, Böddechen or Bödeken; and in Latin Böddeca or Bödeca, Bodica, Bridica, Bodeka or Bodicon, or finally also, and indeed in the more received manner, and therefore to be used here henceforth, by the appellation Budica or Bodeca. It was first founded, for sacred virgins or nuns, for whom at length in the lapse of time Canons Regular were substituted, in the rough solitude of his own estate, surrounded on all sides by woods and by two very lofty mountains, by St. Meinulphus, deacon of the church of Paderborn, who, not otherwise than it, is allotted various formations of his name among various writers, being called by some Meinulphus or Meinulfus, Meynulphus, Meynulfus, Maynulfus, Mainulfus or Mainulphus; by others Menulphus, Meinolphus or Meinolfus, Menolfus, Meynolphus, Maynolphus, or finally also Maginulphus. Of these divers namings of the Saint I choose here the first of all, for this reason, that I find it used by far the greater part of the writers. These things meanwhile, lest the studious reader should stick at the divers ways in which the name both of the Saint himself and of the monastery founded by him will be found expressed in the course of this Commentary, it seemed good to join to the site of the monastery of Böddeken given above; I am glad now further in the present § to supply an account of the older writers who have comprised in writing the things pertaining to St. Meinulphus, together with the chief sacred Fasti in which his name is inscribed today. From these I make a beginning.

[2] Of the older martyrologists, whom we call classical, he, although he is not inscribed in the classical Martyrologies, none at all mentions St. Meinulphus,

nor is this surprising: for all of them compiled their Martyrologies (see Sollerius in the Preface to Usuard) before the year 876, by which, as will appear from what is to be said, St. Meinulphus had not yet obtained the honours of the Saints by public and lawful authority. And even if one should perhaps agree with Chastelain, who in his Admonition to the first volume of the Roman Martyrology translated into French, page 24, affirms that Notker, the most recent of them all, wrote about the year 894, there would still be no reason for us to wonder at this martyrologist's silence concerning our Saint: for he, as I shall show below, first began to be honoured with the cult proper and lawful to the Saints, his sacred remains having been raised from the earth by Biso, bishop of Paderborn, either a little after the year 894, or certainly not long before it. If the former, why, I ask, would Notker have commemorated Meinulphus? If the latter, he would most probably have been unaware of a thing done at a place far from the monastery of St. Gall, in which he lived as a monk, and within recent memory. However that may be, this martyrologist at any rate, no differently from all the other classical ones, omits the memory of Meinulphus today.

[3] But although the matter stands thus, there occur not a few other, more recent martyrologists yet in the Usuard augmented at Lübeck and Cologne, who record it in the sacred Fasti they compiled; and first among them, among the Usuardine Auctaria in Sollerius, is the augmented Usuard printed twice in one and the same year 1490, once at Cologne and once at Lübeck, and customarily designated by Sollerius the Lübeck-Cologne Usuard on account of the exact agreement of both editions in everything. It commemorates the Saint today thus: In the territory of Paderborn, in the monastery of Böddeken, the deposition of saint Maynulphus, deacon and confessor. And the author, or rather (if it be permitted to use this word here) the augmenter, of this Usuard is the oldest of all the hagiologists extant in print in whom I find the Saint's memory recorded today. But whence did this writer draw it? There exists in our possession an ancient manuscript Calendar of the church of Paderborn, which John Grothaus, priest of our Society, who copied it out for us in the past century after finding it in the church of the canonesses of Herford, judged to have been made in the age of the emperor Charlemagne, and afterwards to have been augmented with the Saints proper to the church of Paderborn under bishop Imad, who sat from the year 1052 to the year 1076, or even somewhat earlier. From this monument, so ancient, inasmuch as it commemorates St. Meinulphus today in these words, Of Saint Mainulfus the deacon, the author of the Lübeck-Cologne Usuard may perhaps have drawn the sacred memory of him which he celebrates; or, as will perhaps appear more probable to some, from notices received either from Paderborn or from the monastery of Böddeken itself.

[4] in our manuscript Florarium, Certainly the announcement of the Saint which our manuscript Florarium of the Saints likewise supplies for this day — which its author himself asserts at the end that he completed in the year 1486 — appears to have flowed from notices of this kind. I think so for this reason especially, that to the announcement is joined an elogium containing many things which are absent from the Calendar just cited. It will be useful to transcribe it here, although rather lengthy, since it will yet be of use below. It runs thus: In Westphalia, in the diocese of Paderborn, the birthday of blessed Meynulphus, archdeacon and confessor, of the Order of Regulars, who was raised from the sacred font by blessed Charles the Great; afterwards, as his knowledge grew with his age, he advanced so far that the bishop of that same place united him to the Brethren of the monastery of the aforesaid church. To him the Lord made known, through a multitude of hinds which he saw, the place where he should build a monastery, in which to this day canons Regular serve God at his sacred bones, which to this day shine with miracles. He died in the year of Salvation DCCCLVII. Whether all that is here related is certainly consonant with the truth, anyone will easily gather from what is to be discussed. I now proceed to the Usuard of Greven, printed at Cologne in the year 1515 and again in the year 1521, and likewise reported by Sollerius among the Usuardine Auctaria.

[5] He is celebrated today in Greven, Molanus and other sacred Fasti. In this Meinulphus is recorded today thus: In the diocese of Paderborn, in the monastery of Böddeken, of saint Meynulfus, deacon and confessor, who in the time of Charles the Great, at the foundation of the church of Paderborn, renowned for life and miracles, rested in a blessed end. This announcement consists partly of almost exactly the same words as the Lübeck-Cologne one transcribed above, and partly of an addition taken from elsewhere. But what is to be thought of it? Since the Saint, as it will be easy to gather from what is to be said, neither became famous for miracles under Charlemagne nor passed to the Heavenly ones by a blessed end under him, it was undoubtedly drawn from erroneous notices. Molanus most probably at length observed this, inasmuch as, having cut away from the later editions of his Work that very addition which he had used in the first edition of the Usuard he illustrated, prepared at Louvain in the year 1568, he commemorates the Saint in them only briefly, thus: At Böddeken, a monastery of the diocese of Paderborn, of saint Meinulphus, deacon and confessor. Further, still other more recent hagiologists, and not a few, who published sacred Fasti in print after Greven and Molanus, likewise celebrate Meinulphus today: namely Canisius, or rather Walasser, in the German Martyrology, Rosweyde in the Fasti of the Saints, Ferrarius in the General Catalogue, Balinghem in the Marian Calendar, Gelenius in the Fasti of Cologne, Chastelain in the Universal Martyrology, and finally also, although the Saint meanwhile never professed as a monk, Wion, Dorgain, Ménard and Bucelin in their Benedictine Hagiologies.

[6] Why this is not done also in the present Roman Martyrology. But why did the most learned men who reformed the Roman Martyrology give no place in it to Meinulphus, though they were otherwise accustomed to adopt most of the additions made to Usuard which they found in Molanus? They most probably did so because in the year 1584, in which they corrected and augmented the Roman Martyrology by order of Pope Gregory XIII, they had not sufficiently perceived the sanctity of St. Meinulphus. I suppose so because Baronius, who was one of them, in volume 9 of the Ecclesiastical Annals — whose first volume he published in print only in the year 1588 — writes thus of St. Meinulphus under the year 816: He was a deacon of the church of Paderborn, who shone with outstanding sanctity, as the Acts of his life indicate; and those most learned men would seem to have been going to insert the Saint in the Roman Martyrology if, when in the year 1584 they were contributing their labour to its reformation, they had ascertained his sanctity in the way in which Baronius here intimates that he himself afterwards came to know it. From the sacred Fasti in which, as I have just shown, Meinulphus is inserted today, I turn my discourse to the older writers who set down with the pen the things concerning him, or, if you prefer, to their compositions.

[7] Among these, the first to be mentioned is the Life of the Saint, Sigeward wrote the Life of the Saint: which Adolph Overham, monk of the Order of St. Benedict of Werden, first brought to light in print, whole, copied from an old manuscript codex of the Library of Abdinghof, in the year 1681 at the Neuhaus press, together with the Acts of SS. Meinwerk and Heimerad, and illustrated with Observations. It bears in front two different Prologues, of which one in a way holds the place of a dedication, the other of a preface directed to the reader. At the very beginning of the first Prologue, or dedication, the author discloses both his own name and also the name of him to whom he inscribes his composition, in these two little verses:

To Albinus, a father worthy to be constantly loved, His little son Sigeward, the bond of faith.

Albinus, here mentioned, who perhaps taught polite letters, had been begged by a certain one of his friends to compose in a more elegant and more ornate style the Life of St. Meinulphus, not yet written out fittingly and with sufficient polish; and he entrusted this task to Sigeward, his disciple, who showed himself obedient to his master's will in this matter. Sigeward himself teaches this, likewise in the first of the two Prologues mentioned above, also plainly indicating there that an older writer had lighted the way for him in preparing his composition, all of whose assertions and statements he had accurately expressed, yet in such a way that, if ever that writer had used either exaggeration or understatement, he corrected any such excess or defect; how he could safely do this, however, he neither declares nor do I sufficiently understand.

[8] Hear him speaking in his own words. Care for the soul, whence he drew it, he says, which bids one seek out in sacred histories rather the naked truth of the matter than the charm of brilliant speech, and the most strict law of another's journey compel me knowingly to take the way of a faithful interpreter. I say another's journey, because someone had gone before me in the course of this same Work, whose statements truth, my mistress, commands me not to change. Only the order of the words is left to be arranged by the office of my pen; nay more, if the speech of my predecessor has either languished through diminution or exceeded through increase, this is permitted to be healed by the medicine of my care; and then, after some things interposed, he concludes thus: If any reader think it worthy to approach this Work of ours, him I beseech again and again, by that most equitable examination of the last judgement, not to wish to brand with the fault of falsehood my recent telling, to which the authority of the old writing bears witness. This old writing, or primitive Acts of St. Meinulphus, whose authority and faith Sigeward professes in the words quoted that he follows, seem to have perished entirely; and this same biographer of the Saint left in obscurity the very name of the author who composed them, supplying also only a few chronological notes, and those such that from them the time of the deeds to which they relate can be determined only broadly. Moreover, who he himself was, in what century or what age he lived, he nowhere discloses by so much as a word, nor, as it appears, could anyone define it with certainty from elsewhere.

[9] who he more probably was, The aforementioned Overham writes thus in his Observations on the Life of Meinulphus: In the twelfth century the church of Minden had, from the year MCXXII to MCXL, a bishop Sigeward, and at almost the same time the church of Merseburg had a prelate Albinus or Albuin: but whether that Sigeward was ever a disciple of this Albinus is altogether uncertain. He would perhaps come nearer the truth who should say that Sigeward, who, on the testimony of the Aschaffenburg chronicler, was made abbot of Fulda in the year MXXXIX, had previously been a hearer of Albinus or Albuin, whom the Hildesheim chronologer (see Duchesne, volume 3 of the Writers, page 523) celebrates under the year MXXXIV as most learned in the philosophical art, provost of Hersfeld and formerly the most famous master of the school there, and finally abbot of Nienburg (created, namely, in that same year 1034); since these come nearer to one another in place, age and way of life, and such is the antiquity of the Abdinghof codex that it can be referred roughly to their age; although this opinion too remains within the limits of conjecture. Thus far he, and rightly indeed, in order that he might inform the reader, at least in the way in which it can be done, who and of what sort Albinus or Albuin was, who Sigeward, and in what century or age both flourished; and of the two conjectures which he makes on this matter in the words transcribed here, I judge the latter the more probable; nor, with whatever diligence applied, have I been able to find anywhere another Sigeward to whom this Life of our Saint which is here under discussion could as fittingly be attributed as to the last one, assigned by Overham.

[10] and what credence it deserves. But if, further, that Life had in actual fact this man for its author, as it seems it could have had, it will have been composed more than a century and a half after the death of St. Meinulphus — which, from what is to be discussed, is more probably to be set in the year 857 or thereabouts — since Sigeward was made abbot of Fulda in the year 1039, and Albinus or Albuin abbot of Nienburg in the year 1034; so that even on that hypothesis it does not deserve altogether undoubted credence. Nor does it help that it was drawn, as I have already noted, from an older writer; for he, inasmuch as Sigeward narrates from him the Saint's translation, made when the ninth century had nearly elapsed, and the miracles which followed, as it appears, even long after, seems to have written at the least about a century after the Saint's death; nay, since it is not at all established that Sigeward, the Saint's biographer, is the same as Sigeward, the abbot of Fulda mentioned just now, he may perhaps have written much later still; and it can therefore not without reason be doubted whether he everywhere attained the truth in the things which he hands down to memory concerning St. Meinulphus, as will be declared more fully in the course of this Commentary. Meanwhile, whoever Sigeward, the biographer of our Saint, was, and at whatever time he flourished, I think that we must stand by this writer — since we have none older or better who treats of Meinulphus — in those things which cannot from elsewhere be either convicted of falsity or deservedly rendered suspect.

[11] A very long time after Sigeward, and so also after the older writer from whom he drew, flourished Gobelinus Persona, Long after him flourished Gobelinus, another biographer of the Saint who, after other offices which he discharged at Paderborn, was also pastor of the Market church and official there, and dean of the collegiate church of St. Mary at Bielefeld, and who is exceedingly well known to the learned world through the universal Chronicle he composed, which he entitled Cosmodromium, or the Course of the World. He was born in Westphalia in the year 1358 (see the Life of Gobelinus which Meibom the Elder and the Younger prefixed to the editions of the Gobelinian Cosmodromium prepared by them), and in the century next following — yet not before its eighteenth year, inasmuch as he carried his Cosmodromium from the creation of the world down to that year — he departed from the living, most probably more than sixty years of age, in the monastery of Böddeken, in which, since it had by then been transferred from nuns to canons Regular, he had at length, weary of affairs, put on the habit of a canon Regular. He composed another Life of the Saint, or rather a paraphrase of the Life written by Sigeward, yet augmented here and there with chronological notes and other additions, from various ancient writings and from what he had come to know of the deeds by encounter, as he himself says in the Prologue, in which he also seems to indicate that he did this when the canons Regular had not long been substituted for the nuns at Böddeken, which, from what is to be said, happened in the year 1409. I copy out his words bearing on this. Rejoicing, he says, that canons Regular had scarcely been installed in the township of Böddeken to reform that church in which the body of the aforesaid Saint (namely Meinulphus) rests, I rendered the services of exhortation; and in order that many, who together with me may praise the Lord on the strings and the organ, may be partakers of the grace of his spirit, I have collected, from various ancient writings and from my encounter with deeds known to me, to the praise of God, the honour of saint Meinulphus and the edification of my neighbour, concerning the life and miracles of this Saint, as well as other deeds suitable for the things to be said below.

[12] Thus Gobelinus, who probably also did not commit the Acts of the Saint to writing his composition is confused with Sigeward's by Brower, until he was already professed a canon Regular at Böddeken, in what year he first did which I do not find. This composition of Gobelinus, which Surius brought into his collection of Lives mutilated of its Prologue and with its style changed, caused Brower to go astray: for he thought that it — which would have been changed by Surius not only as to style but also by licence of interpretation, and variously interpolated either by that very writer or by another — was the very Life from which, in the book he entitled Sidera Germaniae, he appended some Segments to the Acts of St. Meinwerk edited by him there. But this is none other than the Life of the Saint composed by Sigeward, as anyone who compares it with the Segments published by Brower will easily perceive. Yet there is no reason why you should wonder on that account that Brower did not perceive it; for since this writer, in the year 1616, in which he made his Sidera Germaniae public, could not have seen the whole Life of the Saint in print, inasmuch as it came forth by the benefit of printing only in the year 1686, and since the manuscript copy of it which he used, after the manner of the copy which exists with us copied from the Hardehausen codex, did not bear in front the two Prologues mentioned above — the first of which discloses Sigeward as the author, who is by no means to be discerned otherwise — how, I ask, could he even have conjectured that the Life of our Saint had been written by him, and that it was the same as the one from which he was editing some Fragments? And yet, since he pronounces of the style in which the Life he published is written, The character of the speech has that trite bad habit of rhythmic diction, which they produced, ingeniously as they thought, by isocola and antistoechi; and since Gobelinus uses a far dissimilar style in his Cosmodromium, he could at least for that reason have called into doubt whether it truly had him for its author.

[13] and whether it truly is Gobelinus's is doubted by Meibom the Younger. Certainly Meibom the Younger did in fact doubt of this matter on that very ground, in his preliminary Notices to the Cosmodromium of Gobelinus, volume 1 of the Rerum Germanicarum, and not without reason indeed: but he there also held it doubtful whether the Life which Surius, with changed style, published under the name of Gobelinus ought in fact to be attributed to Gobelinus, both because he wrongly thought it the same, no differently from that writer, as the Life from which Brower produced some Fragments, and also because Gobelinus, when in his Cosmodromium, age 6, chapter 40, he treats of St. Meinulphus, does not indicate by so much as a word that he had written his Life. To refute this last argument (for of the first enough has already been said): Gobelinus could not have made mention of the Life of St. Meinulphus written by him in the cited chapter of the Cosmodromium; for he did not commit it to writing before he had already composed that chapter. I show the matter thus: Gobelinus did not compose the Life of Meinulphus, as I have taught, until the canons Regular had already been substituted for the nuns at Böddeken; but that he wrote the chapter objected before this happened is clear even from this, that otherwise, in place of these words, it has lasted up to our times, but now … it is next to desolation, which he pronounces there when speaking of the monastery of Böddeken built by St. Meinulphus for nuns, he would have substituted these others following, it has lasted up to our times; but now it has passed to canons Regular, or at any rate their equivalent, as anyone, I think, will admit who has weighed the matter maturely. Wrongly, therefore, does Meibom the Younger call into doubt whether the Life which Surius, with changed style, published under the name of Gobelinus ought truly to be attributed to Gobelinus, on the ground that mention of that composition is omitted by Gobelinus in the Cosmodromium.

[14] The same is done also by our Bolland, but for another reason, Nevertheless our Bolland too, though moved by another reason, in the Historical Commentary prefixed to the Acts of St. Liborius, first edited separately and then brought into volume V of July, at number XI, doubts of this matter, nay moreover conjectures that that composition was not worked out by Gobelinus, because in it, where there is discussion of the occasion and manner of the founding of the monastery of Böddeken by St. Meinulphus, no mention is made of the vow pronounced by the Saint at Le Mans concerning the building of that monastery; which, however, Gobelinus mentions in the Cosmodromium, age 6, chapter 41, writing thus of the translation of St. Liborius from Gaul into Westphalia: In the XXIVth year, therefore, of Louis (the Pious, emperor) saint Liborius was translated from the city of Le Mans in Gaul, in which he himself had once been bishop, to Paderborn in Westphalia, Aldric ruling the church of Le Mans and Badurad that of Paderborn… And a certain cleric of the church of Paderborn, Ido by name, wrote down the miracles which he saw at the translation of saint Liborius, and they are kept in writing in the aforesaid church of Paderborn. And Erconrad, deacon of the church of Le Mans, writes the same miracles, as he testifies that he saw them. And he himself writes that the envoys of bishop Badurad sent to Le Mans for the reception of the holy relics were chiefly Folodag, advocate of bishop Badurad, Meinulphus the archdeacon, Adelbert the priest, Aldric the deacon and Drudwin the subdeacon. And that Meinulphus in the church of saint Vincent at Le Mans vowed to found a monastery of nuns in honour of blessed Mary and saint Liborius in the place which is called Bodicon. At the same time flourished Rabanus the poet, abbot of Fulda.

[15] But, says Adolph Overham in substance in his Observations on the Life of St. Meinulphus, page 416, which is attacked by Overham, in the parchment codex of Gobelinus, older than all those codices from which this writer's Cosmodromium was published in print, in the cited chapter 41 of age 6 only these words are read written by the original hand: In the XXIIIrd year of the empire of Louis saint Liborius was translated from the city of Le Mans in Gaul, in which he himself had once been bishop, to the city of Paderborn in Westphalia, Aldric ruling the church of Le Mans and Badurad that of Paderborn. And a certain cleric of the church of Paderborn, Ido by name, wrote down the miracles which he saw at the translation of St. Liborius, and they are kept in writing in the aforesaid church of Paderborn. At the same time flourished Rabanus the poet, abbot of Fulda; where, together with many others, those words, And that Meinulphus in the church of saint Vincent at Le Mans vowed to found a monastery of nuns in honour of blessed Mary and saint Liborius in the place which is called Bodicun, by which the vow pronounced by St. Meinulphus at Le Mans is recorded, are absent from the text itself; and since they are nevertheless read added in the margin by another hand and in a far more recent script, they were most probably received into the text and sequence of the history only by the copyists who wrote the more recent codices in which they are found. Thus, as I said, Overham in substance, whom Meibom the Younger, volume 1 of the Rerum Germanicarum, page 349, by no means opposes; and Ferdinand, bishop of Paderborn, in the Monumenta Paderbornensia published in the year 1672, page 220, also supports him, and deservedly indeed.

[16] Nor is there any reason why, in order to vindicate those words for the Cosmodromium, and which, even when the Paderborn Chronicle is also called to its aid, or, if you prefer, for Gobelinus its author, you should call to your aid the manuscript Chronicle of the diocese of Paderborn, preserved in our library, in which, likewise attributed to Gobelinus, at chapter 9, as Bolland affirms in number 17 of the Commentary praised above, the translation of St. Liborius from Gaul into Westphalia is recorded in almost the same words as in both editions of the Gobelinian Cosmodromium prepared by Meibom the Elder and the Younger;

for although that Chronicle does in fact also present, in the place cited by Bolland, the words recited above, which disclose the vow made by Meinulphus at Le Mans concerning the founding of the convent of Böddeken, and bears at its head the title by which it is expressly ascribed to Gobelinus Persona, it did not, however, have Gobelinus Persona for its author, as Bolland judged from this. This is clear from the Chronicle's own Prologue — which is to be trusted rather than the aforesaid title, inasmuch as that was added only by a more recent hand — which has thus about its middle: Since the particular deeds of upright men, both secular and spiritual, of this country (namely of the diocese of Paderborn) are not contained in the codices named, I have done what I could: hence I have procured for myself very ancient little books wherever I could find them, not without some labour and solicitude. For I made a search in the library of the high collegiate church of Paderborn, but I was not made master of my wish. Likewise also, searching and inquiring in very many other places, I scarcely found anything with which I believed myself satisfied; yet I found nothing more famous than that little book which its author entitled Cosmidromium, that is, the Course of the world: which a certain canon of the church of Bielefeld, Gobelinus by name, composed, a man, as that book of itself shows, learned and erudite and not ignorant of many things … This aforesaid Gobelinus, first pastor in the Market church of Paderborn, afterwards canon at Bielefeld, laboured not a little for divine love and honour … at length, dwelling with the canons Regular at Böddeken (whether in the habit or not I have not ascertained), he ended his life, and was buried there.

[17] is not proved to hold a place, the conclusion is for Gobelinus, From which words it becomes plainly manifest that Gobelinus is not the author of the Paderborn Chronicle here in question, and that it is therefore called in vain to our aid for asserting for Gobelinus the words by which, in both editions of the Gobelinian Cosmodromium, St. Meinulphus is asserted to have pronounced a vow at Le Mans. Hence, further, it now follows that, even though those words are absent from the Life of St. Meinulphus which Surius published under the name of Gobelinus, it is not on that account to be denied to Gobelinus on that one argument. And indeed, that on the contrary it is the genuine offspring of this writer is suggested both by the manuscript copies existing in my possession and others, which all bear the name of Gobelinus, and also by the style of the writing, which is altogether similar to the style in which the Cosmodromium is composed, as I think anyone will judge from a comparison of the two. Add that the very same fictions which occur in the Cosmodromium concerning the origin of the Saxon nation and the naming of Westphalia and Paderborn are likewise thrust upon us in the Life which is attributed to Gobelinus. This composition comprises two different parts, of which one relates the Life of the Saint, the other the miracles performed after his death and the raising of his body from the earth; in which respect, as also in most of the things it reports, it agrees exceedingly well with the Life written by Sigeward and mentioned above, so that, as I have already hinted, it seems to be scarcely more than a paraphrase of it.

[18] [This Work of his, no differently from the other of Sigeward, will be subjoined to this Commentary,] Nevertheless, if only because it will thus come about that it will not henceforth be confused with Sigeward's composition — which, as I have already shown, was done by Brower and Meibom the Younger — I shall subjoin it to this Commentary, preserving the genuine style of Gobelinus, no differently from the Life composed by Sigeward. And this latter, which will hold the first place, I shall reprint from Overham's edition, collated with the Browerian Fragments and our Hardehausen apograph mentioned above; in such a way, however, that since Overham divided the whole little Work into two books, and these into various chapters, to each of which he also affixed titles drawn most probably from his own store, and thus, as it appears, partitioned it at his mere pleasure, I shall employ another partition more suited to our custom in matters of this kind, by which I shall substitute chapters for the books and numbers for the chapters, and sometimes two or even more numbers for one. As for what now concerns the Life composed by Gobelinus, four different apographs of it exist with us, of which two have no note appended to teach whence they were drawn; of the two remaining, however, one is noted as taken from the remarkable parchment manuscript Passional of the monastery of Böddeken; the other, which also has some Annotations added at the end, from the manuscript Papers of Fr. George Garnefelt, a member of the Charterhouse of Cologne, author of the Elucidations on the sacred images of the ancient hermits, who himself received it from a manuscript codex of the monastery of Böddeken and augmented it with the Annotations just mentioned. From the former, collated with the latter, I shall print the Gobelinian composition, divided into chapters and numbers according to our custom, as seemed most convenient, adding also, as I shall do for the Life written by Sigeward, Annotations by which obscure things may be illustrated and things needing correction corrected, if this has not been sufficiently done in the preliminary Commentary.

[19] Further, two more older little Works exist with us which teach some things pertaining to St. Meinulphus, in the course of which two other little Works besides, of which here one only in the year 1731 drawn out of the darkness and published at the Munich press, the other hitherto unedited. The first of these, which is entitled the Chronicle of the monastery of Böddeken, is divided into four different parts, of which the first treats of the foundation of the monastery of Böddeken and its transfer to canons Regular, the second of the first Prior of the same monastery, the third of the six Priors who governed that same religious house from the year 1420 to the year 1455, and the fourth, finally, of the miracles performed through the intercession of St. Meinulphus under the seventh Prior. Its author is John Probus, a canon Regular of the Windesheim Congregation, professed in the monastery of Böddeken. He, being a cleric of the diocese of Paderborn, immediately joined himself as a companion, together with two other Paderborn clerics, to the canons Regular when they were first introduced into the monastery of Böddeken in the year 1409, as he himself teaches in part 1, chapter 6, and undoubtedly prolonged his life in that holy institute at least to the year 1455 (for in part 4, chapter 6 he narrates a miracle performed then through the patronage of St. Meinulphus); so that in narrating the things which happened, whether pertaining to the monastery of Böddeken or to St. Meinulphus, in that intervening space of time elapsed between the year 1408 and the year 1456, he deserves at any rate the highest credence; whether he also gains it for himself when he reports some other things that preceded his own age, I shall discuss in the course of this work, if ever there is occasion to speak of them.

[20] I now proceed to the manuscript little Work hitherto unedited: notice is given, this, which is not of very great bulk, sets forth the transfer of the monastery of Böddeken to canons Regular and its reformation. The author nowhere discloses his name; yet he supplies some things by which Gobelinus Persona, who wrote the other of the Lives of the Saint mentioned above, might not without reason seem to be the same person. For, as he himself teaches, he accompanied John de Wale, Prior of the canons Regular at Zwolle, when he visited the monastery of Böddeken in the year 1408, before he received it to be reformed, and afterwards took care that the ecclesiastical interdict, to which the parish of Böddeken had been subjected on account of the contumacy of one of the brothers, the lords of Wewelsburg, should be lifted in so far as it concerned the monastery of Böddeken and its church; moreover, against some canons of the chapter of Paderborn, as he himself likewise teaches, he adhered most constantly to William of Berg, bishop of Paderborn, who desired as much as possible the reformation of the monastery of Böddeken and its transfer to canons Regular; and when he afterwards saw a most violent storm stirred up against himself, he betook himself from Paderborn elsewhere; all of which things fit Gobelinus Persona excellently, inasmuch as he both discharged the office of official of Paderborn, and applied himself earnestly to restoring collapsed discipline in religious communities, and on this occasion was compelled to withdraw from Paderborn to Bielefeld, as may be seen in his Life in both Meiboms in the place cited above.

[21] will be of use from time to time. But the author of the little Work here in question, when he begins to speak of the translation of the relics of St. Meinulphus from the church of Böddeken to that of Paderborn, attempted by the bishop of Paderborn and prevented by the cunning of the women of Böddeken, reports that these relics were hidden by them under straw, as the bishop approached, in a certain stable for horses attached to the tower of the church itself (namely of Böddeken) towards the South; whereas Gobelinus, in his Cosmodromium, age 6, chapter 90, says that this was done behind a certain chest within the church; from which disagreement occurring here between this writer and the author of the little Work it comes about that I greatly doubt whether he is Gobelinus, especially as the one also seems to differ somewhat from the other in style. However that may be, the author of the little Work — whom, moreover, inasmuch as he is a writer only of things of lesser moment, it matters little to know by name — saw with his own eyes most of the things he writes, and, as he himself indicates at the end, completed his composition in the year 1417. This, and the other examined above which has John Probus for its author, will be of use from time to time in the course of this Commentary, although neither is to be printed entire, especially when discussion is begun of the transfer of the monastery of Böddeken to canons Regular, of the cult of St. Meinulphus restored there by them, and of the miracles which followed this restoration through the patronage of the same Saint. Of use too will be Nicholas Schaten, priest of our Society, with his Annales Paderbornenses, and other writers, whether older or more recent, whom I shall bring forward, expressed by name, when the matter requires it and it can be done.

§ II. The illustrious lineage of the Saint, his homeland, and the time of his birth.

The Saint was born of very noble parents; whether, however, That St. Meinulphus was born of a truly most noble lineage among the nation of the ancient Saxons (see concerning this volume 2 of October of our Work, page 180), Sigeward, his older biographer — from whom I find neither Gobelinus nor anyone else dissenting in this matter — teaches most clearly at number 6. The words with which he does so there are these: At the time when Charles (namely the Great), the emperor, subjected the Saxon nation to his empire, and, having subjected it, brought it over from idolatry to the faith of Christ, Mainulfus was born of that same nation (namely of the ancient Saxons), of both parents very noble. So he, who moreover hands down to memory at number 8 that the Saint's mother was named Wigthruth. But what was either the name of his father, or that most noble lineage from which he sprang, he nowhere declares; nor do I know whether this has either been fittingly defined by anyone hitherto, or even can fittingly be defined, suitable ancient monuments for the purpose being lacking. Among the more illustrious and more ancient families of Westphalia, which was part of ancient Saxony, no mean place was held by the one which, having very long held lordship over the dynasty of Büren, situated on the river Alme in the bishopric of Paderborn and ennobled with the title of Barony, at length failed only in the past century in Maurice of Büren, who, since he was the last male shoot of his most illustrious house, and had long acted as president of the imperial tribunal at Speyer, at length, altogether weary of the world, in which he had lived celibate, having even pronounced a vow of chastity from the very beginning of his youth, to the Society

of ours gave his name, and in it, having profited his companions no less by the examples of virtue he displayed than by the benefits he conferred, exchanged this mortal life for the immortal, as we deservedly trust, in the year 1661.

[23] That St. Meinulphus is reported to have sprung from that most noble family of the Lords of Büren, was of the Büren family, as the author of the Büren Genealogy Gelenius says in the Fasti of Cologne already praised above. And not only is it asserted to be so reported, but it is also held as true by the author of the Büren Genealogy, brought to light in the year 1629, who, if the title correctly notes this, would have been none other than Caspar Scioppius; but that little Work had for its author not Scioppius but Balthasar von Bünnighausen, formerly tutor of Maurice of Büren, praised just now, and afterwards for many years steward of the same man, when he was already president of the Chamber of Speyer, and his lieutenant in the lordship of Büren — so John Grothaus, priest of our Society, named above, expressly affirms in a Notice which he wrote on the copy lighting my way; and he, although he does not declare whence he learned this, yet seems to proclaim the truth, if only because the Büren Genealogy here in question lacks, as is customary with books that bear false and lying titles, the printer's name and the approbation of the ordinary, and appears nowhere in the Catalogue of the Works of Scioppius which Niceron exhibits in volume 35 of the Mémoires on Men illustrious in the republic of letters, from page 178 to page 230. However that may be, the author of that composition, whoever at last he was, makes St. Meinulphus, as I have already hinted above, a member of the Büren family.

[24] He, moreover, he says of St. Meinulphus at the beginning of his Annotations on the Büren pedigree, whose words on this matter, and others concerning the adelingi of ancient was of the adelingi of Büren. And in order to teach the studious reader who the adelingi were among the ancient Saxons, he subjoins next to the words just recited these following, not altogether foreign, as will become plain from what is to be said, to our purpose: For thus, he says, in Saxony (namely Old Saxony, which also comprised Westphalia) were then called by way of honour the Reguli, that is, those who held sway over citizens, tenants and soldiers or ministerials; whom today in Italy and Spain they call Titled, in Germany Hoch und wolgeborne, that is, Well-born, renowned, illustrious or most illustrious. To this matter pertains what Nithard, a hero of the Carolingian blood, writes in book 4 on the Dissensions of the sons of Louis the Pious: "The whole nation of the Saxons," he says, "consists divided into three orders: for there are among them those who in their tongue are called Edelingi, those called Frilingi, and those called Lazzi: but in the Latin tongue these are: Nobles, freemen and servile." But those whom the Spaniards today call Caballeros, hidalgos or gentilhombres, that is, knights or nobles, the Italians Gentiluomini, the Germans Edle or vom Adel, that is, Nobles or of the nobility — to them, before these hundred years, the appellation of noble was scarcely wont to be given, in Germany at least; but they were called in German only Vesti, that is, firm, as those to whom some right over tenants and serfs had been confirmed by a superior authority: from which I know not whether the feudal word Investire too was formed, as if it were to co-opt into the number of the Vesti. Such vesti were called the soldiers and ministerials and faithful men of those by whom they had been invested, in German Knecht, Knabe or Schalk, which words signify a boy or servant, the last of which has remained even now in Marschalk, by which word is signified he who holds the charge of the stable and is over the stable, and is otherwise called Count of the stable.

[25] Saxony are here recited, For Mar among the Germans meant a horse, and merrha or mercha for a mare is still in use today among many. Further, there were four kinds of services which the invested soldiers rendered to their lords. Some were for the table, or dapiferi; others for the chamber, or chamberlains; others for the wine cellar, or cupbearers; others finally for the stable, or marshals, as we learn from the fourth book of Thietmar. Those, therefore, who had such ministerials and towns subject to them, it is ascertained, were reguli, whether they were called princes or dukes, or margraves or marquises, or landgraves or provincial counts, or only counts or noble lords, adelingi or barons, although the appellation of baron is more recent, under which many comprehend all those whom I have called Reguli. Thus he; and though all these things may not appear in every respect acceptable, yet the name Adeling among the ancient Saxons seems to me to have signified principally and properly the same as the German Edel Herr, in Latin nobilis dominus, and that in such a way that those who enjoyed this title probably had, no differently from later counts, dukes and other nobles of higher rank, beneficiary clients subject to them, and lands or towns liable to them. And that St. Meinulphus, inasmuch as, as I have taught, he had very noble parents, was undoubtedly sprung from adelingi or noble lords of this kind — whence his illustrious birth shines forth still more — there is no one who would deny. But whence is it established that he also sprang, as the author of the Büren Genealogy would have it from what has already been said, from the determinate illustrious family of the Lords of Büren which became extinct in the past century in Maurice of Büren? Perhaps from this, that, as the same genealogist also would have it, that family already in the age of Charlemagne, or even earlier, held a place among the adelingi or noble lords?

[26] and an anonymous writer supposed, But even should we grant this gratis — and I know not whether it can be proved by any reasoning — yet from it no one will elicit anything at all to show that the Saint was of the Büren family, unless he at least prove that this family also held lordship, from the very age of Charlemagne or earlier, in that tract of lands which comprised the paternal inheritance of the Saint, in which he later founded the monastery of Böddeken. The anonymous writer who, in a certain short Writing existing in my possession, contends that Meinulphus was sprung of the Büren family, undoubtedly noticed this; for in it, in order to give that birth of the Saint as proved, he speaks thus of the Lords of Büren: Before the times of Charlemagne they had their lordships round about Böddeken, as is demonstrated from ancient documents; for public writings teach that in the district of the Bürens there were formerly established in their county (as the ancient writings run) not only that part which is still called the barony of Büren, but also Almena, Brenken, the lordship of Wewelsburg, Winnenberg and the Sintfeld, in which Vesperte also is situated. So he, presently also bringing forward the public writings he here praises: they are, moreover, diverse charters, from the first of which indeed it is established that the Büren family in the year 1012 had vassals and beneficiary clients liable to it; from the rest, however, it is understood that the same family still held lordship in the year 1234 in the Sintfeld, in the year 1308 in Winnenberg, in the year 1370 in Brenken — all which places are not very far from the monastery of Böddeken — and finally in the year 1384 in the lordship of Wewelsburg, in the very midst of which the same monastery, as he himself says, is situated.

[27] But what then? In all those ancient documents produced by the anonymous writer it is very doubtful, there occurs not a single word from which you could in any way conclude that the Lords of Büren were masters in the places mentioned either before the times of Charlemagne or in the very age of this emperor — which, however, that writer ought to have proved. Nay rather, it is clear from ancient letters recited by Ferdinand, bishop of Paderborn, in the Monumenta Paderbornensia, page 228 and following, that part of the lordship of Wewelsburg, after this had passed first from the counts of Arnsberg to the Waldecks, and then from these to the church of Paderborn, was granted in fief to Berthold of Büren by Otto, bishop of Paderborn, only in the year 1301: so that, whatever either the aforesaid anonymous writer or the author of the Büren Genealogy may write, the Büren family does not appear to have held lordship before the times of Charlemagne, or even in the very age of this emperor, in the lordship of Wewelsburg, and hence in the tract of lands comprising the Saint's paternal inheritance, in which he founded the monastery of Böddeken. Moreover, even if we granted for the moment that it held lordship there at that time, it would not even so follow that St. Meinulphus certainly existed as a member of the Büren family. For why could not the adelingi or noble lords from whom the Saint sprang hold, in a certain tract of Saxony, such sway as I said belonged in Old Saxony to the adelingi or noble lords, and at the same time possess some estates, and among these the property on which the Saint afterwards built the monastery of Böddeken, in the dominion of the adelingi or Lords of Büren? All things therefore maturely weighed, whether St. Meinulphus was born of the Büren family or of another is very uncertain. Nor is it more certain in what place and in what determinate year he was brought into the light.

[28] To show this first of the place of his birth: the Saint, as is admitted among all as also in what place of the diocese of Paderborn and as will become plain from what is to be said, possessed not a few estates, devolved to him from his parents, in the diocese of Paderborn in Westphalia, in and from which he built and endowed the monastery of Böddeken; whence it comes about that it does not indeed appear unlike the truth that he was born in it: but since the Saint seems to have held several possessions in various places of that same diocese, in what place or village of it he happened to be born is not on that account yet ascertained. Not far from the place in which the Saint founded the monastery of Böddeken, towards the South, lay a village called Bodeken, or rather the parish church of this village with the adjacent houses — inasmuch as that very monastery seems to have been situated in it — from which, in order that the Saint might distinguish the monastery built by him, he named that sacred edifice (see Gobelinus in the Life, number 18) not simply Bödeken but Nien- or Neu-Bödeken, that is, New Bödeken. This, however, in the lapse of time was called barely and simply Bödeken, but the former Alt-Bödeken, that is, Old Bödeken; which perhaps came about because, since it had entirely collapsed or at least was near to ruin, the villagers of Böddeken, deserting it, received the church adjoined to the monastery of Böddeken as their parish church, lawful authority intervening. So I suspect, because John Probus (see concerning this writer of the fifteenth century number 19) indicates in more than one place in the Chronicle of the monastery of Böddeken that it was a parish church at the time when it passed from the nuns to the canons Regular; and because in the Catalogue of the parishes of the diocese of Paderborn, which I have in my possession, only one parish, named Bödeken, occurs, but none named Alt-Bodeken. However that may be — to come now to the matter — John Probus, in the Work just praised, pages 48 and 49, reports that in the village called Alt-Bodeken or Alten-Büdecken, not far in his age from the monastery of Böddeken (through the fault of the copyists at a distance of as it were three days' mile

is wrongly noted in the place cited) there was a very aged linden tree, called for that reason the linden of St. Meinulphus, because under it, as the same writer says in the place cited that he had heard from old neighbours of the monastery of Böddeken who knew the matter by the tradition of their forefathers, the Saint was brought into the light by his mother Wichtrudis, a fugitive from her house through fear of the army of Charlemagne.

[29] place I believe John Probus when he asserts that there was in his age in the village of Alt-Bodeken a very aged linden called St. Meinulphus's; but that it was either as old as he intimates, or that it took its name from the Saint's birth having taken place under it, the tradition of the rude rustic common folk which he alleges does not establish. Nevertheless John Gamans, priest of our Society, in his manuscript Notices concerning St. Meinulphus, which he sent in the past century to our Predecessors, favours the asserted antiquity of St. Meinulphus's linden, and does not oppose the tradition which reports that the Saint was born under it. For in these he writes thus of St. Meinulphus's linden, which he himself had seen: Outside the monastery of Böddeken, at the distance of half a quarter of an hour, by a most pleasant way through an oak grove handsomely planted with many rows of trees, … one comes to and visits St. Mainulfus's linden beside the public road; at which he was brought into the light by his mother fleeing from Fürstenberg through fear of Charlemagne, who was about to besiege Stadberg; or which he himself planted while alive. To it every year on the Tuesday of the Rogations the parish of Haaren, an hour distant, coming in supplication (perhaps to the Saint's monastery of Böddeken?), holds its station. Thus he, teaching namely that the linden called St. Meinulphus's drew its name from him not definitely because the Saint was born under it, but only disjunctively, either from this or from its having been planted by the Saint while he still lived; and that it therefore — which follows equally from this, whichever alternative is admitted — had stood from the Saint's very age. But why could not the linden which Gamans saw have been called St. Meinulphus's, not indeed because he was born under it or had planted it, but because it had been substituted, either immediately, or after one or more others to which the same name had therefore clung, for an older one planted by St. Meinulphus and therefore named St. Meinulphus's? Why too could it not have been so called from an image of the Saint which had at some time been affixed to it, or from some other unknown cause? Nor is anything else to be decided concerning the linden mentioned by John Probus (for I think it different from the linden seen by Gamans, inasmuch as the latter was most probably substituted for the former when it was already decaying and falling from age); so that from the appellation of the linden called St. Meinulphus's it cannot be argued either that he planted it or that he was born under it.

[30] and in what year he was brought into the light, And indeed he would undoubtedly have been born elsewhere, if another Notice concerning him existing in my possession be true; for according to this he would have been brought into the light at Fürstenberg, a place of the diocese of Paderborn of which he himself was lord, and of which mention is made in the Gamansian Notice transcribed just above; ancient records testifying to this, which a procurator of the monastery of Böddeken, advanced in age, asserted to our Gamans that he had read. But since it is not added what or of what kind those records were, I do not know whether they deserve entire credence; and the Saint's birthplace comes out no more certain from them, nor could you safely elicit it from elsewhere. As for what now regards the year in which Meinulphus was born, neither Sigeward, the Saint's biographer, nor other ancient writers, nor any monuments of approved and undoubted credit expressly state it — whence it must be quite uncertain — or even supply anything from which you could fittingly define it. Sigeward, however, presents indications from which at least it may be ascertained in a broader manner when the Saint was born. For he writes (see his words recited at number 22) that this happened at the time of the war waged by Charlemagne against the ancient Saxons; and since this lasted from the year 772 to the year 804, as is agreed among all writers, for thirty-three continuous years (so Einhard speaks in the Life of Charlemagne), St. Meinulphus, according to Sigeward, was brought into the light within that space of time which runs between the year 771 and the year 805.

[31] But let us now determine the Saint's time of birth from Sigeward a little more closely. this, however, partly from the age at which he joined the canons of Paderborn, This biographer of the Saint, all of whose words pertaining here to our purpose I transcribe, so that what is to be said may be understood more clearly, has thus at numbers 9 and 10: The boy Mainulpus, however, placed under school rule to the discipline of letters, ascended from that disposition to the habit of them, and what he had of literary knowledge he devoutly cultivated by the practice of works. For since he knew that the way which leads to life is strait and narrow, already from his tender nail he formed his mind by harsher studies … But when he left the schools, he left also the desire of worldly honour, passing with an undivided mind to the purpose of the canonical law in the place which is called Paterbrunno. Here the pontiff of that same place, himself a glorious artificer of virtues, Badurad by name, received him with most kindly care to be nurtured, and, having received him, cherished him in the most ample bosom of fatherhood and graces. Thus Sigeward; from which it seems to be gathered that the Saint was certainly born not long before the year 793: for Badurad, as you will easily gather from what has been said by us on St. Hathumar, his immediate predecessor in the see of Paderborn, in volume 2 of August, page 452, number 19 and the two following, did not begin to sit before the year 815; since, therefore, St. Meinulphus, as Sigeward's words transcribed just above intimate, was enrolled among the canons of Paderborn by him when already bishop, while still very young and scarcely out of the schools, how could it be that he was born long before the year 793?

[32] Nor am I persuaded that it happened long after this year either, by the Saint's time of death — partly from the age at which he died, seems to have happened about the year 793. for Sigeward in the Life, number 26, hands down that he died mature in age, or aged — which would otherwise have to be removed too far from the year 847, to which it is attached by most writers. The Saint, therefore, as it is easy to elicit from what has already been said, was not improbably born about the year 793. And although Schaten, in the Annales Paderbornenses, page 16 and following, commits to writing things from which it follows that he postpones the nativity of St. Meinulphus — against some who wrongly affix it to the year 777 — only to the year 779 or the one next following, yet anyone, as I think, will conclude from what has already been said that it must be postponed still longer; especially since, in the opinion already assigned, by which it is tied to about the year 793, the danger vanishes still more certainly — against which Schaten, in the place cited, moreover wishes to guard — that our Saint should be maintained to have lived longer than is probable. Nor does it matter that in that opinion his time of death is postponed by us beyond the year 847, with which it is reckoned by most writers; for none of these, inasmuch as all flourished very remotely from the age of Meinulphus, can create certain and undoubted credence; nor will we define below that postponement of the death he died by a longer space of years than the authority of Sigeward, who writes that the Saint departed from the living already mature in age, or an old man, seems to require; judging that we must act thus, not because any irrefragable authority compels us to it, but because it is advisable not to depart further than necessity or reason persuades from the more common and more received opinion of writers, even of the more recent ones.

§ III. His baptism, education and state of life: what it was, of what kind, and when it was undertaken.

With the sacred waters of baptism, Having related the Saint's nativity, Sigeward, his older biographer, next narrates at numbers 7 and 8 the death of his father; the approach of his mother Wichtrudis to Charlemagne, to complain of a violation inflicted on her by the brother of her deceased husband; and, on this occasion, the baptism conferred only then, with Charlemagne himself as sponsor, on the little Meinulphus, who, although his age had already granted him the power of walking, had not yet been dipped in the sacred waters. And all these things Schaten, in the Annales Paderbornenses, page 17, ties to the year 783; but since the Saint, as I proved in the preceding §, was not born long before the year 793, I cannot assent to this writer here either. Gobelinus Persona, in the Life of Meinulphus, as it exists printed, with changed style, in Surius at this day, writes thus at the beginning: In the year of the Lord's Incarnation seven hundred and seventy-seven, when Charles the Great had subdued in war that part of Saxony which they now call Westphalia, all the elders of that region came to him at Paderborn, with one exception, Widukind, a leading man, whom some judge to have been a king, others a duke. And those who came to Charles were all cleansed in the same place with the saving waters of baptism, and it seemed good to king Charles to establish there the see of a bishop.

[34] with Charlemagne himself as sponsor, Accordingly, in the third year thereafter he built a small church there, and, since the place was not yet fortified, then commended it to the bishop of Würzburg. Further, in the fifteenth year from then he instituted Hathumar, a canon of the church of Würzburg, a Westphalian by nation, as first bishop there; in the fourth year of whose episcopate Leo, Roman Pontiff, third of that name, driven from Rome by his rivals, came to king Charles at Paderborn, and, having been received by him with especial honour, confirmed that see by Apostolic authority; and then, with no other word at all interposed, he subjoins the following: About that time a certain man, wealthy and noble, dwelling not far from that place, already initiated in the Christian religion, entered upon the way of all flesh, leaving a Catholic wife, Wigtrudis, and a little son, who, although by his age he could already walk, had not yet been reborn from the font of baptism. This Wictrudis, therefore, seizing an opportunity, approached king Charles confidently with her little Son, and strove to merit his favour and benevolence. And the king, receiving the woman humanely and piously, caused her Son to be baptized in his presence, and, receiving him from the sacred font, imposed on him the name of Meinulphus.

[35] Thus far Gobelinus in Surius: and that the Saint was washed in the sacred font of baptism in the year 799 not undoubtedly, as Le Cointe notes, in the year 799, Le Cointe, in the Annales Ecclesiastici Francorum, volume 6, page 695, concludes from those two texts of the Gobelinian Life in Surius. And indeed not without reason, if one stands, as he does, by the authority of the Gobelinian composition edited by Surius. For since in the latter of these Gobelinus, or rather Surius, writing that the Saint was baptized about that time (namely the one he had mentioned before),

uses the singular number, he designates solely, as will be plain to one who considers it, by these three words, about that time, the fourth year of the see of Hathumar, bishop of Paderborn, corresponding by Gobelinus's reckoning to the year of Christ 799, in which he had narrated in the last place of the former text that Pope Leo III came to Charlemagne at Paderborn. But although Gobelinus, in the Life which is to be edited with the original style of this writer preserved, commemorates at number 6 the concourse of the Saxons to Charlemagne at Paderborn, the church built there, the promotion of Hathumar to the see of Paderborn and the approach of Pope Leo III to Charlemagne, no differently from what is done in the Life interpolated by Surius, and there also attaches all those events to exactly the same chronological notes as that Life presents (for in place of the year 770, to which he ties the numerous concourse of the Saxons to Charles and to baptism by a manifest error, proceeding not from Gobelinus but surely from the copyists, the year 777 is to be restored, as I shall teach below in the Annotations), yet he subjoins that the Saint was baptized not about that time which he had mentioned before, but, using the plural number, in those times; by which formula of speech he designates not only the fourth year of the see of Hathumar, in which Pope Leo III betook himself to Paderborn, but, as will become plain to one who considers it, the whole of that space of time which runs from the year 777 to the year 799; so that nothing prevents the Saint from being believed to have been baptized even earlier than the year 799.

[36] And indeed the baptism of Meinulphus seems rather to be tied to the year 797 or 798, but he was rather washed in the year 797 or the following, because, as I taught in the preceding §, he was not improbably born in the year 793, and because when he received baptism he scarcely had, by reason of his age, the power of walking, as Sigeward seems to intimate by the very context of his narration at number 6, and was therefore only three, or at most four, years old. Nor may you object that the Saint was baptized at Paderborn, and that Charlemagne, who received him from the sacred font, did not go to Paderborn in the year 797 or the following. For first, whence is it established that the Saint was initiated by baptism at Paderborn? Wichtrudis, his mother, most probably did live not far from Paderborn; but since at the same time she also had her dwelling not far from Herstelle, a Saxon fort in the diocese of Paderborn on the Weser, in which Schaten teaches in the Annales Paderbornenses, page 36, that Charlemagne wintered in the year 797, having distributed his army through the adjacent regions, why could she not have betaken herself thither to this prince with the little Meinulphus? But, even granting for the moment that he was cleansed at Paderborn with the saving waters of baptism, how will you prove that Charlemagne was not there in the year 797 or the following? For although the ancient writers do not record that this prince stayed at Paderborn in the year 797, yet since, as has been said, he wintered in that year at Herstelle, there certainly seems to be reason why he should be believed to have made excursions from there now and then to neighbouring Paderborn. Moreover, since Charlemagne (see Schaten in the Annales Paderbornenses, page 38) in the year 798, having subdued Eastphalia and settled sacred and profane affairs throughout Westphalia, departed to Aachen, it appears probable that he then betook himself thither from Paderborn, where also he had stayed for some while.

[37] and afterwards letters, But if you should still obstinately insist that the Saint was baptized in the year 799, in which Pope Leo III met Charlemagne at Paderborn, I shall not greatly resist; for since Meinulphus, when he was washed in the sacred laver, was perhaps four years old, as I have already hinted, and these, reckoned backward, bring us to the year 795, there will remain even so what I established above and what is principal, that he was at least born not long after the year 793. However at length the matter stands, I would scarcely doubt that the Saint was regenerated in the sacred font of baptism when the eighth century had almost elapsed, which it will now suffice to have defined in this broader manner. Further, Schaten in the Annales Paderbornenses, page 17, affirms that the Saint was also taken into wardship by Charlemagne; and although neither Sigeward nor Gobelinus anywhere declares this expressly, it by no means seems at variance with the truth; nay rather, it is not to be doubted that this prince took care that the boy Meinulphus, whom he had raised from the sacred font, should be brought up honourably and in Christian fashion and imbued with letters. And Gobelinus in the Life, number 9, writes that he was indeed consigned to school disciplines under Badurad, bishop of Paderborn.

[38] not, however, as Gobelinus hands down, But since the Saint, as I have taught, was born not later than about the year 793, and Badurad was certainly raised to the chair of Paderborn not earlier than the year 815, how could he have received Meinulphus here, still a boy, to be imbued with school disciplines, as Gobelinus speaks, or with letters? Nor does it help here to say that Badurad, not yet bishop, took this burden upon himself, and is honoured by Gobelinus with the title of bishop only by prolepsis; for Gobelinus, in the place cited, has thus: After Hatumar, the first bishop, had ruled the church of Paderborn for eight years, he died, and there succeeded him a certain one of the clergy of Würzburg, but a Westphalian by nation, Badurad by name, who ruled the church for forty-eight years … And so Badurad completed the cathedral church of Paderborn, which Charlemagne had begun; and under him the boy Meynulfus was consigned to school disciplines; by which words Gobelinus plainly enough hands down, as everyone sees, that the boy Meinulphus was given to Badurad, already then created bishop, to be cultivated in school disciplines or letters: and that Gobelinus here strays from the truth is clear even from this, that Badurad, when he was elected bishop of Paderborn, seems to have been living at Würzburg among the clergy of Würzburg, as it is permissible to gather from what Schaten records of him in the Annales Paderbornenses under the year 815; and nowhere is it read that the boy Meinulphus was sent thither from Westphalia to be brought up and formed in letters and Christian morals.

[39] Schaten probably saw these things, and therefore in the Annales Paderbornenses under the year 783, and perhaps you will contend on another ground, page 17, writes that the boy Meinulphus was earnestly commended by Charlemagne, not to Badurad, but — which is by no means at variance with the truth — to priests to be brought up, and, when he had become more mature in age, was cultivated in letters by Hathumar, bishop of Paderborn; which likewise may be consonant with the truth, since Hathumar (see our Work, volume 2 of August, page 452, number 18 and following) did not depart from the living before the year 815 — whether he was meanwhile raised to the bishopric of Paderborn in the year 795, as Schaten teaches in the Annales Paderbornenses, page 29 and following, or some years later, as Eckhart contends in the Commentarii de Rebus Franciae Orientalis, book 25, numbers 78 and 110. Accordingly, just as Hathumar and Badurad themselves, once given as hostages to Charlemagne by the conquered Saxon nation among other youths of the nobles, and afterwards both, one after the other, bishops of Paderborn, were delivered by this prince to the bishop of Würzburg to be brought up and formed in Christian morals, so, by the will of the same Charles, Meinulphus was most probably brought up by the care of Hathumar, bishop of Paderborn — or rather of this holy prelate, or at any rate, if the thing happened before he was bishop, of the prelate of Würzburg, who then governed the diocese of Paderborn in a vicarious office — by priests sent from Würzburg into the diocese of Paderborn, who excellently imbued him not only with letters but also with the rudiments of the Christian religion and the pursuit of virtues. But, you will object, in Overham the words transcribed here at number 31 alone, with a few others not bearing on the matter, constitute a whole chapter of the Life written by Sigeward, and it bears this title: St. Mainulfus is liberally educated by the prelate Badurad.

[40] I confess it has so: but what then? Overham seems to have fashioned that title at his mere pleasure: by Badurad, well taught and out of the schools so I judge, both because it is absent from our Hardehausen apograph, already praised at number 12 and elsewhere, and because in that whole chapter no mention at all occurs of Meinulphus being either brought up or cultivated in letters by Badurad. Sigeward indeed writes there of Meinulphus thus: But when he left the schools, he left also the desire of worldly honour, passing with an undivided mind to the purpose of the canonical law in the place which is called Paterbrunno. Here the Pontiff of that same place, himself a glorious artificer of virtues, Badurad by name, received him with most kindly care to be nurtured; but by these words it is solely signified that the Saint, already out of the schools — which is to be well noted — was enrolled by Badurad among the canons of Paderborn and received to be nurtured; namely in the manner in which cathedral canons living in common were then wont to be nurtured or maintained by their bishops, either almost wholly from their own goods, if they were rich, or, if poor, from the resources of the church. And who would conclude from this that the boy Meinulphus was liberally brought up by Badurad, or cultivated in letters? Nor may you reply that the Saint, once joined to the canons, learned the higher sciences from Badurad, or at least by his care; for that, however very like the truth, is not what is here inquired, but solely whether the Saint spent his boyhood under the discipline of Badurad when already bishop and was then taught letters by him — which is foreign to the truth, as what has just been said sufficiently proves, as I think. Since mention of it has now arisen, I now turn my discourse to the state of life undertaken by Meinulphus.

[41] he gave his name to the college of canons at Paderborn, The Saint, when already well cultivated in letters, embraced at Paderborn, as Sigeward teaches in the words recited again just now, the purpose or institute of the canonical law, that is, he gave his name to the canons. But what, or of what kind, was that state of life, and when was it undertaken by the Saint? Since Meinulphus, as I have taught above, was born about the year 793, and, still a youth and scarcely out of the schools, as appears from the context of Sigeward's words transcribed here at number 31, joined himself to the canons of Paderborn after Badurad — who, from what has been said, was not created bishop before the year 815 — had already obtained this dignity, it probably happened either in the year 815 itself or the following, or at any rate not much later. And thus indeed it becomes known about what time the Saint joined the canons of Paderborn; but as for what pertains to the question in which it is inquired what or what kind of state of life he thus undertook, some from this make him a Benedictine monk, others a canon Regular. And first, to those who make Meinulphus a Benedictine monk are certainly to be counted the Benedictine hagiologists praised above, who brought our Saint into the sacred Fasti they compiled for celebrating the Benedictine Saints, namely Wion, Dorgain, Ménard and Bucelin: but the first three bring forward no reason at all why they number Meinulphus among the Saints of their Order; the last, however, at the beginning of the elogium with which he adorns him, records at this day thus: He (namely St. Meinulphus), by Charles

the Great, emperor, received from the sacred font, and finally enrolled in the college of the cathedral monks of Paderborn, shone with great progress under the Regular institute, and, as he was resplendent with the most eminent nobility of birth, so was he with monastic humility and a rare holiness of life.

[42] [which, since from its very beginning, whether this be sought from Hathumar, first bishop of Paderborn,] Bucelin therefore makes the Saint a Benedictine monk for this reason, that he judged the cathedral college of the canons of Paderborn, to which the Saint gave his name, to have consisted of monks in the Saint's age. Nor were others, as I think, who with Bucelin asserted the Saint's Benedictine monkhood, led by any other reason. But did the cathedral college of Paderborn in fact consist of monks in the age of Meinulphus? It would certainly have probably consisted of monks then, if from its very beginning — perhaps conjoined with the Saint's age, or at any rate not much preceding it — it had been instituted for monks; but that it was originally of clerics, not of monks, and was not transferred from these to those up to the time at which the Saint departed from the living, what is now to be said will make plain. That college took its beginning, as common opinion holds, either from Hathumar when already the first bishop of Paderborn, or before that holy prelate had been raised to this sacred dignity: if the former, I do not doubt that it was originally of clerics, not of monks; for Hathumar would have placed in his principal or cathedral church not monks but clerics, inasmuch as he himself was a cleric, taken from the clergy of Würzburg to the chair of Paderborn, as Ido the priest, who was nearly contemporary with Hathumar — or rather, from his relation, the anonymous Saxon author — teaches with us in volume V of July, in the History of the Translation of St. Liborius, page 415, number 7. But if it took its beginning before Hathumar entered the episcopate, even so it would originally have been of clerics, not monks.

[43] I show the matter thus: before the church of Paderborn obtained Hathumar, its first and certain bishop, or from Megingoz, Burchard's immediate successor in the see of Würzburg, the bishops of Würzburg administered it in a vicarious office up to the promotion of Hathumar, as is agreed among the learned and as Schaten proves in the Annales Paderbornenses under the year 785; who also teaches there that this vicarious administration of the diocese of Paderborn was first in the hands of St. Burchard, first bishop of Würzburg, led by the authority of Egilward, who, having comprised the Life of St. Burchard in writing, hands down to memory that he survived among the living up to the year 791: but since St. Burchard, as George Eckhart shows most clearly in book 23 of the Res Franciae Orientalis, number 143, closed his last day before St. Boniface, archbishop of Mainz, was taken from life by martyrdom in the year 754, or at any rate the following, he certainly could not have administered in the vicarious office of bishop the church of Paderborn, which was most certainly not erected before the year 772, in which Charlemagne first began the Saxon war. But Megingoz succeeded St. Burchard immediately in the see of Würzburg, and if that vicarious office be attributed to him, nothing unlike the truth will result.

[44] For Megingoz, as you will find proved in the aforesaid Eckhart, book 24 of the Res Franciae Orientalis, numbers 1 and 236, the church of Paderborn, either by himself or through Bernwelf, governed the diocese of Würzburg as prelate from the year 752 up to the year 785, in which he resigned it to Bernwelf; and the vicarious care of the church of Paderborn seems to have been committed to the bishops of Würzburg already from the year 780; for Gobelinus in the Cosmodromium, age 6, chapter 38, writes thus: Charles therefore erected a certain church at Paderborn, which he committed to the bishop of Würzburg to look after, until he could safely provide a bishop for that same place. And this church was begun in the year of the Lord seven hundred and eighty. Moreover, says Schaten in the Annales Paderbornenses, page 24, from an old Chronicle of Franconia, which Fr. John Gamans communicated to us, it is established that Bernwulf, successor of Megingaud and third bishop of Würzburg, was sent before his episcopate into Saxony and for some years administered the church of Paderborn in the vicarious office of bishop; so, almost word for word, Schaten in the place cited; and since Megingoz or Megingaud, as I have already taught, occupied the chair of Würzburg from the year 752 up to the year 785, and undoubtedly numbered Bernwelf among his clergy long before this latter year, that which is asserted here from the old Chronicle of Franconia concerning Bernwelf — that before the episcopate of Würzburg, conferred on him, from what has been said, in the year 785, he was sent from Würzburg into Saxony or Westphalia and discharged there for some years the vicarious office of bishop of Paderborn — was most probably brought about either by Megingoz's order or at least by his care; so that he then governed the church of Paderborn with vicarious care not indeed by himself but through Bernwelf, his immediate successor in the see of Würzburg.

[45] Now if a beginning was given to the cathedral college of Paderborn under Megingoz, by one little favourable to monks, governed in the vicarious office of bishop, it would nevertheless, even granting this, have originally been of clerics, not of monks. For although Mabillon and other Benedictine writers ascribe Megingoz or Megingaud, bishop of Würzburg, to their Order, yet whether he in fact was a monk while he was still acting as bishop of Würzburg is not in every respect certain (see Eckhart, already praised above more than once, book 24 of the Commentarii Franciae Orientalis, number 66 and following); nor, even if it were altogether certain, could anything on that account be inferred against us. For Megingoz sent into the Western region of Old Saxony, or Westphalia, to administer the diocese of Paderborn in the vicarious office of bishop, Bernwelf, who was not a monk but a cleric; yet he would probably have sent a monk if he had wished monks, not clerics, to be placed in the cathedral or principal church of that same diocese. Moreover Bernwelf, who by the order and in the name of Megingoz discharged the vicarious office of the diocese of Paderborn, was not only a cleric but also little favourable to monks, inasmuch as he ejected them (see in Mabillon, Saeculum III Benedictinum, part 1, page 715, Egilward in the Life of St. Burchard) from the principal or cathedral church of St. Kilian at Würzburg as soon as he had afterwards been made bishop of Würzburg; and since this is so, it appears little probable that he then gathered a college of monks at Paderborn. And indeed (see Schaten in the Annales Paderbornenses, page 25) the old Chronicle of Franconia cited above teaches not obscurely that Bernwelf by no means did this then, but established clerics in the principal church of Paderborn.

[46] [or finally you trace it from one of the two immediate successors of Megingoz, was of clerics,] But if further, on the ground that up to the year 785, in which Bernwelf entered upon the bishopric of Würzburg resigned to him by Megingoz, Westphalia, still too much disturbed by the commotions of war, does not seem to have given room for fixing a college, whether of clerics or of monks, at Paderborn, you deny credence to that ancient monument and will not have the cathedral college of canons at Paderborn begun under Megingoz by Bernwelf when not yet bishop, not even so will you prove that its beginning is to be traced from monks. For in the hypothesis, which we admit here for the moment, that the said college was first begun before the promotion of Hathumar to the episcopate, it is altogether necessary that the same college be held to have taken its beginning, if not under Megingoz, at least under Bernwelf when already bishop of Würzburg, or at any rate under one of his two immediate successors, who had already been snatched from life (see Eckhart in the Commentarii Franciae Orientalis, books 26 and 27) before the year 811, in which Hathumar had undoubtedly already been created bishop of Paderborn; and since all these, as is clear from Eckhart in the places just cited, were clerics, it will still remain that it was formed by its first author of clerics and not of monks; so that, whether it took its beginning before or after Hathumar entered the bishopric of Paderborn, it originally existed at any rate as a college of clerics, not of monks.

[47] and it remained so also in the Saint's age; he was not a professed monk, And Schaten judged this so consonant with the truth that in the Annales Paderbornenses, page 35, he did not hesitate to affirm that no indications or traces at all exist from which you could trace the origin of the church of Paderborn from monks; which Mabillon also seems to have acknowledged, inasmuch as he does not count the church of Paderborn among the cathedral churches of Germany which, in the Preface to the IIIrd Benedictine Century, § III, he contends were at the beginning occupied by Benedictine monks. Now since there is also nothing at all available from which you could suspect that the cathedral college of Paderborn — originally instituted for clerics, from what has been said, either by one of the three immediate successors of St. Burchard in the see of Würzburg, or by Hathumar, first bishop of Paderborn — was afterwards transferred to monks either by him or by his immediate successor Badurad, whom our Saint either preceded in death or certainly followed very closely; nay rather, since it does not appear credible that this was done either by Hathumar or by Badurad, even from this, that both, having been taken, as I taught above, from the clergy of Würzburg to the chair of Paderborn, were clerics; most probably indeed, if not certainly, the same college of Paderborn was of clerics, not of monks, both at the time when St. Meinulphus gave his name to it and throughout his whole age; and the Saint, therefore, as undoubtedly following the institute of the college he had joined, professed as a clerical canon, not a monastic canon. And indeed Mabillon too, in the IVth Benedictine Century, part 2, confesses not obscurely that the Saint was not a monk: for he there reports him among the Passed Over, and says: Meinulfus is inscribed in our Martyrology (he designates Ménard's) on the 5th day of October, although nothing is read in his Acts of his monastic profession.

[48] But now perhaps you will ask: did St. Meinulphus, then, profess as a canon Regular of St. Augustine? nor yet to the present-day canons Regular, The anonymous writer who made public the Chronicle of Böddeken mentioned at number 19, and also augmented it — which I did not mention there — with a few Annotations, suggests at page 124 this notice: The canons Regular of the Windesheim Congregation celebrate on the fifth of October, under the double rite, of St. Meinulphus, as of a Saint of the Order, together with other holy patrons of both Germanies, such as SS. Boniface, Rupert, Ulrich, Willibald, Kilian, Wolfgang, etc. The Saint, therefore, as appears from these words, is counted by the Regular canons of the Windesheim Congregation in their Order, called that of the canons Regular of St. Augustine. John Mauburnus, otherwise called John of Brussels from his birthplace, who was himself also a canon Regular of St. Augustine of the Windesheim Congregation, in the book marked with us ✠ Ms. 163, which he composed at the close of the fifteenth century and entitled the Venatorium of the Saints of the Order of Canons Regular, likewise attributes St. Meinulphus to his Order of canons Regular of St. Augustine in chapter 123, which is entitled Of saint Meynulphus, archdeacon of Paderborn, and in this matter also

has others assenting to him, all of whose names I do not here enumerate; but I now show that our Saint was not a canon Regular either, of the kind that those are at present who are called canons Regular of St. Augustine. Before the eighth century of the Christian era, the clerics or priests of churches were called Canons from the canon or register of the church in which they were inscribed, to be maintained from its stipends; but in the ninth century, in which our Saint died, nay already from the eighth, in which clerics first began, as far as could be done, to be gathered into congregations and a common life, they no longer received their name from that canon or register of the Church in which they were inscribed, but from the canon or Rule of life, woven together from the sacred canons and the writings of the holy Fathers, which was prescribed to them to be observed; as Thomassin shows in De veteri et nova Ecclesiae Disciplina, volume 1, book 3, chapters 8 and 9, chiefly from various councils held in the eighth and ninth centuries.

[49] inasmuch as in the ninth century, in which the Saint flourished, Further, all canons of this latter kind, as Thomassin also teaches there — of whom some lived within or beside the episcopal buildings under the bishop himself or another provost, others, who belonged to collegiate churches, either in the city outside the episcopal buildings or also in the country under a provost, and others finally in monasteries (for the buildings of all of them, no differently from those of monks, were also called monasteries) or cloisters under an abbot — used a common cloister, refectory and dormitory with their bishop or provost or abbot; and although they thus led a common life in cloisters, and there were also from time to time some of them who renounced their possessions and all temporal goods, yet each could retain his patrimony and other goods, nor were there any congregations of those canons which were bound by a vow of voluntary poverty, like the present-day canons Regular of St. Augustine. This is clear chiefly both in general from the councils held in the two centuries just mentioned, which nowhere mention any other canons than those to whom it was lawful to retain temporal goods and patrimony, and in particular from the council of Aachen, which was held in the year 816 under Louis the Pious, and which, in the Rule which it decreed was thenceforth to be observed by canons, divided into 145 chapters as into so many canons, pronounces thus universally concerning canons in canon or chapter 115: For although it is lawful for canons, since it is not read in the sacred canons that it is prohibited to them, to wear linen, to eat meat, to give and receive, to hold their own things and those of the Church with humility and justice — which is entirely forbidden to monks, who according to the Regular institution lead a stricter life — yet in avoiding vices and embracing virtues their life ought not to differ from that of monks; from which words it becomes plainly manifest that up to the council of Aachen, that is, up to the year 816, in which I said it was held, the possession of temporal things was not forbidden to canons by the sacred canons of the preceding councils; and since it is found to have been made illicit for them afterwards, while the ninth century was still running, by no way at all, it follows that in the VIIth and IXth centuries they did not profess the voluntary poverty to which the modern canons Regular of St. Augustine bind themselves.

[50] not yet to have flourished, Now since this is so, who would believe that the congregation of the canons of Paderborn, instituted, from what has been said, at the close of the eighth century or the beginning of the ninth, was in the ninth century bound by the profession of spontaneous poverty, and that the Saint therefore, inasmuch as he then lived among them, was a canon Regular of the kind that those at present are who are named Canons Regular of St. Augustine? And indeed, as regards our Saint in particular, that he was not bound to voluntary poverty, and therefore was not a canon according to the norm of the modern canons of St. Augustine, becomes clear even from this, that he built the monastery of Böddeken, as I shall teach below, on the land of his patrimony, and, having long been a canon, endowed it most generously from his own resources. Mauburnus, praised above, saw this, and hence says in the place cited there that it cannot be argued against the spontaneous poverty of St. Meinulphus from the construction of the monastery of Böddeken made by him on the proper land of his patrimony, because he did not put his hand to that holy work without the permission of his bishop. I confess the Saint did not do it without the previous permission of his bishop; but did he seek it for this reason, that without obtaining it it would have been unlawful for him to dispose of his patrimony and other temporal goods? That Mauburnus, who reasons thus, must have thought so; but how this opinion of his can be proved I do not sufficiently see. For since it is not open to anyone to build monasteries anew against the will or without the assent of the bishops of the places, why could it not have come about from this cause alone that the Saint requested from the bishop of Paderborn, to whom that place was subject, the permission to found a monastery at Böddeken? Moreover, is it then lawful for a modern canon Regular of St. Augustine to retain for himself the ownership of his patrimony and other temporal goods, under this condition, that he not dispose of them without the consent of his Superiors?

[51] That indeed does not appear; and therefore, even if I granted whatever you may also against this that the Saint, when already a canon, had only an ownership of his things bound in this way, as they say, it would not follow on that account that he was a canon such as the present-day canons Regular of St. Augustine are. Nor may you here now object William, elected bishop of Paderborn in the year 1400, and Gobelinus Persona; of whom the former, in the letters by which, as found in Gobelinus, Cosmodromium, age 6, chapter 90, he transfers the convent of Böddeken to John Wael, Prior of the monastery of canons Regular at Zwolle, in the year 1409, speaks thus: Meinolphus, the aforesaid founder of the same monastery (of Böddeken), is believed to have been a professor of that religion (of canons Regular); while the latter intimates in the Cosmodromium, age 6, chapter 64, that the cathedral canons of the church of Paderborn were Regulars up to Bernard IV, of the counts of Lippe, created bishop of Paderborn in the thirteenth century. For since William was elected bishop of Paderborn only in the fifteenth century, no prudent man will be persuaded that St. Meinulphus, deceased already from the ninth century, was a canon Regular on the ground that it was so believed in the age of William, bishop of Paderborn; and as for what now pertains to Gobelinus Persona, since in his age, that is, as the fourteenth century was growing old and the fifteenth beginning, there existed very many congregations of canons who were called canons Regular, perhaps this writer judged that the congregation of the older canons of Paderborn, who flourished up to the thirteenth century, consisted, no differently from those, of canons Regular, perversely transferring the custom or institute of his own time to the custom or institute of earlier times; so that there is no reason why we should detain ourselves much here over him, who is moreover too remote from the matter he records.

[52] But if this displeases, since at the end of the fifteenth century, you should object here, is known, in which and at the beginning of the following Gobelinus flourished, the canons of Paderborn, then living a private life and inhabiting separate houses, went under the name of secular canons, perhaps this author, seeing that thus these and those could fittingly be distinguished, spoke of the older canons of Paderborn, who preceded the fourteenth century, as of canons Regular, with regard had, not indeed to the Rule which present-day Regular canons profess, but to the Rule of Aachen, woven together in the year 816 from the sacred canons and the writings of the holy Fathers, according to whose prescription those ancient canons of Paderborn had passed a common life in the cloister, yet without renouncing their patrimony and other temporal things. Certainly the very words supplied by him in the place just cited do not prevent Gobelinus from admitting this last interpretation, and so that anyone may perceive this, I transcribe them here. They run thus: Under this Bernard (the IVth bishop of Paderborn of this name) Regular observance still flourished in the church of Paderborn among the canons of that same church, and under him a change seems to have been made from Regular observance to the state of secular canons. Thus Gobelinus, who, since he perhaps committed these words to writing only in the sense just given, by no means opposes the opinion by which we judge that the canons of Paderborn in the ninth century, and therefore our Saint, as one of them at that time, were not canons Regular.

[53] state of life, but lived as a canon according to the Rule of Aachen Nor, if he did oppose it, would he compel us to think otherwise, since he is a writer only of a later age, whose authority could by no means outweigh the reasons adduced above in support of our case. For the rest, from all that has now been said here it is easy to gather that the canons of Paderborn of the ninth century, and therefore Meinulphus, were not of that kind of clerics either which has at present obtained the name of secular canons; for these, given to a private life, inhabit for the most part each a different house, nor do they pass their life according to any certain and fixed Rule; whereas the canons of Paderborn of the ninth century, and among them St. Meinulphus, led a common life according to the prescription of the sacred canons, in one and the same cloister or monastery, although not bound to the abdication of temporal goods. But, you will say, if these things are so, it follows that they were neither canons Regular nor secular. I confess it is so; nay rather, they were not even named canons Regular or secular, which I now show, as also what kind of canons they were. Since the Rule which the council of Aachen, held under Louis the Pious, prescribed to be observed thenceforth by canons took its beginning in the year 816, about which the Saint gave himself to the canonical life, the canons of Paderborn, and therefore St. Meinulphus, most probably, not to say undoubtedly, observed it throughout that whole space of the ninth century in which he lived among them, and thus were canons living in common according to the Rule of Aachen.

[54] He lived as a canon. Further, clerics who passed their life according to this Rule in the ninth century were called neither Regular nor Secular canons, but simply, without addition (see Corbinian Khamm, Hierarchia Augustana, part 3, prodromus, Observation I), Canons; and indeed not without reason, inasmuch as they differed very much from canons Regular in the ownership or possession of temporal goods, and from secular canons in the fellowship of the common life in cloisters or monasteries. And so I have now defined what kind of state of life was undertaken by the Saint; and further, in order that the studious reader may also at least in some way learn, from the ancient monastery of this kind at Paderborn, what and of what kind were those cloisters or monasteries once inhabited by canons living in common, I transcribe here the words which Schaten supplies concerning it in the Annales Paderbornenses, printed, as I have already noted, in the year 1693, page 34. They run thus: There exists to this day (at Paderborn) a magnificent building in a square, set around the choir of the basilica, whether it was built by Hathumar and Badurad, or more splendidly after the fire, according to the first form of the college, by Rhotar and Meinwerk (Rhothar succeeded here in the see of Paderborn in the year 1009). Round about in the lower part

are peristyles, in the middle the cemetery of the clerics, above are the cells of those who slept and devoted themselves to letters and studies, each separated in its own lodging. And I know not whether anywhere there are more illustrious or more certain traces of clerics once living in common. Thus Schaten; and content now to have added these words, in a way as a corollary, to the other things disputed concerning the state of life which the Saint followed, I put an end to this §.

§ IV. The Saint resolves to found a monastery; whether he also bound himself to it by a vow, and whether he was ever archdeacon of the church of Paderborn.

The Saint resolved to build a monastery; The virtue which the Saint, while he had not yet forsaken the world, had by no means neglected even in his tender years, he cultivated most zealously once enrolled in the cathedral college of the canons of Paderborn; and when he had already made no small progress in it under Badurad, second bishop of the church of Paderborn, by whom, from what has been said, he had been co-opted into this college, it came about, by God's inspiration, that the same Badurad — in whose affections Meinulphus was, and to whom he clung as an assiduous companion — among other questions which he was accustomed from time to time to propose in common, happened to inquire what Christ meant by these words in Matthew, chapter 8: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests: but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head; and when one of the bystanders had answered that the dwelling of our heart is always most earnestly sought by our Saviour, and yet, the approach to it being shut off by our sins, is not obtained, and that Christ in Matthew complains of this, the Saint, hearing these things, moved beyond what can be said that Christ knocks in vain at the door of our heart, groaned heavily; and in order that that divine complaint might at least not fall upon himself, he resolved not only to give place to Christ in his heart, excluding even every slightest sin, but also to build a monastery in which the Lord, as in a seat more sacred to Him, might dwell perpetually among persons singularly devoted to His service and to purity of life. So, almost in substance, Sigeward, the Saint's older biographer, intimates at number XI and following, adding afterwards how St. Meinulphus later also carried into execution what he had piously resolved; but did he not, before doing so, also bind himself by a vow to that sacred work?

[56] Badurad, prelate of the church of Paderborn, obtained from Aldric, prelate of Le Mans, the sacred remains of St. Liborius, bishop of Le Mans in Gaul, he is narrated also to have bound himself to it by a vow; which are to this day held in great veneration among the people of Paderborn; and they were translated to Paderborn by the envoys whom he had sent to Le Mans, in the year 836, with the greatest solemnity and pomp, as is admitted among all. The History of this Translation, together with the miracles performed during it, was committed to writing by those whom Bolland reviews with us in volume V of July, in the Commentary prefixed to the Acts of St. Liborius, numbers 14 and 15: Ido the priest — or rather an anonymous Saxon writer, from Notices received from him partly by word of mouth, partly in writing — and another, who was of Le Mans, likewise an anonymous writer. To these, further, Gobelinus, in the Cosmodromium as it exists in both Meiboms, age 6, chapter 41, also adds Erconrad, deacon of the church of Le Mans. The words with which he does so there, although they have already been recited above together with some others, I transcribe here again now, because they come to be weighed more accurately here. In the XXIVth year, therefore, he says, of Louis (the Pious, emperor), saint Liborius was translated from the city of Le Mans in Gaul, in which he himself had once been bishop, to Paderborn in Westphalia, Aldric ruling the church of Le Mans and Badurad that of Paderborn… And Erconrad, deacon of the church of Le Mans, writes the same miracles (performed at the translation of St. Liborius), as he testifies that he saw them. And he himself writes that the envoys of bishop Badurad, sent to Le Mans for the reception of the holy relics, were chiefly Folodag, advocate of bishop Badurad, Meinulphus the archdeacon, Adelbert the priest, Aldric the deacon and Drudwin the subdeacon; and that Meinulphus in the church of saint Vincent at Le Mans vowed to found a monastery of nuns in honour of blessed Mary and saint Liborius in the place which is called Bodicon. Thus Gobelinus: and since Erconrad, whom he here mentions, was himself present at the translation of St. Liborius, and could therefore have known perfectly the things done during it, it certainly seems not to be doubted that St. Meinulphus also bound himself by a vow to found a monastery, and that at Le Mans, whither he had been sent by Badurad to obtain the relics of St. Liborius — provided only that Erconrad, deacon of the church of Le Mans, did in actual fact commit to writing what the words just recited contain.

[57] but this narration, which perhaps is not Erconrad's, But whether the history of the translation of St. Liborius, together with the miracles seen by him, which Erconrad, deacon of Le Mans, is reported to have written, is extant, has not been ascertained by us; and it can also not without reason be called into doubt whether Erconrad truly wrote it. For although Gobelinus in both Meiboms most clearly praises him as one who did so, in the words of the Cosmodromium just recited, yet the reasons produced above at number 15 and the two following make it most probable that these words are not to be attributed to Gobelinus; and it also appears that these reasons are not weakened — contrary to what someone may perhaps contend — by the fact that Krantz and the author of the Paderborn Chronicle praised at number 16, which exists with us in manuscript, both of whom are known to have used the Gobelinian Cosmodromium very much, the former in the Metropolis, book 1, chapter 28, the latter in chapter 9 of his Work, hand down to memory exactly the same things as Gobelinus in both Meiboms, in the place of the Cosmodromium just cited, concerning the embassy of St. Meinulphus to the city of Le Mans and the vow uttered there. For why could it not have come about that those two writers did so solely because the copies of the Gobelinian Cosmodromium which they used, no differently from the others which lighted the way for both Meiboms, had all been augmented by an addition made from elsewhere to the genuine text of Gobelinus in the manner which you may see set forth at number 15? Now since this is so, the reasons for which I think the words of the Gobelinian Cosmodromium just transcribed here are to be denied to Gobelinus are by no means weakened by Krantz and the author of the Paderborn Chronicle, and it therefore remains that these words are most probably not Gobelinus's.

[58] But then, you will ask, who at last is their author? He is in no way at all known to me, since the genuine Life of the Saint, written by Sigeward, and hence it comes about that he does not by his sole authority make it undoubted that the history of the translation of St. Liborius was written by Erconrad, as he indicates by those words; especially since no writers at all who flourished before the composition of the Cosmodromium by Gobelinus are found to make mention of any composition of this kind prepared by Erconrad, and he himself perhaps drew what he records on this matter only from untrustworthy and faulty notices. Hence, further, it now follows that it is also doubtful whether Erconrad ever narrated the embassy of St. Meinulphus to the city of Le Mans and the pronouncing of the vow concerning founding a monastery — which, however, if those same words are to be believed, he undoubtedly did. However that may be, this narration — so that you may doubt still more whether it has Erconrad for its author — appears suspect of falsity from this, that no mention at all of the vow made by the Saint at Le Mans occurs, contrary to what is done in it, in the genuine and older Life of Meinulphus written by Sigeward, who nevertheless, had that deed of the Saint taken place, seems as one who would not have been ignorant of it, and, knowing it, would not have passed it over when he sets forth the manner and occasion in which Meinulphus built the monastery. But while I commit these things to writing, I find Nicholas Schaten opposing us here.

[59] For in his Annales Paderbornenses under the year 837 he writes in this manner: such as that which lighted Schaten's way, Moreover in this year, since the Christian cause was proceeding most happily in Saxony through the earnest zeal and fervour of the bishops, St. Menulphus undertook to found the monastery of Böddeken, with the work and help of our monks of Corvey, his vow especially urging him, which he had conceived in the previous year at the translation of St. Liborius, at Le Mans in the church of St. Vincent. John Probus (undoubtedly the same of whom here at number 19), canon of Böddeken and author of the Life (namely of St. Meinulphus, of whose deeds, however, he touched on only a few), carries the beginnings of this monastery back to the year of Christ DCCCXVII (namely in part 1, chapter 1 of his Work, mentioned here at number 19); this is probable, since in the previous year Menulphus is recorded to have obtained from the emperor, as we have said, at the council of Aachen the permission to build a monastery; yet because Sigeward, who wrote the Life of St. Menulphus after others, as he admits, and dedicated it to Albinus his teacher, affirms that this was done only after the return from Gaul, it has pleased us to refer these things to this year. This author is certain to us above others, the archetype of whose Life of St. Menolphus we received from the Abdinghof library. For what is attributed to Gobelinus as writer, or what Brower has, is contracted from this author. Using him, therefore, we give these things in full faith. But who that Albinus is, to whom he dedicates this writing, is as yet unknown to us. Thus far Schaten, indicating not obscurely that before the building of the monastery of Böddeken was begun, both the journey into Gaul to obtain the relics of St. Liborius was undertaken by our Saint and the vow to found a monastery was pronounced at Le Mans; and alleging in proof of this Sigeward, the older biographer of St. Meinulphus, the archetype of whose composition (he means not the autograph itself written by the author's own hand, but only, as I think, a very ancient copy of it) he says he received from the Abdinghof library.

[60] perhaps was not, But what if we should say that an error crept upon Schaten here, by which he thought he had read in the Sigewardine Life of the Saint what he had found elsewhere? It seems permissible indeed to suspect so from this, that since Overham likewise received the Sigewardine Life of the Saint which he edited from a very ancient copy of the Abdinghof library, this perhaps was not different from the copy or archetype which Schaten says he used; and yet, as I have already taught, it makes no mention of a journey undertaken by the Saint into Gaul or of a vow pronounced there. But if this displeases, and you require something more than a suspicion before you will not stand with Schaten, I now show that the copy of the Sigewardine composition used by Schaten, if it was in actual fact such as this writer makes it, is more probably to be held as interpolated, or, if you prefer, as augmented by an addition which came to it from a hand by no means the original. Mention of the embassy undertaken by the Saint and of the vow uttered is absent not only from the Life edited by Overham and here to be reprinted, but also from the Hardehausen copy of the same, which, as I noted above, exists in manuscript with us. Moreover it is absent also from the Life which has Gobelinus for its author, as also from that which Brower wove into his Sidera Germaniae; and since of these two Lives Gobelinus the first,

and Brower the second, drew up after the same Sigewardine Life of the Saint, though not by one method, and accurately expressed absolutely all the facts which they found in the copies of it that they used, mention of the embassy undertaken by Meinulphus and of the vow pronounced will have been absent from these too; so that we now have at the least four copies of the Sigewardine composition lacking it. Now since he who should pronounce all these truncated and mutilated because they do not mention the embassy undertaken by the Saint and the vow pronounced would seem to depart further from the appearance of truth than he who should hold the one copy of the same Sigewardine composition which lighted Schaten's way to be interpolated, or augmented by an addition concerning the Saint's embassy and the pronouncing of the vow, it certainly appears more probable that the copy which Schaten used was infected with this blemish.

[61] does not sufficiently agree, as neither with the History of the translation Since this is so, there surely remains — or at any rate, whatever Schaten may write, it appears very like the truth — what I asserted above: that nowhere in the genuine Life of our Saint, pure and unstained by additions, which Sigeward wrote, is mention made of the embassy undertaken by the Saint into Gaul and of the vow pronounced there; and that the narration conceived in the words transcribed here at number 56 is therefore rendered suspect of falsity by the fact that it commemorates both that journey and the vow. Further — which makes its credit waver still more — this narration also does not sufficiently agree with the History of the translation of St. Liborius, or, if you prefer, with its author, the contemporary anonymous Saxon. For he, who is very much praised, and not without reason, for his accuracy, hands down to memory thus of Badurad, bishop of Paderborn, in chapter 3, number 10 (see our Work, volume V of July, page 418): To him, therefore (Aldric, bishop of Le Mans), with the consent and command of the emperor Louis (namely surnamed the Pious), he chose messengers to be dispatched (to obtain the sacred relics): of his own clergy, approved persons leading a religious life in sacred orders; and also certain noble laymen, whose faith and industry he knew to be suitable for such a work. Of the clerics, however, to whom this business was entrusted, the chief was a certain priest, Ido by surname, who caused the whole history of his journey, and the signs which he had perceived to be divinely shown in it, to come to our knowledge, partly intimated by word of mouth, partly briefly noted in writing.

[62] Thus he, making the priest Ido most plainly the chief of all the clerics History of St. Liborius, and it is therefore concluded to be doubtful, whom he reports were sent by Badurad to Le Mans to obtain the sacred remains of the Saint from Aldric, bishop of Le Mans; but although (see number 14 of this Commentary) the narration whose credit we are disputing here relates that a certain cleric of the church of Paderborn, named Ido, committed to writing the miracles which he had seen at the translation of St. Liborius, and thus seems to mention the same priest Ido whom the author of the translation of St. Liborius mentions in the words recited, yet it by no means counts him — whom it nevertheless also intimates not obscurely to have been present at the translation of St. Liborius — among those clerics and laymen whom it reports to have been the chief of the envoys sent by Badurad to Le Mans; so that it certainly seems here not sufficiently to agree, not to say to be altogether opposed, to the author of the History of the translation of St. Liborius, who, as I have already taught, most clearly makes the priest Ido chief of the clerics sent by Badurad to Le Mans for obtaining the relics. Now since this is so, and since moreover it is very suspect of falsity from many things said even before, whatever it hands down to memory, whether concerning Erconrad, deacon of Le Mans, as having written the History of the translation of St. Liborius, or concerning St. Meinulphus, as having been sent by Badurad as envoy to Le Mans and having pronounced a vow there, is surely to be held as reported on doubtful and uncertain credit.

[63] Further, just as it is doubtful, for the reasons adduced above, whether the Saint undertook an embassy on behalf of Badurad his bishop to the city of Le Mans such also appears and pronounced there a vow to found a monastery, so, for almost the same reasons, it appears to be questioned whether he was archdeacon of the church or bishop of Paderborn; for although the same narration, concerning which much has already been disputed (see again the words transcribed here at number 14), names St. Meinulphus archdeacon, yet, just as the ancient writers who flourished before the composition of the Cosmodromium by Gobelinus make no mention of the vow uttered by him at Le Mans during the embassy, so they do not mention the archdeaconry he held either; nor does our biographer Sigeward himself, older still, who nevertheless, had the Saint ever truly been archdeacon, seems as one who would not have passed this over in silence. For in the second Prologue or Proem of his composition he writes thus: By the favour of the grace of the Holy Spirit, we are about to write the Life of saint Mainulfus the Levite, for the hope and example of Levites, nay also of priests themselves, who will greatly exult in rendering the account of their priesthood if they have lived in emulation of this Deacon. Thus Sigeward; by which he indicates not obscurely that St. Meinulphus was not a priest but only a deacon, meanwhile making no mention at all, neither here nor elsewhere, of an archdeaconry held by him besides; and although, as may be seen in Thomassin, volume 1 of De Veteri et Nova Ecclesiae Disciplina, book 2, chapter 19 and following, in the eighth and ninth centuries, that is, in the age of St. Meinulphus, it was still not priests but only deacons who could be raised to the dignity of the archdeaconry — so that it cannot be argued that the Saint was not honoured with this from the fact that he never ascended to the grade of the priesthood — yet since even then archdeacons, as Thomassin likewise teaches there, were in a way the vicars of the bishops and coadjutors in the ministry incumbent upon them, and moreover wielded the highest authority over parish priests, deans and archpriests themselves, I know not whether it can seem sufficiently probable that Sigeward, in the place just cited, where he proposes Meinulphus as an example to archdeacons as he does to deacons and priests, would not have made even a tacit mention of so ample an office held by the Saint, if it had ever been held by him.

[64] the Saint's archdeaconry. However the matter stands, I would not dare to hold the Saint's archdeaconry as certain, when Sigeward and all the ancient writers who flourished before Gobelinus keep deep silence about it; especially since absolutely all the sacred Fasti reviewed above in which St. Meinulphus is inscribed adorn him only with the title of deacon. Gobelinus indeed, older than almost all those Fasti, expressly calls our Saint archdeacon in the Cosmodromium, age 6, chapter 40; but this writer flourished more than five centuries after Meinulphus, and he is quite often caught straying in matters from which he was distant by so great a space of time. Nor is there any reason why you should here call to your aid the old Breviaries, whether of Paderborn or of Böddeken; for all are later than Gobelinus, and, as it appears, make our Saint archdeacon of the church of Paderborn solely on the credit of this writer; which is also nearly to be said of the more recent writers, if any of them perhaps with our Schaten call the Saint archdeacon. Meanwhile Overham in his Observations on the Life of Meinulphus, Mabillon in the place cited above, and not a few others who have treated of the Saint within more recent memory, cautiously abstain from this title, most probably judging that they should do so because they did not hold his archdeaconry as undoubted. And to these, to put an end now to this question, there seems not undeservedly able to be added also the most serene prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Ferdinand von Fürstenberg, bishop of Münster and Paderborn, who died in the year 168[ ]. For this prelate, most devoted to letters, praised above, in the inscription added to the imperial coins which he first caused to be struck with the Saint's image, on the testimony of Overham in the Observations just cited again, page 417, inscribes our Saint only as deacon; and he would most probably not have spared the title of archdeacon here, if he had believed that he had certainly been raised to this dignity.

§ V. He founds the monastery of Böddeken; how and when he did so, and virgins of what institute he placed in it.

The Saint in doubt about the place in which to found the monastery, Having shown in the preceding § that to the purpose or intense desire of founding a monastery which St. Meinulphus had conceived in his mind there most probably was not added any vow pronounced by him at Le Mans, it is next that I now set forth how and when he carried that purpose or plan of his into execution. Although the Saint undoubtedly desired most earnestly to see the monastery which he had resolved to found raised from its foundations as soon as possible, yet he did not immediately put his hand to the work, because he remained for some while doubtful and uncertain in what place he should set it. So Sigeward, our older biographer, teaches at number 12; with him Gobelinus too agrees in the Life of the Saint, number 12, but not so Schaten in the Annales Paderbornenses. For this latter writer, in whose opinion St. Meinulphus vowed at Le Mans that he would carry out at Böddeken the plan of founding a monastery long before conceived, subjoins that hesitation or perplexity of mind to the pronouncing of this vow, following the interpolated Sigewardine Life of our Saint concerning which see the preceding §; which is the second discrepancy intervening between him and Sigeward, by whom, however, it appears that we must stand here. But whatever this be, both at any rate agree in asserting the Saint's hesitation or perplexity of mind about the place in which the monastery was to be built, as also in relating the manner in which the divine benignity freed him from it.

[66] And this Schaten sets forth in the Annales Paderbornenses, page 112 and following, in these words: he is narrated to have learned it by a miracle; The shepherd whom (saint Meinulphus) had for his flocks in the fields of his patrimony, while he watched over the flock by night, saw the place in which the monastery (namely of Böddeken) is, lit up with the splendour of a wonderful light; and while he approached more curiously to explore the matter, he beheld a herd of hinds now standing like a sacred choir, now circling the place. Struck by this unwonted spectacle, he hastened to Menulphus and related what he had seen. He, hearing this, at once came into the thought, as he was, that the place was being divinely shown to him in which he should set the monastery; and joyfully he approached bishop Badurad; and while he set these things before him, "Not vain to us," said the bishop, "are these things, since through shepherds too God announced things still more august at the birth of His Son." But since in matters of this kind the demon has often been found to put on the angel of light for the deluding of men, he held it advisable to explore the indication more certainly. To this end Menulphus, led by the shepherd to the place, spending the night there lying on the ground in prayer, saw the place again surrounded both by the splendour of light and by the herd of hinds, and in the manner in which the shepherd had seen it before. Now Menulphus, much more joyful, returned to the Pontiff and related afresh what he himself had seen. Yet the bishop, not trusting these things, ordered the truth of the matter to be explored by a threefold sign. Complying with this, Menulphus again spent the night nearby in prayers; and again the same appearance as before of the hinds, with the brightness of light, was presented. When he reported this to the pontiff, "Doubt nothing, Menulphus," he said, "the place is by heavenly

signs sufficiently shown to you; wherefore set about the work."

[67] Thus he, comprising in a compendium all those things which Sigeward, having Gobelinus here too agreeing with him, yet of the truth of this and of two other miracles narrates in a more prolix discourse at number 13 and the three following. But since Sigeward was distant by at least about two centuries from the foundation of the monastery of Böddeken made by our Saint, and the older author from whom he drew his material was not contemporary with it either, I do not know whether the miracle by which Meinulphus is narrated in the words recited to have learned divinely the place for building the monastery will find credence, on the sole authority of Sigeward and of the older writer who lighted his way, on which it rests, among absolutely all the learned; some of whom, however pious and religious, are accustomed to hold almost as fictions, invented solely to render the origins of monasteries more illustrious, the miracles which are reported to have accompanied their foundations or constructions and yet are not found grounded in contemporary writers or monuments of undoubted credit. For the same cause I doubt whether the same learned men will admit as true two other miracles related by Sigeward at numbers 18, 19 and 20, by one of which the Saint, when he had already obtained from the emperor the permission he had sought to build a monastery in the place prodigiously shown to him, divinely received sacred relics of Saints to be placed in the church of the monastery to be built; by the other he beheld a stag bearing between its horns the sign of the Lord's Cross, shining with a wonderful splendour, in that very place where afterwards the principal altar of the monastery of Böddeken was erected. As for me, although indeed it is not my mind to decry as certainly false all the miracles now mentioned, which would have rendered the beginnings of the monastery of Böddeken very illustrious, yet I would not dare to hold them as undoubtedly true either, however much they are related in the places already cited by Sigeward himself, the older biographer of St. Meinulphus.

[68] is not established in every respect. I am so disposed chiefly for this reason, that since the old writer whom Sigeward followed was distant from the age of our Saint (see what has already been said at number 10) by at least about a century, and is not known to have used due discrimination in writing, I think it must be questioned whether he did not, too credulous, receive them solely from a tradition or report current among the people, which is by no means fitted to create credence for miracles; which, because they happen rather rarely, and because the ignorant common folk, carried away preposterously by the love of marvels, once believed much more easily than was fitting that things fabricated by impostors had nevertheless happened, are almost suspect, or at any rate to be held as not undoubted, unless they rest on documents or writers of credit approved in every respect and known — such as popular tradition certainly is not. Nor is there any reason why, when I say this, you should bring forward in favour of the miracles related by Sigeward here in question the old letters of the monastery of Böddeken to be transcribed here below, and, as it appears, also cited in the privilege of William, bishop of Paderborn, to be recited here at number 104 and following, in which St. Meinulphus is asserted to have founded the monastery of Böddeken instructed by the prompting of divine revelation and by a heavenly vision; for since these letters also have at the end that the ordinance introduced into the monastery of Böddeken by St. Meinulphus while he lived still stood for several years after he had died, it is clear that they were written long after the Saint's death; and it therefore seems possible to doubt whether they themselves are not even later than the age either of Sigeward or at least of the old writer who lighted Sigeward's way; whence it follows that they contribute little to winning undoubted credence for those miracles, which, lacking a contemporary and coeval surety, are with the greatest difficulty to be believed.

[69] The monastery of Böddeken, not however, as Mabillon determined, But whatever at last be the case with these things, it is certain and placed beyond all controversy that the Saint carried into execution at Böddeken the purpose of founding a monastery which he had conceived in his mind; for so testify both our two biographers, Sigeward and Gobelinus, and all the ancient monuments that touch the foundation of the monastery of Böddeken; nor do I find one of the writers, whether old or more recent, who either denies the thing or calls it into doubt. But there is far from being the same agreement among them as regards the time at which the Saint did it. Mabillon, in the Annales Benedictini, book 35, number 80, assigns the year 860, and Sigismund Calles, priest of our Society, assents to him in volume 3 of the Annales Ecclesiastici Germaniae, which he published in print at Vienna in Austria in the year 1757, writing thus at page 428: Concerning the convent of virgins of Böddeken or Bodickheim in the diocese of Paderborn, one must assent to Mabillon, who refers its origins to this year (namely 860), no mention having been made of the founder. Thus he; but why does he pronounce that one must here assent to Mabillon? Is it because this author proves by solid arguments that the monastery of Böddeken began to be built in the year 860? But he adduces none. Is it perhaps because it was established from elsewhere to the praised author of the Annales Ecclesiastici Germaniae that the year 860 is rightly assigned by Mabillon? But he himself neither declares this, nor would I easily believe it: for what Sigeward, our older biographer — than whom, as I have already noted, we have no better writer treating of the Saint, and by whom therefore, when nothing stands in the way, we must stand — hands down to memory concerning the construction of the monastery of Böddeken seems necessarily to require that it certainly began to be founded before the year 860.

[70] I show the matter thus: that a beginning was given to the monastery of Böddeken not long after the vision mentioned here at number 66 in the words of Schaten, in the year thrice repeated, by which St. Meinulphus learned divinely the place fitted for founding a monastery, the older Life of the Saint composed by Sigeward indicates not obscurely, as anyone who unrolls it from number 17 to number 22 will easily discover. Moreover, the same Life, or Sigeward, notes at number 15 that St. Meinulphus, when that vision had first been presented to his shepherd or swineherd, made partaker of it the aforesaid pontiff, that is, Badurad, bishop of Paderborn, inasmuch as he had previously made mention of him alone as pontiff; so that it appears manifest from Sigeward that the monastery of Böddeken most probably began to be built while Badurad was governing the church of Paderborn. Now in the Annals of an anonymous monk of Corvey, which Christian Franz Paullini made public from a manuscript in the year 1698, under the year 859 Badurad, or, as it is also written by others, Bathurat, bishop of Paderborn, is recorded as dead in these words: Our neighbour bishop Bathurat has died. May he rest in peace. And George von Eckhart thought this epoch of Badurad's death so certain from the praised Annals that in his Commentarii de Rebus Franciae Orientalis, book 31, number 53, he pronounced thus: Schaten is uncertain concerning the year of the death of Baduradus, bishop of Paderborn, yet he conjectures from the events that it is to be referred to the year of Christ DCCCLIX. That he did not stray from the truth the Annals of Corvey prove, in which is read: "DCCCLIX. Our neighbour bishop Bathuradus has died. May he rest in peace. Luithehard the Saxon succeeded." The author of the Catalogue of the bishops of Paderborn, published in print as the past century was inclining to its end, and Sigismund Calles himself — though meanwhile, from what has been said, he here ties the origins of the monastery of Böddeken to the year 860 — likewise record the death of Badurad, bishop of Paderborn, under the year 859; and indeed, on account of the authority of the Annals of Corvey, Badurad seems to have been taken from the living in no other year than this; so that it is therefore necessary that the monastery of Böddeken, as one to which, as we have already seen from Sigeward, a beginning was given while this prelate sat, began to be built before the year 860.

[71] However, since the Annals of Corvey were not composed earlier than the advanced fifteenth century, 160, as the praised Paullini proves in his preliminary Notice to them, and since hence it will perhaps come about that they do not make it undoubted to everyone, as they do to Eckhart, that Badurad departed from the living in the year 859, I show by yet another argument that the origins of the monastery of Böddeken are to be placed before the year 860, nay even before the year 841. Although St. Meinulphus had already been divinely taught the place in which he should found the monastery, yet together with Badurad, bishop of Paderborn, he held it advisable not to begin the sacred edifice before he had obtained permission to do so from the prince to whom the bishopric of Paderborn, and so also the village of Böddeken, was then subject. So Sigeward teaches most clearly at number 17, subjoining afterwards in the four next following numbers also things by which he discloses not obscurely that St. Meinulphus put his hand to the work not long after that permission had been sought and obtained. But who, and of what kind, was the prince from whom the Saint obtained the permission to erect a monastery at Böddeken? In order that this may become plain, the words which Sigeward supplies in the place just cited are to be considered; they run thus: These things being thus accomplished, B. Mainulfus, and at the same time the bishop, incited by the faith of the vision divinely given, nevertheless decided to yield to the royal authority, humbly fulfilling that precept: "Be ye subject to every human creature for God's sake." For they knew that flight leads to the vice of fault if it lacks art. For if this monastery were built without the king's command, perhaps suspicion would arise in some that those were not lawful builders of monasteries who became despisers of the vicar of God, that is, of the king. That this might not happen, B. Mainulfus asked the emperor for a charter of testament; which, having asked, he received, namely sealed with the ring of the king himself, and, having received it, brought it back with him. Thus the Saint's older biographer, calling the prince whom St. Meinulphus approached to obtain permission to found the monastery both king and emperor; so that the prince whom Westphalia then obeyed was most probably adorned with the imperial dignity. Now since it is established that Westphalia obeyed the emperor Louis the Pious from the year 814 — in which the monastery of Böddeken was certainly not yet founded — up to the year 840, and from this year up to the year 876, by which Meinulphus had long since died, Louis king of Germany, son of Louis the Pious, who was never emperor, it follows that the Saint obtained the permission to build the monastery from the emperor Louis the Pious; and therefore that the monastery of Böddeken, inasmuch as, from what has been said, it began to be built not long after this permission was given to Meinulphus, took its beginning under Louis the Pious, and so before the year 841, by which this prince had already died.

[72] nor either, as Baronius and others, from the permission to found a monastery, Let us now proceed to discuss the other epochs which are assigned by other writers to the foundation of the monastery of Böddeken. Ferdinand, bishop of Paderborn, in order to refute the narration conceived in the words transcribed here at number 14 and again at number 56, in so far as in it St. Meinulphus is reported to have pronounced, at the translation of St. Liborius made in the year 836, a vow to found a monastery at Böddeken, writes in the Monumenta Paderbornensia, page 220 and following, in this manner: No mention … is made of this vow pronounced at Le Mans in the Life of St. Menolphus which is extant and which Gobelinus himself wrote. Nay, what seems to oppose this narration is that St. Menolphus, already before he was sent as envoy to Le Mans (this embassy of the Saint is no less uncertain

than the vow which is here called into doubt, as appears from what was said above at number 58 and the three following) went, approached the emperor Louis the Pious, at the persuasion of bishop Badurad, in the year DCCCXVI at Aachen in the Provincial council, to obtain from him permission to build a monastery; and that Louis, accepting his petition with a grateful mind, graciously granted letters sealed with his seal concerning his consent. Thus the praised bishop of Paderborn, citing also Baronius for himself, and deservedly indeed: for he, in his Ecclesiastical Annals under the year 816, hands down to memory thus: In this third year of Louis (namely the Pious, emperor), it is established that a provincial assembly was held by him at Aachen, and the Acts of his life written by Gobelinus have it that in it saint Meinulphus received licence to build a monastery for Virgins, canonesses Regular. That the Saint, therefore, already from the year 816 obtained from the emperor Louis the Pious at Aachen, in the provincial council, the permission to build a monastery, both Baronius and Ferdinand, bishop of Paderborn, judged. And with these too agree Severin Binius in his Notes on this council and Overham in the Observations on the Sigewardine Life of our Saint; and both, no differently from Baronius and Ferdinand, bishop of Paderborn, praise in support of their case the Acts of our Saint written by Gobelinus.

[73] But if one must further assent to these four writers, which, from Gobelinus misunderstood, to Meinulphus it follows, as these too must have judged, that the monastery of Böddeken, inasmuch as it began to be founded, from what has been said, shortly after the permission to build a convent which the Saint had obtained from Louis the Pious, took its beginning about the year 816 or the following. But what is now to be said will make plain both that our Saint did not obtain that permission in the year 816 in the council of Aachen, and that it is not handed down by Gobelinus in his Life that it was then obtained. And first, to give it as proved that this is not handed down by Gobelinus, it will suffice to have transcribed here only what Le Cointe observes on this matter in the Annales ecclesiastici Francorum under the year 832, number 20. The author … of the Life, he says of Gobelinus, does not intimate that he (St. Meinulphus) received in the third year of Louis (the Pious, emperor), in the assembly of Aachen, licence to build a monastery for Virgins, canonesses Regular. But he only testifies that the plan of building a monastery was undertaken by him when Louis, son of Charlemagne, was reigning, and the Order of Canonesses had already begun to flourish after the assembly of Aachen. We repeat anew the text alleged above. "But although no ambiguity now remained with them — that is, with Badurad, bishop of Paderborn, and with Meinulphus the deacon — concerning choosing that place for the structure of the temple, yet the bishop judged that in this matter deference must be paid to the royal authority, so that without it no work should be begun there. At that time Louis, son of Charles the Great, was guiding the reins of the empire; and in the provincial council held at Aachen in the third year of his empire, the Order of Canonesses whom they call secular had then been recently instituted." The whole question turns on this word RECENTLY, the signification of which could be extended to twelve years and more by an author who was writing in the fifteenth century, that is, seven hundred years after the assembly of Aachen and the institution of the Rule of Canonesses.

[74] Thus far Le Cointe, with whom Pagi afterwards also agreed in the Critica under the years 816 and 832; believed that it had been granted already from the year 816, and the Gobelinian words recited here by Le Cointe, although drawn only from the Acts of the Saint by Gobelinus as Surius edited them with changed style, express exactly the genuine sense of Gobelinus, as will become plain to anyone inspecting at number 15 the Life of the Saint which is to be edited in the very style of this writer; so that Gobelinus most certainly does not hand down in his Life that St. Meinulphus sought and obtained, already from the year 816, in the council of Aachen, the permission to found a monastery. And indeed, even if he did hand it down, he would not create credence, both because he lived more than five centuries removed from the Saint and from the council of Aachen, and because reasons not slight seem to prove that that permission was not granted to Meinulphus in the council of Aachen in the year 816. For what? The Saint, as I have already taught above, was born into the world in the year 79[ ], or perhaps even somewhat later, so that in the year 816 he had most probably reached only the twenty-third year of his age; and to whom would it appear sufficiently credible either that the plan of founding a monastery, in which to place nuns, occurred to a youth of only twenty-three years, or that permission to do so was given him in the council of Aachen in the year 816 by the emperor Louis the Pious? Moreover Schaten — who, likewise wrongly citing Gobelinus for himself, would have it with Baronius and the others praised above that St. Meinulphus received in the council of Aachen in the year 816 the licence to establish a monastery for virgins, canonesses Regular — is of the opinion by which he judges that the Saint was then a deacon.

[75] must have judged it, about the year 816, He probably thought it must be so determined, namely, because he judged that that licence or permission was not given to the Saint before he had already been promoted to the order of the diaconate; in which matter indeed it appears most probable that he is not wrong; but I cannot believe that the Saint was a deacon already from the time of the council of Aachen, that is, from the year 816, for this reason, that he was then, as I have already taught, only in the twenty-third year of his age, and that, as Thomassin teaches in De veteri et nova Ecclesiae Disciplina, volume 1, book 2, chapter 69, during the two or three centuries of the reigning Carolingian family, or at any rate in the eighth and ninth centuries from the birth of Christ — in the latter of which the monastery of Böddeken was founded — it was provided by the prescription of the sacred canons that no one should be ordained deacon before the twenty-fifth year of his age. Nor may you object that in that law or prescription of the Church there was sometimes a dispensation on account of the gravity of morals and the outstanding endowments of mind which shone forth in those to be ordained; for although this is by no means foreign to the truth, yet it is not believed that there was in actual fact a dispensation as regards any particular person by name unless grave and solid reasons persuade that it was done; and since such reasons are not found to militate for the promotion of our Saint to the diaconate before the twenty-fifth year of his age, it does not appear that he was a deacon already from the year 816; and most probably, therefore, he did not then obtain from Louis the Pious the permission to found a monastery either, inasmuch as, from what has been said, it was probably granted to him only after he had received the diaconate. Hence, further, it now follows that the monastery of Böddeken, inasmuch as, from what has been said, it did not begin to be founded before that permission was obtained, did not take its beginning about the year 816 either, contrary to what Baronius and the other writers praised above seem to have thought, and indeed must think, since it is not to be doubted that the Saint, having obtained the permission to build the monastery, at once put his hand to the work.

[77] but in that space of time which runs from the year 825 to the year 836 But then, you will say, at about what time or year at last did the monastery of Böddeken begin to be built? Since, as it is easy to gather from what has already been said, a beginning was given to that sacred edifice neither before the year 817 nor after the year 841, it follows that it was done in that space of time which runs from the year 817 up to the year 841. But can the matter not be defined a little more closely still? It appears probable that St. Meinulphus spent at least about two years in building the monastery of Böddeken and its church, and that he caused the latter to be dedicated as soon as it had been brought to its summit. We shall therefore have ascertained the year or time about which the monastery of Böddeken took its beginning, if we ascertain about what time the church adjoined to it happened to be dedicated. Let us therefore inquire into this. The Saint caused the church of Böddeken to be dedicated, as Sigeward teaches at number 22, on the IVth of the Ides, that is, the 10th day of November; so that this dedication, since dedications of churches were formerly wont to be made on Sundays, most probably took place in some year in which the 10th day of November fell on a Sunday. Now since from the year 817, before which, from what has been said, the monastery of Böddeken certainly did not begin to be founded, up to the year 850, by which, from what has likewise been said, the same monastery had long since been founded, only five years are found — namely 821, 827, 832, 838 and 849 — in which the 10th day of November fell on a Sunday, the dedication of the church of Böddeken most probably took place in some one of these five years. And this is the first thing that occurs for tying it to this narrower term of time; let us now pursue what has been begun. Since the monastery of Böddeken, as I have already taught, began to be founded before the year 841, that is, before the death of the emperor Louis the Pious, and it is not probable either that about ten years were spent in building it and the adjoined church, or that the Saint did not cause the church to be dedicated until it had already been brought to completion for about five years, its dedication does not seem able to be postponed as far as the year 849. Nor does it appear either to have been done in the year 821, because thus, on account of what has already been said, the beginnings of the monastery of Böddeken would have to be placed about the year 819; which, however, the Saint's age, still too little advanced at that time, persuades us he did not then begin to found; and that it was begun to be founded by him much later appears even from this, that Sigeward, when he treats at numbers 15 and 16 of the miracle by which the Saint learned the place fitted for building the monastery, seems to speak of him as of a grown man already of thirty years.

[78] It remains, therefore, that the dedication of the church of Böddeken took place either in the year 827, runs, he probably began to found, or in the year 832, or finally in the year 838. Hence, further, it now follows that the monastery of Böddeken, inasmuch as the Saint, from what has been said, probably spent at least about two years in building it and the adjoined church, probably took its beginning not later than about either the year 825, or the year 830, or finally the year 836, and therefore in that decade which runs from the year 825 up to the year 836. But, you will say, Schaten affirms in the Annales Paderbornenses under the year 837 that St. Meinulphus undertook to found the monastery of Böddeken in that year, and the Annals of Corvey praised above also assent to him. I confess it is so: but Schaten asserts this solely on the credit of the Sigewardine Life of our Saint which he had lighting his way, and which, as I showed at number 60, is corrupted by interpolation; and as for what pertains to the Annals of Corvey, besides the fact that their author, inasmuch as he wrote not earlier than when the fifteenth century was already much advanced, cannot create certain credence in this matter, he perhaps gathered the year 837, to which he ties the foundation of the monastery of Böddeken, only from the words brought by copyists into the Gobelinian Cosmodromium,

which I transcribed here at number 14 and again at number 56, and how untrustworthy they are I showed at number 61 and the two following. Moreover the Annals of Corvey supply only these words bearing on the present purpose: DCCCXXXVII. St. Meynolphus founds a monastery of nuns at Bodeke; which can be so taken as not necessarily to signify that St. Meinulphus began to found the monastery of Böddeken in the year 837, but only either that he then completed it, or — which agrees better with the signification of the verb fundare among the writers of middle and low Latinity — that he augmented it, already completed, with annual revenues by which its inmates could be nourished. However that may be, that the monastery of Böddeken began to be founded in the year 837 does not appear likely for this reason, that thus the church adjoined to it — inasmuch as I have already taught that it was not dedicated in the year 849 — would have had to be dedicated in the year 838, as you will easily gather from what has already been said; and it does not appear probable that that sacred edifice was advanced within the space of one year so far that it could then be dedicated. Since this is so, it appears probable that St. Meinulphus began to found the monastery of Böddeken in that space of time which runs from the year 825 to the year 836. Let us now consider how our Saint endowed the same monastery from his goods.

[79] and in it, most generously endowed, he established sacred virgins, The old Letters of the monastery of Böddeken, produced by Ferdinand, bishop of Paderborn, in the Monumenta Paderbornensia, page 221, run thus, conveniently for our purpose: Blessed Maynulfus, instructed by the prompting of divine revelation and by a heavenly vision, solemnly built on the land of his patrimony, with the approval of the emperor, who was then at Aachen, a certain monastery, which in the Westphalian tongue he called Bodeken, as it were a little cask, and generously endowed that monastery from his temporal goods, which were many; and therein he established noble and devout women, who are commonly called Doem-Vrouwen; for whom the holy Man, wishing to shut off every occasion of wandering abroad, for the sake of greater stability, by a provident dispensation appointed six squires of the surrounding country as procurators of the aforesaid monastery, to whom he abundantly distributed his goods, both in townships and in granges, so that from these goods they should supply to the aforesaid monastery at certain times of the year all things necessary for food and clothing. But to other vassal squires too he conferred feudal goods, so that they also should be faithful defenders of the aforesaid monastery and subject to it. For this reason he transferred every right of enfeoffing and conferring those feudal goods to the ladies themselves and to their monastery. Further, not content with these fortifications of the women, the holy father Maynulphus appointed a more powerful noble from among the neighbours as prefect and superior defender of all the goods of the monastery and of the causes arising, however great, certain goods and pensions from the several offices being assigned to him so that he might more conveniently bear a burden of this kind; so that, fenced round on every side by these guardians, the aforesaid women might serve God with devoted obedience. And the disposition of this ordinance and institution is had more expressly in sealed letters in the aforesaid monastery, and this ordinance stood for several years after the death of the blessed man Maynulphus. Thus far the said letters, teaching not only that the Saint provided most generously for the monastery built by him from the goods of his patrimony, but also that he established in it women sprung of noble lineage, called Doem-Vrouwen, that is, canonesses (Sigeward at number 22 calls them only sacred virgins); but since they do not declare what Rule these professed, it must now be inquired into here.

[80] who were not Benedictine nuns, as Martène would have it, Edmond Martène, in his second Literary Journey, printed at Paris in the year 1724, writes at page 246 that they were nuns of the Benedictine institute. I transcribe here the French words with which he does so there, as the anonymous writer — who, as I have already noted, added some notes to the Chronicle of the monastery of Böddeken mentioned at number 19 — rendered them into Latin. They run thus: The monastery of Böddeken, three miles distant from Paderborn, is girt on every side by a squalid solitude, woods and mountains. At the beginning it was an abbey of Benedictine nuns founded by St. Meinulphus the deacon, whose body is still venerated there with great devotion of the peoples. Afterwards, when the nuns relaxed the monastic institute and assumed the name of secular canonesses, the dissolution of morals grew to such a point that they were suppressed by the bishop of Paderborn, and canons Regular of the Windesheim Congregation were introduced in their place. Thus he. Schaten, in the Annales Paderbornenses under the year 837, in the words transcribed here at number 59, writes that St. Meinulphus began to found the monastery of Böddeken with the work and help of the monks of Corvey — who, namely, had begun from the year 822 to inhabit the New Corvey on the Weser, and were of the Benedictine institute; and Overham, in his Observations on the Sigewardine Life of the Saint, page 420, affirms that he had read this somewhere. Martène too perhaps found this very thing either in Schaten or in some other writer, and hence conjectured that the convent of Böddeken was at the beginning an abbey of Benedictine nuns. But Schaten, as he himself indicates, drew what he hands down concerning the monastery of Böddeken begun by St. Meinulphus with the work and help of the monks of Corvey solely from the Sigewardine Life of the Saint corrupted by interpolation, and therefore, as I have already taught above, to be held of slight, or rather of no, credit; nor perhaps had Overham found it in a monument of better note, which he says he had read somewhere. Moreover, even if St. Meinulphus had used the work and help of the monks of Corvey, of the Benedictine institute, for founding the convent of Böddeken, it does not on that account follow that he wished the Rule of St. Benedict, which they professed, to be observed by the Nuns afterwards established in the monastery built by him, rather than the institute of the canonical life to which he himself adhered. And indeed that the matter stands otherwise will, I think, appear most probable to everyone from what is now to be said.

[81] Hear meanwhile how the praised anonymous writer, in his Notes to the Chronicle of Böddeken, page 118, meets the words of Martène just recited, or rather Martène himself. but canonesses serving under the Rule That … the most illustrious man asserts that the abbey of Böddeken was founded from the beginning for Benedictine nuns, I know not on what foundation or old document he builds it. For it is certain from ancient monuments that that abbey was founded from the beginning for canonesses serving under the Rule of Aachen; whether these are to be held Regular or Secular, it is not the place here to discuss. A learned Dissertation on this matter was published by the very Reverend Fr. Hermann Busenbaum, a celebrated writer of the Society of Jesus, in his excellent little book Lilien unter den Dörnern, that is, Lilies among thorns, where he shows that the Rule of Aachen was not only observed in various monasteries of canonesses in the ninth century, but that its observance lasted in the monastery of St. Cecilia at Cologne up to the year MCCCCLXXIV. The same writer testifies that the Rule of Aachen for canonesses was prescribed to the canonesses of the monastery of Essen by Alfrid, bishop of Hildesheim, in the letters of foundation in the year DCCCLXXVII; and he affirms that the same was received by the first canonesses of Böddeken presently at the very original foundation. Thus far the anonymous editor of the Chronicle of Böddeken, and rightly indeed; and although he does not name the ancient monuments from which it is established that the abbey of Böddeken was founded from the beginning for canonesses serving under the Rule of Aachen, I do not doubt, however, that the sacred virgins whom St. Meinulphus first placed in the monastery founded by him were bound to observe the Rule of Aachen, as Busenbaum, priest of our Society, also judged.

[82] of Aachen For these, in the old letters on the foundation of the monastery of Böddeken which I have just transcribed here, are called doem-vrouwen, that is, canonicae or canonesses; and the Fathers of the council of Aachen, held in the year 816, at the admonition of the emperor Louis the Pious, in the third year of his empire, for the salvation of the souls (the words are those of the council itself) of nuns living canonically, that is, of canonicae or canonesses, by the inspiration of divine grace, gathered from the authorities of the holy Fathers, as certain little flowers from blooming meadows, and brought together into one, a constitution or Rule, and by common vote and common consent determined that it should be held and observed by the nuns; now since the sacred virgins of Böddeken were instituted only after that council of Aachen, as is clear from what has already been said above, it does not appear probable that St. Meinulphus proposed to them to be observed any other Rule than that which had been constituted by the Fathers of Aachen for nuns living canonically, or canonesses — he who himself, together with the canons of the cathedral church of Paderborn, one of whom he was, passed his life according to the Rule prescribed to canons in the same council of Aachen, as I have taught above. Canonicae, therefore, serving under the Rule of Aachen, as the anonymous writer speaks in the words just recited, and not Benedictine nuns, were the sacred virgins whom St. Meinulphus established in the monastery built by him. But, you will now ask, were those canonicae Regular or Secular?

[83] [they were, although meanwhile they seem to have been called neither Regular nor Secular canonesses.] That they were at any rate not Secular is clear from this, that those who were afterwards called Secular canonesses were not bound by a vow of chastity, and it was lawful for them to pass to marriage if ever the occasion offered itself; whereas the sacred virgins or canonicae instituted by our Saint at Böddeken were bound to observe chastity, inasmuch as, from what has already been said, they professed the Rule of Aachen, which, as will become plain to one who reads it, prescribed chastity. Moreover, in the council of Aachen it is commanded to those who had bound themselves to the Lord by the profession of the name of chaste women, that they reside continually in their monasteries; that all sleep in the dormitory, and that while they eat in the refectory and religiously keep silence a reading be read continuously. And in chapter XI it is commanded to abbesses that they surround the monasteries of Girls on every side with the strongest fortifications, so that access be open to none except by the gate. In chapter 18 a manner is determined of restraining within the enclosure of the monastery an incorrigible nun, because it is in no way lawful for her to return to the world. Since all these things by no means agree with secular canonesses or canonicae, and the Rule of Aachen for canonesses nevertheless prescribes them, the nuns who professed it were not secular canonicae, and therefore neither were the sacred virgins whom the Saint instituted at Böddeken. But, you will say, Gobelinus in the Life of our Saint, number 15, makes the canonesses instituted in the council of Aachen themselves secular.

[84] I confess it is so: but this biographer of Meinulphus also writes thus there: seem to have been called. Saint Meynulfus piously presumed that it … would be pleasing to the divine Majesty if in the place mentioned (the village of Böddeken) he founded, from his own goods and on his patrimony, a monastery for canonesses of this kind (he had spoken only of those instituted in the council of Aachen), so that there they might render to God a devout service under the custody of chastity; Gobelinus, therefore, judged that the canonesses instituted in the council of Aachen were bound by a vow of chastity, and therefore he wrongly makes them Secular Canonesses, carrying back to earlier times the custom of his own time, in which many canonesses, having abandoned the original Rule of Aachen, were already secular both in name and in fact: which also must be said of any writers and monuments of later times, if perhaps in them canonesses, in

instituted in the council of Aachen, are called Secular. Nor, however, may you conclude on that account that they and the nuns established by the Saint at Böddeken were called canonesses Regular: for just as the canons who professed the Rule of Aachen were called simply canons, without the addition either of secular or Regular, as I have taught above, so too it seems to have been done with the canonesses who professed the Rule of Aachen.

§ VI. The Saint's death, burial, miracles, and the elevation of his body.

The Saint, many of whose deeds have not been committed to writing, That the Saint erected the monastery of Böddeken, shone with holiness of life, and lived as a canon at Paderborn, I have already taught, chiefly from his older biographer. But it appears most probable that he did more things, however most worthy of the memory of posterity, which have not been committed to writing; so that I would scarcely dare to hold as suspect of falsity what Schaten records of him in the Annales Paderbornenses, page 114, in these words: Nothing was done by Menulphus more fervently throughout his whole life than to spread the religion of Christ among the people, and to cultivate with the laws and discipline of Christ the rude men whom that age was forming from barbarians into Christians. In which work, having obtained a great field of virtue and labour, he so proved himself that posterity has venerated him among the first teachers of the Gospel and the most holy men of the clergy of Paderborn. In which matter, as in others, we desire nothing from that age more than writers who would have transmitted to us more explicitly his illustrious sacred things *. Thus he; which would indeed have still greater appearance of truth if what he intimates at the end were established — that our Saint was honoured by posterity not only as a Saint but also as one of the first teachers of the Gospel; but, however this matter stands, I at any rate cannot confirm it either by the testimony of an ancient writer or by a document of sufficiently approved credit. Sigeward, who himself too supplies nothing at all bearing on this, having related the foundation of the monastery of Böddeken and the introduction into it of the sacred virgins or nuns, narrates further only the miracle by which St. Meinulphus restored to wholeness the burned veil or peplum of a nun, and presently, leaping forward to relate the Saint's happy departure from the living, writes thus at number 26: After the King of kings had granted His Soldier (namely St. Meinulphus) glorious victories against the ancient serpent, He did not wish the fortune of wars to raise him further; but preferred to confer on him together both the reward and the end of his labours. That very thing too the veteran Soldier himself thirsted for most ardently… And since the will of the Lord and of the Servant agreed familiarly, as for this Lord to will, to be able and to be are one, on the IIIrd of the Nones of November, as He willed, He translated His Servant to Himself; who, translated from earth to heaven, left his earthly body to its kindred earth in the monastery which he himself had built.

[86] not in the year Thus the older biographer, indicating plainly enough that the Saint died already aged in years, or an old man; but since he adds no chronological note at all from which you could gather about what year this happened, it is necessary that we try somehow to elicit the time of St. Meinulphus's death from elsewhere. Gobelinus in the Life, number 25 and the three following, teaches that our Saint was raised from the earth when, about fifty years having elapsed since his death, Arnulf was presiding as emperor over the Roman empire and Biso as prelate over the church of Paderborn. Arnulf was crowned emperor of the Romans not indeed in the year 897, as Gobelinus would have it in the place just cited, but in the year 896, as Pagi shows in the Critica under this year, and he departed from the living in the year 899; so that St. Meinulphus was raised from the earth either in the year 896 or in some one of the three following; and so that therefore, since the about fifty years by which, when this was done, he had already departed from the living, reckoned in retrograde order from the year 896, bring us to the year 846, he exchanged this mortal life for the immortal either in this very year or in some one of the three following — if in actual fact the Saint, as Gobelinus writes, was raised from the earth about fifty years after his death, when Arnulf was already emperor of the Romans. And Schaten indeed, adhering nearly to this reckoning, ties the death of our Saint to the year 847, writing thus in the Annales Paderbornenses under this year: Although the year of death (namely of St. Meinulphus) has not been so plainly recorded by the writers, yet it has seemed good to refer it by indications to this (the year 847), because from his death up to the year DCCCLXXXXVII, in which his body was raised from the ground with solemn rite, fifty years are reported to have flowed by; and this is recorded to have been done when Arnulf was king and Biso bishop; so that, reading the years backward, it is permissible to think that this was the last year of his life.

[87] 847, Further, George Garnefelt, whom I praised at number 18, assents to Schaten here, conjoining the death of Meinulphus with the year of Christ 847 in his manuscript Annotations on the Gobelinian Life of the Saint by almost the same argument as he, and he has besides others, whom it is not necessary to enumerate here, agreeing with him in this matter. But, besides the fact that, from what is to be said, it is not certain that our Saint was raised from the earth with solemn rite either in the year 897, as Schaten notes, or in the year 896 or another of the three following, as follows from Gobelinus's reckoning, whence did Gobelinus learn that this was done about fifty years after the Saint's death? This biographer of ours says indeed in his first Prologue that he drew what he commits to writing concerning Meinulphus from various ancient writings and from his encounter with deeds known to him; but since at the same time he does not declare what or of what kind were the ancient writings which he praises and which he intimates lighted his way, and writes that Hathumar, the first bishop of Paderborn — who, as is more than sufficiently established from the Commentary on this holy prelate occurring with us in volume 2 of August, did not die before the year 815 — was raised to the chair of Paderborn in the year 795, and departed from the living only eight years after, that is, in the year 803 or the following, it can not without reason be doubted whether, just as the ancient writings from which Gobelinus drew this last were undoubtedly erroneous, so too the ancient writings from which he learned that the Saint was raised from the earth about fifty years after his death were not likewise erroneous.

[88] Since this is so, that the Saint migrated to the Heavenly ones in the year 847 cannot be certain by the argument drawn hence from the Gobelinian Life of the Saint. but more probably about the year 857, Nor do the Annals of Corvey praised above prove that the year of the Saint's death is to be reckoned with the year of Christ 847; for although they expressly note, DCCCXLVII the pious Meynolphus dies, renowned for many miracles, yet they have an author, as I have already sufficiently hinted above, more recent than Gobelinus, so that perhaps he drew from him only the year which they establish as the Saint's year of death, and therefore it comes out no more certain from them. And indeed the older Life of the Saint written by Sigeward, by which, from what has been said, we must nevertheless stand, does not seem to allow that the Saint ceased to live already from the year 847. For since, as I have taught from it at number 31 and following, the Saint cannot have been born earlier than about the year 793, how can it be true that, if he died in the year 847, he departed from the living already aged in years, or an old man, as is, from what has been said, not obscurely handed down in the same Sigewardine Life of the Saint? Certainly seven years, if they are added to 47 years, make only fifty-four years; and who would think that a man only a little more than fifty is rightly to be called already aged in years, or an old man? The author of our Florarium (see number 4) reckons the death of St. Meinulphus with the year of Christ 857; and since this, augmented by the seven years which the Saint lived before the ninth century, gives sixty-four years for the whole space of time which he spent among the living, and one who had so many years, or only a few more, seems able not without reason to be called already aged in years, or an old man, I judge it more probable that our Saint migrated to the Heavenly ones by a happy departure from the living about the year 857, and I therefore wrote that year above in the margin.

[89] And thus indeed we have somehow determined the Saint's year of death; he migrated to the Heavenly ones on the 5th day of October, but just as this is not altogether certain, as what has already been said shows, so neither is the day nor the month which was the Saint's last altogether ascertained. For although the Sigewardine Life of the Saint edited by Overham, and the Hardehausen manuscript apograph which, as I noted above, exists with us, expressly hand down that Meinulphus exchanged life for death on the IIIrd of the Nones, that is, the 3rd day of November (see the words transcribed here at number 85), yet in an addition which is added to the latter in the margin it is noted that the month of November is wrongly put for October; why this is done Overham affirms, in his Observations on the Sigewardine Composition, page 420, that he does not understand. Moreover, all the apographs of Gobelinus existing in my possession, and the others which Overham had, the edition of Surius, as also the very Sigewardine Life of the Saint which Brower edited from manuscript copies, cutting away only the digressions not bearing on the matter, hand down that St. Meinulphus died on the IIIrd of the Nones, that is, the 5th day, of October. There may be added both the sacred Fasti adduced above, which announce the Saint on the 5th day of October as being his birthday in heaven, and the old Offices of Böddeken on Meinulphus, which expressly mark the 5th day of October as his birthday; so that it can certainly not without reason be called into doubt whether the Saint departed from the living on the IIIrd of the Nones of November or of October. Nay rather, since Gobelinus — who, as I have already taught, composed not so much a new Life as a paraphrase of the Life written by Sigeward — seems to have had several copies of it lighting his way, and nevertheless notes that the Saint died on the IIIrd of the Nones of October, not of November, no differently from Brower, whose way at least one copy of the same Sigewardine Composition lighted, in the more compendious edition of it just mentioned, it seems more probable on that account that October, not November, was put in the original and genuine Life of the Saint written by Sigeward; because, as you will easily gather from what has already been said, only two copies of it express November, but at least three or four — in favour of which, moreover, the sacred Fasti commemorating the Saint today vote — express October. Hence, further, it now follows that it ought likewise to seem more probable that the Saint departed from the living on the fifth day of October, not the third of November.

[90] and after his death many, one of which is here called into doubt, Having now examined and somehow defined the year and day, as also the month, in which Meinulphus died, I now proceed to the miracles which are narrated to have been performed in great number after his death. Among these the first that occurs is the one which Gobelinus relates at number 20. Behold how Schaten, under the year 847 in the Annales Paderbornenses, in a more polished and ornate

style sets it forth. St. Menulphus, he says, was, as throughout his whole life conspicuous for holiness among the clergy of Paderborn, so in death illustrious for many signs; among which this is memorable, that while the body of the dead man was being borne to the tomb, and, the funeral rites having been performed, was about to be covered with earth, that same body, lying on its back, raised itself from the bier, all who were present being astonished at so unwonted a spectacle. Addressing them kindly, the Saint said: Go to the bishop, and tell him that whatever abbess shall be elected by this Congregation of virgins, he is not to prevent her (that the Saint had previously wished otherwise is indicated by the Sequence to be recited at number 112) from entering upon the office, even if she be a handmaid by condition; for you know with what solicitude and labour I built this monastery. But what ought to be done by those who bear the office of shepherds in the Church, I have learned now that I am stripped of the mortal body. Having said these things, he closed his eyes again, laid himself back on the bier, and ordered himself to be buried. Thus he; who differs from Gobelinus, though not indeed in the substance of the matter, yet somewhat in the circumstances, and especially in this, that in Schaten the Saint, in his address to the bystanders, does not say — contrary to what he does in Gobelinus — that he had obtained from God through the Mother of God that he should be restored to life for a little while. But what appears to be thought of this remarkable miracle, which Balinghem also brought into the Marian Calendar composed by him? Although Gobelinus in the place cited expressly praises in support of his case the old writings which he had already praised before (namely in the first Prologue of his Composition on the Saint), yet since he does not disclose by so much as a word what or of what kind these were, and in what age written, I do not think that that most rare miracle of resuscitation is to be held as certain on their credit alone; especially since it seems to have been unknown to Sigeward, our older biographer, inasmuch as he does not mention it, and nevertheless writes at the end of number 27 that he was compelled by a rich and kindly will to hand down by pen and to memory whatever more of the holy Man's miracles had come to his knowledge; yet it was by no means, as it appears, something that should have been unknown, had it happened, to a writer who both knew and committed to writing other things less worthy of mention.

[91] Let us now turn our discourse to the other prodigies which Gobelinus subjoins next to the one just mentioned and discussed here; after miracles performed, from the earth at length, these are grounded not only in this writer alone and in the old writings cited by him, but also in Sigeward himself, the older biographer of the Saint: and he indeed, having premised at number 28 — which Gobelinus also does — that a great concourse was made to the tomb of the Saint, now buried, of Christ's poor, some of whom came roused by the fame of past miracles, others kindled by the expectation of future ones, and that none of them was disappointed in his hope, presently narrates two miracles performed, by one of which the Saint preserved a linen cloth unharmed from fire, by the other he brought his former servant to a better life after appearing to him a third time in sleep; and afterwards he subjoins others most worthy of mention, by which at length it came about that the sacred body of the Saint was raised from the earth with solemn rite by Biso, fourth bishop of Paderborn. The somewhat more prolix narration in which Sigeward at number 34 and the four following, and Gobelinus at number 25 and the three following, comprised these later miracles and the Saint's subsequent raising from the earth, Schaten presents in a compendium in the Annales Paderbornenses, page 234; which, in order that I may inform the studious reader of the whole matter in a few words — although meanwhile it will with difficulty find credence with everyone, and perhaps not without reason, no differently from the visions treated at number 66 and the two following — I transcribe here. It runs thus: While in the basilica of Böddeken (on a certain day, writes Sigeward, determining none) the sacrifice of the Mass was being performed with solemn rite, and the deacon was singing the Gospel, on the XVth of the Kalends of February (Gobelinus notes this day), the stone slab which had been laid on the sepulchre of Menulphus burst with a great sound into four parts, all who were present being astonished; and presently, when they had come to the elevation of the sacred Host, with a huge crash again the same stone split and leapt apart into small fragments.

[92] Stupefied by the novelty of the thing they approached the sepulchre, since miracles were added to miracles, by Biso, bishop of Paderborn and saw that the earth with which the tomb had been covered had withdrawn to the sides of the sepulchre, and that the sarcophagus itself had presented itself wholly to view; at the same time so sweet an odour breathed from the sepulchre, as though by these signs God showed that the elevation of the body was to be made. When these things were reported to bishop Biso, and he held them among things of uncertain credit, he judged that the sepulchre should be covered again with its earth and stone; and when this was done, not long after, the slab having been removed, the sepulchre was thrown open by a hidden force. The bishop was consulted anew, and, thinking that nothing of divine admonition lay beneath it, ordered the sepulchre to be put in order anew. Meanwhile St. Menulphus presented himself in sleep to the priest Meinhard in the neighbouring parish of Atteln (Gobelinus, not Sigeward, makes Meinhard the rector of this parish church) and admonished him to go to the bishop and, in view of the signs shown, to place the bones in a more honourable place. When the priest, admonished again, likewise neglected this, thinking himself deluded by a vain image, Menulphus presented himself a third time, threatening blindness, from which he would not be freed before he had fulfilled the commands. In the morning, when it grew light, he perceived himself deprived of his eyes. So, blind and led by the hand to the bishop, he set forth what had befallen him and what St. Menulphus wished to be done. Then at length bishop Biso, understanding, and fearing for himself too, set out for Böddeken with priests, and with solemn rite raised the body of St. Menulphus from the earth and exposed it to be venerated with public cult. Scarcely had these things been performed when sight was restored to the priest Meinhard. Thus far Schaten, rightly, from Sigeward and Gobelinus; but does he also rightly refer these things — or rather the raising of the Saint from the tomb by Biso, bishop of Paderborn (for it is chiefly of this that we must now treat here) — to the year of Christ 897?

[93] he was more probably raised between the year 887 and the year 896, He undoubtedly does so because he believed that the Saint's raising from the earth did not take place before Arnulf had already been raised to the Roman empire, which Gobelinus wrongly writes was done only in the year 897. But I have already declared above that it is uncertain and doubtful whether the body of our Saint was raised from the earth when Arnulf was already emperor of the Romans, and I promised that I would also show it; which therefore, to fulfil my pledge, must now be performed. Sigeward, about to narrate the Saint's raising from the earth and the miracles that immediately preceded it, hands down to memory at number 34 that the first of these happened in the times … of king Arnulf and Biso, bishop of Paderborn; and the Arnulph or Arnulf whom he here mentions is none other than Arnulf, illegitimate son of Carloman, king of Bavaria, who was created king of Germany in the assembly of princes at Tribur in the year 887, and emperor at Rome in the year 896, and departed from the living in the year 899. Now since Sigeward teaches that the raising of our Saint from the earth was done while this prince was king, adding no mention at all of the imperial dignity to which he would then have been raised, it is certainly very doubtful whether this happened when Arnulf was already emperor; nay rather, it seems more probable that it happened while this prince was still only king, for this reason, that he is called by Sigeward in the place cited only king, not emperor. Hence, further, it now follows that, since from what has been said Arnulf was created king in the year 887 and emperor in the year 896, the raising of our Saint from the earth was more probably done neither in the determinate year 897, as pleases Schaten and others, nor in any of the three following, but in that space of time which runs from the year 887 up to the year 896, by Biso, bishop of Paderborn, who, as is at present the more common opinion of the learned, sat from the year 886 up to the year 908.

[94] and thus he was reckoned among the Saints. Nor may you here object Gobelinus, who hands down to memory that the Saint was not raised from the tomb before about fifty years had already elapsed since his death; for that this narration of that writer can deservedly be held suspect of falsity is clear from what has already been said before. Further, when the Saint had now been raised from the tomb, the concourse of the faithful to the monastery of Böddeken to visit his sacred relics became more frequent day by day; and since, as Sigeward and Gobelinus teach, frequent miracles happened in favour and grace of those who flocked there, Meinulphus became more and more renowned for the fame of holiness; and indeed he could not undeservedly be held even as a canonized Saint, since both his sacred body had, from what has been said, already been raised from the earth, and blessed Men on whom this honour had been bestowed by bishops were formerly wont to be honoured as canonized Saints; although the canonization with which they had thus been endowed could meanwhile be held only as a particular canonization, or rather a beatification, as Benedict XIV teaches in his Work De Servorum Dei beatificatione et Beatorum canonizatione, book 1, chapter 6, number 9. But what cult, and of what kind, was offered to Meinulphus as a Saint? I shall discuss this matter below in its place, and shall set forth first what cult the Saint obtained in the monastery of Böddeken, and then what he obtained elsewhere.

* perhaps facinora deeds?

§ VII. The translation of the Saint's relics from the monastery of Böddeken to Paderborn attempted in vain, and the introduction of canons Regular into it.

When the nuns of Böddeken had already fallen away from the Rule of Aachen, Although it is not to be doubted that the nuns of Böddeken — who, even before he had been endowed with this honour, had, on the testimony of Sigeward in the Life, number 28, taken care that his sacred body should be guarded with the highest care and veneration — began, once St. Meinulphus had been raised from the earth with solemn rite by Biso, bishop of Paderborn, to honour him in some singular manner, and constantly honoured him thereafter as the most munificent founder of their monastery and their most kindly patron with God, yet with what kind of ecclesiastical cult they did so I cannot declare, since there is deep silence on this matter among all the ancient writers, nor does there occur anywhere an old monument (see, however, below at number 118) from which anything conducive to this could be elicited. The matter stands better as regards the cult afterwards offered to the Saint in the monastery of Böddeken by the canons Regular: but on this matter, so that things may be set forth in the order in which each was done, I shall not begin my discourse before I have treated of those religious men introduced into the said monastery, and of the translation of the sacred relics of the Saint from it to Paderborn attempted before these, together with the monastery, came into their power. The congregation of the nuns of Böddeken, no differently from many others, in the lapse of time so fell away from the institute of life or Rule prescribed to canonesses in the council of Aachen in the year 816 under the emperor Louis the Pious, that the sacred virgins,

who had given their names to it, were neither bound by a vow of chastity nor hesitated, when occasion offered, to desert the monastery and marry; and although I have not ascertained at about what time that sacred congregation instituted by St. Meinulphus thus fell away from its original discipline and rigour of life, yet that the women who had joined it were already from the fourteenth century not bound by a vow of chastity, and from time to time even, abandoning the institute of life they had undertaken, passed to marriage, John Probus, already praised more than once, in the Chronicle of Böddeken, page 46, and the anonymous author of the manuscript little Work of which I gave notice at number 20, both contemporary with the events, indicate most clearly; so that the nuns of Böddeken were then held, both in fact and in name, and not without reason, as secular canonesses.

[96] Further, this falling away from the original discipline of life was followed by a huge loss of temporal goods, and their monastery was reduced to a pitiable which at length brought final ruin to the monastery, inflicted partly by outsiders, partly by those very persons who ought most of all to have procured the emolument and advantage of the nuns. And indeed from outsiders the monastery received its greatest disaster when, in the fourteenth century, already much advanced beyond its middle part, it was burned together with the church by the nobles of Fürstenberg of Waterlappe, as Ferdinand, bishop of Paderborn, teaches in the Monumenta Paderbornensia, pages 222 and 288; and by those very persons who ought to have procured the advantage of the nuns it was afflicted with notable damage when they converted to their own use the goods from which provision was to be made for the food and clothing of the nuns, nay did not blush to hold them as their own goods, as is understood from the old letters on the foundation of the monastery of Böddeken, transcribed here in part at number 79, which have these words subjoined next to the words recited there: But alas, the enemies of all religion came together — dignity of birth, idleness and pleasure — and, utterly devastating the camps of God and the patrimony of Christ, they left nothing; accordingly the said officials (see number 79) and vassals appropriated to themselves the goods assigned to them for the supplying of the necessities of the monastery, sold them, and left them to their heirs as their own, no one contradicting. And so, with the greatest negligence of the nuns in caring for and protecting their affairs added to these evils, it came about at length that about the year 1400 the monastery of Böddeken, together with the church adjoined to it — which, after it had been burned by the Fürstenbergs, seems either never to have been restored entire by the nuns, or at any rate to have suffered ruin again afterwards — fell into that pitiable state which John Probus places before the reader's eyes in the Chronicle of Böddeken, page 3.

[97] state, Behold the words with which he does so there. It came to pass, he says, about the year MCCCC, that the said monastery (of Böddeken), not by the incursion of enemies but by a moth secretly gnawing from within, came to such poverty that the revenues and incomes of the aforesaid monastery could by no means suffice to repel the want of the abbess Walburga alone, living there in a mean hut: for the goods of the monastery were in great part either alienated or pledged to others; and so the monastery seemed in a manner reduced to a wilderness; its church and the great tower, without roofs, were filled above with growing trees, as in forest glades, as the roots of these, fixed in the vaults, still manifest more clearly to this present day; thus he; and since the author of the manuscript little Work, already praised more than once, not only agrees with him but also sets forth the matter more distinctly, I likewise copy out his words bearing on this, however inelegant. After …, he says, the church of Böddeken, or its monastery, had stood for about five hundred and fifty years under the frailty of feminine rule, its decline, continued now for very many years, verged into such misery that the church, together with the whole monastery devastated by fire, was made a dormitory and granary for peasants and a stable for brute animals. Its pavement was covered almost throughout with the dung of beasts to a height of two feet, with the gorge of excrement. Its walls and vaults, together with the tower, lying open to rains and snows, endured for eighteen continuous years the drippings penetrating them, only that part which contained the choir and its sides being restored as to the roof. Chalices, books, bells and various ornaments, rents, revenues, immovable goods and its rights were alienated in turn, either by title of sale or of pledge, and sometimes by the vice of theft, robbery or fraudulent usurpation. There had at length remained, of that whole monastery and all its appurtenances, no building by which a man could protect himself from the annoyance of rain or the heat of the sun, except a certain little house in which the abbess alone lived with a large household in distress. Trees and shrubs grew up in its chapels — the entrance to which, a fragment of the walls preventing, was not open to beasts — and upon their altars, as in a forest glade. All, both canonesses and clerics, even the parish priest, deserted the place.

[98] The monastery of Böddeken, therefore, together with the church adjoined to it, having for some time now been reduced to so deplorable a state, of the Saint's relics from there to Paderborn it was thought that the relics of St. Meinulphus preserved there up to that time should be translated to Paderborn, so that they might be placed in a more fitting and more honourable place; and that translation was in truth attempted, though with a vain effort, after William had been raised to the chair of Paderborn in the year 1406. How the thing was done the writer just praised sets forth in his manuscript little Work, existing in my possession, writing thus: In the year, therefore, of the Lord's Nativity one thousand four hundred and six, William, son of the duke of Berg, elect of Paderborn, being tempted by his chapter concerning the translation of the relics of saint Meynulphus, and of the remaining goods of his monastery (namely of Böddeken), to the church of Paderborn, consented in word and deed to the translation of the relics, so that greater honour might be paid to them, but not to that of the goods. For the same elect, together with the dean and very many other canons and ministerials of that church of Paderborn and a not small company of his own, directed his way towards the township of Bödeken; and when they were seen to be already near the place, two women of that township, suspecting that they were coming for the cause of the aforesaid translation, betook themselves to the church, and, snatching away the chest containing the aforesaid relics, hid it under straw in a certain stable for horses attached to the tower of that church towards the South. And when these, having entered the choir of the church in a crowd, did not see the chest in its place, they asked those women whither the chest had gone; and they, as country women without experience of Rachel's cunning, yet fired with zeal for their Patron not fearing plainly to deceive the questioners with a lie, answered them that it had been carried off to the neighbouring castle of Wewelsburg. They, however, less credulous of their words, opening very many chests of the peasants, with which the church had been filled, sought those relics solicitously in them and in particular places of the church itself, and, when they saw that they laboured in vain, returned confounded by the way by which they had come.

[99] The vain attempt to carry off the sacred relics of St. Meinulphus from the monastery of Böddeken, now related in these words, is also handed down to memory by Gobelinus in the Cosmodromium, age 6, the translation is attempted in vain; chapter 90, and by John Probus in the Chronicle of Böddeken, part 1, chapter 1, page 3 and following. And Gobelinus indeed, although not as to the place in which he writes that the sacred pledges were hidden by the two women of Böddeken, yet agrees exactly enough with the relation just given in the remaining circumstances; but as for John Probus, he sets forth the matter in the place cited thus: The venerable Henry, noble of Büren, provost of that same church (the cathedral of Paderborn), resolved to carry off the body of blessed Meinulphus from the oft-mentioned monastery of Böddeken to the same church, for the greater honour of the Church. Having enlisted, therefore, forty horsemen, he took the road towards the aforesaid monastery; and since one of the troop (not by chance, but by God's disposing) came ahead of the others towards Böddeken, speaking unguardedly, he laid bare the cause of the approaching provost; and when two women, special lovers of B. Meinulphus, heard it, taking it ill that the sacred body of their Patron should be carried away from its own place to strangers, after a brief council held on this, taking the aforementioned body with its casket from its altar, they placed it in a mean stable for beasts of burden adjoining the great tower towards the South, and, covering it with straw, hid it. These things thus done, the aforesaid provost, surrounded by a multitude, came to Böddeken, entered the church, and, when he did not find the sacred body which he had come to take away on the altar where it was accustomed to stand, he quickly caused inquiry to be made about it; and, none of the inhabitants of the place answering to his liking, he was solicitous in inquiring everywhere concerning that same body, and he also ordered the chests of the church to be opened for the same cause; but what he sought, by God's disposing, he did not find.

[100] great veneration and esteem for them; Thus far John Probus, who, although he agrees with the relation transcribed here at the preceding number as to the place in which the sacred remains of the Saint were hidden by the women of Böddeken, yet at the same time differs both from it and from Gobelinus in other things, and chiefly in this, that he ascribes the attempt made to carry off the sacred relics of St. Meinulphus from the church of Böddeken not to bishop William but, contrary to what Gobelinus and the author of the said relation, whoever he be, do, to Henry of Büren, provost of Paderborn. But although this is so, yet — which is the chief point — there is excellent agreement between him and these two writers as regards the translation of the sacred relics of the Saint from the church of Böddeken to that of Paderborn attempted and prevented; so that it appears certain and undoubted that there really was room for this attempt; and whether it ought to be attributed to bishop William or to Henry of Büren, provost of Paderborn, it seems to have been dictated almost solely by the highest veneration towards the Saint and his sacred remains, which were to be placed in a more honourable and fitting place. Nor was the plan of preventing the sacred remains of the Saint from being carried off from the church of Böddeken suggested by a less pious affection; it was undertaken, namely, out of an altogether exceptional love for St. Meinulphus and the highest esteem for his sacred relics, with which not only the women of the village of Böddeken who hid them so that they might not be carried off, but also not a few other inhabitants of it were affected, as it is permissible to conjecture from the deed of the lords of the castle of Wewelsburg, situated in the same village, which John Probus relates in his Work, already often cited, part 1, chapter 2, page 4 and following. The words in which he sets it forth, although, like most other things of this writer, quite inelegant and barbarous, I transcribe here.

[101] they are brought into the castle of Wewelsburg, lest they be carried off; They run thus: Frederick and Ravenno, vigorous brothers, young lords of Brenken and of the castle of Wewelsborg, hearing that business of this kind (the attempt to carry off the sacred remains of St. Meinulphus) was being done… with their bowels moved, with a multitude of their subjects, like lions about to be deprived of their whelps, they came with hurried step to the monastery of Böddeken:

for they preferred to expose themselves there to the danger of death rather than that their parish church should be despoiled of so beloved a Patron (namely St. Meinulphus). But since B. Meinulphus did not wish blood to be shed on account of his body, it was intimated to the aforesaid young lords by the inhabitants of the township of Böddeken that the adverse party could by no means find the body of B. Meinulphus: wherefore the same young lords, prudent men, seeking peace rather than stirring up strife, reascended the hill Staelberg, whence they had come, and remained a long while on its summit until the provost with his men had turned aside without the relics from the monastery through the valley towards Paderborn; which done, the aforementioned young lords, not wishing that the body of B. Meinulphus should remain longer in its desolate church at the risk of removal, made for the descent of the hill, and, entering the church of Böddeken, took up the aforesaid sacred body with all reverence, as was fitting, and, bringing along with them one who had formerly been a religious, carried it to the castle. O with how great desire were these sacred relics carried to the aforesaid castle! Namely, that preserved in it they might not be carried off by the adversaries who were labouring to take them away.

[102] But because it did not please B. Meinulphus that these his relics should remain there in the castle for any length of time, [by its inhabitants, thinking themselves divinely punished for this, they are brought back to the monastery of Böddeken,] it was necessary that some sign should be made by which the people of the castle, compelled, should bring back the aforesaid relics to their own monastery. It came to pass therefore that at the same time and place twelve pigs of one castellan there, whose name was Ravenno, falling into a frenzy, perished; from which deed the people of the castle, seeing the hand of the Lord made heavy upon them for evil, quickly sent back the aforesaid chest with its sacred relics to the monastery of B. Meinulphus, as the men of Azotus did; for these, when on account of the ark brought to them from abroad they saw a plague upon themselves, said: "Let not the ark of the God of Israel remain with us, for His hand is hard upon us." Also, that the aforesaid plague of death was on account of the presence of the sacred relics existing in the aforesaid castle can be known from this: for as soon as the same sacred relics were brought to the aforementioned monastery, not only did the aforenamed plague of death cease, but also all things smiled with pleasant prosperity of affairs on those inhabiting the same castle. Thus John Probus, presently adding moreover that it is clearly plain from the narration he had premised that St. Meinulphus did not then wish his sacred remains to be taken from the church of Böddeken which he had built, however much it had fallen into a most pitiable state. But in whatever way this matter stands, it came about by the divine benignity not so very long afterwards that canons Regular, by whom at length that sacred place, destined for the preservation of the relics of our Saint, was restored with earnest zeal and labour, were substituted for the nuns in the monastery of Böddeken; how this happened I now set forth in order.

[103] A cleric of the diocese of Paderborn, of the household of William, elect and confirmed bishop of Paderborn, which William, bishop of Paderborn, having given had turned aside to the convent of St. Mary of the canons Regular at Bentheim, and having been received by them most dutifully and most kindly, on returning to his lord he praised in the highest degree the hospitality, most innocent morals and holiness of life of those religious men, and earnestly exhorted the bishop to introduce canons Regular into his diocese. The counsel pleased him; and since the collapsed convent of Böddeken seemed to him fitted for carrying out the matter, he summoned to himself by letters in the year 1408 the religious and devout lord John Wael — or, as others write, de Wale or also Weil — Prior of the monastery of St. Lawrence near Zwolle of the canons Regular, whose supreme rigour of life and religious discipline he had learned from elsewhere; he sent him to survey the monastery of Böddeken, and asked him to accept it to be restored and thenceforth possessed and inhabited by canons Regular; and when the prior had at length with difficulty assented to the bishop, because he had found the monastery in an all too pitiable state, the bishop — the monastery having already been resigned to him in that very year 1408 by Walburga de Walde, abbess of Böddeken, under the burden of an annual pension to be paid to her — in the year next following, on the 17th of the month of July, transferred it by a public instrument or privilege to the same reverend lord de Wale, who had at length returned after nine months from Zwolle, whither he had meanwhile withdrawn, the matter not yet being altogether settled between the bishop and the others whom it concerned; as we are taught by Ferdinand, bishop of Paderborn, in the Monumenta Paderbornensia, page 223, John Probus in the Chronicle of Böddeken, part 1, chapter 3, the author of the manuscript little Work praised here again at numbers 98 and 100, and finally also Gobelinus Persona in the Cosmodromium, age 6, chapter 90, who there also exhibits, as he himself drew it up, part of the Privilege or instrument by which William, bishop of Paderborn, transferred the monastery of Böddeken from the nuns to the canons Regular, or, if you prefer, to John de Wale, Prior of the canons Regular of Zwolle. I transcribe that part here entire, if only because it excellently confirms all that has been said above about the pitiable state of the monastery of Böddeken.

[104] part of which is here recited, It is exhibited by Gobelinus Persona in the place cited in these words: William of Berg, elect and confirmed of Paderborn, for the perpetual memory of the matter. Although the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, yet He has been accustomed for the most part to consecrate certain places, by singular indications of signs, for the more frequent worship of His majesty; and the more these are neglected through the carelessness of the greater body, by so much greater an injury are the negligent themselves rendered guilty before God: who, in turn neglected by God and given over to the desires of their heart, sometimes so vanish away in their vanities that places and persons, by the secret dispensation of divine justice wasting away by mutual contact, the places themselves grow vile together with the persons. And because the truth says to those who stray from the path of truth, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof, we do not doubt that it redounds very greatly to the honour of the divine name if, having utterly rooted out briars and thorns from the Lord's field, we study to make fruitful the holy places brought into contempt by the fault of their inhabitants with the young shoots of olives which the Prophet commemorates as set round about the divine table. Since, therefore, the monastery in the township of Bodeken, of our diocese, founded once by the kindly confessor of Christ, saint Meinolfus the deacon, a noble man according to the pomp of the world — whom Charles the Great of renowned memory, then king of the Franks and afterwards emperor of the Romans, after he had subjected the nation of the Western Saxons to the yoke of the Christian faith, raised from the sacred font — for a congregation of women who are called Secular Canonesses, a singular divine miracle having gone before, as we have learned from the testimony of very old letters, is seen to be, partly by negligence, partly by fortuitous chances and the bad state of the country falling upon it, so utterly desolated that of all its buildings the church itself — restored in part, yet more, as its dung and filth testify, as a receptacle for beasts than for the performance of the Lord's worship — and in the chapels formerly annexed to that church, but now destroyed, nay upon the very altars of the chapels, saplings grow up as in a forest glade; whence both the canonesses and the rector of the court, and also the other clerics — the abbess alone living there in a rustic hut — shrinking from the fruitful land as though turned for them into saltness, long since left the place itself.

[105] We, drawn by the piety of pastoral care to the reformation of the aforesaid place for the restoration of divine worship, by a Privilege, to the canons Regular aspiring with intense desires lest the unfruitful fig tree should again occupy the ground more perniciously, have decreed to reform that same place — the malice of the time, the quality of the place and the frailty of the sex having been weighed — not under a state of secular canonesses of this kind, which the Apostolic See does not deign to approve, but under the title of a certain religion approved by the same See, whose professors of the male sex neither the flesh nor even the whirlwind of adversity terrifies, nor the smile of deceitful fortune dissolves. Hence it is that, the abbess, the canonesses and the parish rector, and the others aforesaid claiming for themselves anything of ecclesiastical right in that place, having been called into our presence, and diligent discussion having first been had with them concerning the lamentable desolation of the aforesaid place, advanced not without their fault to so great a loss, and concerning its religious reformation conceived by us, first the abbess the dignity of that abbacy, then the canonesses, next the parish rector and finally the other beneficed persons their canonries and prebends, the church with the cure of souls, and the ecclesiastical benefices, and every right which belonged to them and to any of them in the premises, or in any of the premises, as they pertained to them and to each of them jointly and severally, spontaneously resigned into our hands in common and severally.

[106] We therefore, admitting, receiving, and holding ratified and welcome resignations of this kind, transfers. capitular discussion and mature deliberation having first been had with the honourable men, the lords, the Provost and chapter of our aforesaid church of Paderborn, deliver, grant and assign by these presents the abbacy, church and monastery, thus resigned into our hands as has been premised, with all prerogatives, privileges, liberties, immunities, goods and movable things, lands, fields, cultivated grounds, meadows, pastures, woods, waters, courses of waters, ways and pathless places, and all their appurtenances, to the honourable man John Weil, Prior of the monastery at Zwolle, of the diocese of Utrecht; in such a way that, the aforesaid church and monastery having been reformed as his means allow, he establish there a suitable congregation of men devoted to God, namely of canons Regular, conformed to the religion of his aforesaid monastery at Zwolle, according to the requirement of the same religion; especially since saint Meinolphus, the aforesaid founder of the same monastery, is believed to have been a professor of that religion. So runs the part, produced by Gobelinus in the Cosmodromium in the place cited, of the praised Privilege or letters in which the monastery of the nuns of Böddeken was transferred to the canons Regular; and although I have those letters entire in my possession, drawn from a manuscript of Böddeken, I have thought it best to give here only the part already recited, because it exhibits accurately all that those letters contain pertaining to our purpose. But what Gobelinus subjoins in the place cited, that the grant of the privilege or letters was made in the month of May, appears erroneous. For Ferdinand, bishop of Paderborn, in the Monumenta Paderbornensia, page 223, notes that the monastery of Böddeken was transferred to John Wael, or to the canons Regular, on the seventeenth day of July; and the copy of the letters by which this was done, existing in my possession, bears, besides the year 1409, about which all agree, this same day of July; so that certainly the grant of the Privilege or letters, and therefore also the transfer of the monastery of Böddeken to the canons Regular, inasmuch as it was made by it, most probably, not to say undoubtedly, took place then and not in the month of May; and how this at the same time brought restoration to the cult of St. Meinulphus, which in the same monastery had been either entirely intermitted or at any rate not a little diminished, the following § will make plain.

§ VIII. The Saint's relics translated and exhibited to the people; his cult among the Regular canons of Böddeken.

The restoration of the monastery of Böddeken: the happy Scarcely six weeks had elapsed since the monastery of Böddeken had been transferred to John de Wale, Prior of the canons Regular of Zwolle,

when he, having summoned to himself some canons from the convent of Zwolle, committed it to them to be inhabited and restored. And they, introduced into this new domicile on the very feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, that is, the 29th day of August, at once set about the work with no mean alacrity; and although they found almost all the buildings of the monastery delivered to them collapsed or even destroyed, and saw that either to raise all these anew from the foundations or at any rate to restore them was a matter entangled with many difficulties, yet by no means losing heart, they conceived the hope that their labours would be crowned with a happy outcome, partly from the sacred body of St. Meinulphus which they had with them in the church to be restored, partly from the visions divinely presented, narrated above, by which he had learned that the monastery was to be built here at Böddeken; for since St. Meinulphus (see number 66 and following) had seen in the place where he founded the monastery of Böddeken first restless hinds and afterwards a stag at rest, they had persuaded themselves that the transfer of the monastery from the canonesses, restless as regards their sex, to the canons Regular had been foreshown by God, who would therefore prosper the work undertaken by them.

[108] whence the canons Regular promised themselves a happy outcome of the work. The author of the manuscript little Work, of which notice was given at number 20 and following, who was himself most probably a canon Regular, speaks thus: Just as, according to the tradition of those who have left us writings on the Life and Miracles of saint Meynulphus (see Sigeward in the Life, number 14), he himself had believed that by the hinds were designated to him the women to be established in that place (the village of Böddeken), and by the stag Christ, the defender of the place, through the admonition of the aforesaid visions (namely those in which the appearance first of hinds and then of a stag had been presented to St. Meinulphus), so we, now more plainly taught by the experience of things, can explain what more Divine Providence wished to be portended by the same visions. The hinds indeed, restless in their movements, were seen first; when they had already left the place, the stag bearing the sign of the cross appeared. So, after women, restless by the instinct of their nature, neglecting to venerate the merits of this holy Man (namely Meinulphus), had forsaken this place (the monastery of Böddeken), a spirit of the male sex, stable by instinct, apt to praise the Lord in His Saints, following Christ under the burden of the Cross, has now succeeded the women in the same place. John Probus also has similar things in the Chronicle of Böddeken, part 1, chapters 1 and 3, at the same time indicating not obscurely that courage for reforming and restoring the convent of Böddeken was added to the canons Regular, and namely to John de Wale, Prior of the monastery of Zwolle, from the visions in the first of which, thrice repeated, St. Meinulphus had seen restless hinds, in the latter a stag lying down. But as for what now pertains to the body of the Saint existing in the church of Böddeken which was to be restored, just as they had it present with them, so most probably they hoped that they would also experience the present help of the Saint, as a patron who would assiduously intercede with God for the monastery built by him, in whatever troubles and dangers.

[109] Further, in order that they might also merit this for themselves, they held nothing of more importance [They fit the church of Kerckberg for divine worship, and cause the relics of the Saint to be translated to it] than, from the very beginning of the restoration they had undertaken, likewise to restore, and even, as far as could be done, to increase, the cult of the Saint, which together with his monastery had almost perished; and in order to do this, they took their beginning from honouring the Saint's relics. How the thing was done, I set forth. At the time when the canons Regular first entered the monastery of Böddeken, the parish of Böddeken had been placed under ecclesiastical interdict on account of the contumacy of one of the lords of the castle of Wewelsburg situated in it — on what it turned I nowhere find; and since the canons Regular desired (the words are those of John Probus in the Chronicle, part 1, chapter 4) to exercise divine worship with the doors open, for the sake of having greater devotion, they cleansed of its filth the church of Kerckberg situated in the neighbourhood; and when on the following Sunday after the day of B. John the reverend William, elect of the church of Paderborn, had caused it to be dedicated by his suffragan, in it the aforenamed canons, for the space of almost one year from the time when they began to reform the monastery of Böddeken, until at length the aforesaid interdict was lifted in so far as it concerned the monastery of Böddeken, performed the divine Office with the doors open with great fervour; and meanwhile, in order to recall to memory the illustrious name of St. Meinulphus, almost buried in oblivion among some, they caused his sacred relics to be translated with solemn rite to the said church of Kerckberg on the very feast of the Saint's birthday, that is, the 5th day of October, and to be exhibited publicly to the people to be seen. John Probus relates the matter in the Chronicle of Böddeken, part 1, chapter 5.

[110] Behold his very words, however again very little elegant. and they have the relics of the Saint exhibited to the people. Because, therefore, he writes, the praiseworthy fame of B. Meinulphus was buried in silence for many years, I have thought it worthy to publish again magnificently, and to commend to writing, what we have seen. For the Regulars, after they had entered the monastery of Böddeken, hearing that the relics of B. Meinulphus had now for long times lain hidden in their chest, decided to show them to all comers on the day of his birthday then next following, and for this they caused this very thing to be made known round about in the neighbouring places. And so on the aforesaid day, a multitude of peoples flocking out of devotion to the said monastery (of Böddeken), the sacred body of B. Meinulphus with its casket, placed on the shoulders of certain venerable canons of the church of Paderborn, was carried from the church of Böddeken all the way to Kerckberg with great devotion and responsive melody, a multitude of the people of the neighbouring places following; where, for the sake of performing a greater solemnity, not only was one Mass solemnly sung, but also out of fervour of devotion several Masses were read on portable altars; nor was this thought sufficient for so venerable a day unless they also frequently sounded there a strong peal of bells for joy. And so the divine Office having been duly celebrated, and the aforesaid casket with the sacred relics having been carried outside the church, it was honourably placed upon a more elevated place prepared for this; and, it having been opened, the venerable suffragan of the reverend elect of the church of Paderborn, together with the devout lord John, Prior of Zwolle, showed the sacred bones of B. Meinulphus with all reverence, as was fitting, to the so great multitude aforesaid, which had devoutly come together from every side for this: which done, the aforesaid sacred body was carried back with joy by the aforesaid venerable bearers, the multitude following, to its own church (namely of Böddeken).

[111] Cult then, as it appears, with a proper Mass, Such was the beginning given to the restoration of the cult of St. Meinulphus, when not yet three whole months had passed since the canons Regular had been substituted in the convent of Böddeken for the nuns, or rather Secular canonesses; but what or what kind of increase it afterwards received John Probus nowhere declares in the Chronicle of Böddeken; yet since he narrates not a few miracles, part of which I shall present below, performed in his age, that is, not long after the translation of the relics just mentioned, at the invocation of St. Meinulphus, it does not appear to be doubted that he then began to be venerated more and more, nay rather that he was already then honoured at Böddeken every year by the canons Regular, at least on his birthday in heaven, both with a proper Mass and with a proper Office. And first, that he was honoured with a proper Mass I gather also from John Probus, who in part 2, chapter 27 mentions a Sequence used in his age, in which, of the bell called St. Meinulphus's, the foreteller of death, to be mentioned here below, it was sung thus: O how singular the sign, by which the sound of the bell warns us to prepare for death. Gamans, praised very often already, found this Sequence prefixed, in the Hardehausen codex, to the Sigewardine Life of the Saint — written, as he thought, three or four hundred years before — in a more recent hand, yet about two hundred years old, and, having copied it out together with the Life, he transmitted it to our Predecessors in the past century. That ancient monument of the cult offered to the Saint, although mutilated in the place which I have filled with points, I have thought fit to transcribe here, together with the title it bears, so that the studious reader may not miss it.

As we recall the magnificent Solemnities of our Father, May the grace of Christ adorn them; The voices and vows of hearts Do Thou set free, Giver of gifts, For the uttering of the canticle.

This Saint the flower of his life Unto an odour of sweetness Consecrated to the Lord; The place foreshown he restored And enriched it With a large patrimony.

While still living, by Christ's gift, Thou didst give back to one weeping the veil Consumed by fire; Thrice didst thou break the repaired Tomb, when thou didst command Thyself to be translated from the grave.

What he presumed to ordain, It is given him to revoke, Concerning a noble prelate. O how singular the sign, By which the sound of the bell Warns us to prepare for death.

The man is slow to bear the commands To the prelate; his eyes grow dark; While the sacred body is raised, By the very waters is restored A certain paralysed woman.

This Patron let us venerate, With sweet voice let us sing In his solemnities, Before Christ let us be raised up, Lest we be condemned, as we deserve, By his suffrages.

[113] As for what now pertains to the ecclesiastical Office, [and a proper Office they offered him; and besides the feasts of the Saint's nativity and translation] it appears to be concluded from the proper Mass with which, from what has been said, the Saint was honoured at Böddeken in the age of John Probus, that he was likewise honoured there at that time with a proper Office. However the matter stands, the Saint afterwards obtained such a cult at any rate in the monastery of Böddeken, as will become plain from what is now to be said. I have at hand a little book printed at Paderborn by the press of Heinrich Pontanus in the year 1627. It bears this title: Office of St. Meinolphus, confessor and founder of the monastery of Böddeken, edited by the zeal of the R. F. Gerhard Sonnenschmidt, Prior of the said monastery; and it comprises at least two different Offices of St. Meinulphus — whence the little book ought rather to have been entitled Offices than Office — of which one is prescribed to be recited on the Saint's birthday under the double rite of the first class with an Octave, the other on the feast of the translation, the rite not being expressed. Further, since those two Offices, whose Lessons proper to St. Meinulphus are drawn from the Life written by Gobelinus, were composed, as is clear from the title transcribed here, by a Prior of the monastery of Böddeken, it does not appear to be doubted that in the century just elapsed they were proposed to the religious inhabitants of the monastery of Böddeken to be recited every year on the two mentioned feasts of the Saint. But whether some change has not now been introduced into these Offices, or rather whether a third has not now been added to the two feast days which the Saint once had consecrated to him in the convent of canons Regular of Böddeken, Overham makes me doubt, writing thus in his Observations on the Life of St. Meinulphus, page 422: The relics of St. Meinulfus are preserved with very great devotion in the convent of Böddeken, in which, besides the principal feast of the tutelary Saint on the 5th of October, the feast of the Translation and of the Commemoration is also celebrated.

[114] Moreover there exists with us a manuscript Collection of Saints, they today most probably celebrate a third besides, which he who gathered it, John Gamans, priest of our Society, of the Church

of Paderborn, entitled the Sanctuarium. And this, which was also augmented from time to time with additions made by Grothaus, likewise a priest of our Society, first has at the 27th day of September, from the Calendar of Böddeken, which it cites, thus: The Translation (this is marked elsewhere at the 26th of September, on which day we have therefore reviewed the Saint among the Passed Over) of St. Mainulfus. IX Lessons; but in the Abdinghof Calendar (so it is added in the hand of Grothaus), The Exaltation of St. Mainulfus the deacon; and at the 18th day of January, in an addition made by Fr. Grothaus, is recorded that remarkable miracle, done once and again at Böddeken, by which, as we have seen, it was divinely shown that the body of St. Meinulphus was to be raised from the earth; and it is added that the same miracle is celebrated in a very ancient manuscript Calendar of the secular canonesses at Bödeken, and likewise in the Calendar of the present day, in these words: The Apparition of St. Mainulfus. There is added our manuscript Florarium, composed, as it appears, by a canon Regular of the Windesheim Congregation, which also seems to mention the same miracle, when at the same 18th day of January, on which we have reported the Saint among the Passed Over, it notes thus: The Finding of St. Maynulphus, archdeacon and confessor: from all of which it comes about that it appears most probable that in the monastery of Böddeken there are celebrated today not only the Saint's birthday and the translation, which is kept at the 26th or 27th of September, but also another feast in which, at the 18th of January, commemoration is made of the apparition, or of the miracle which, from what has been said, preceded the Saint's translation and took place, if Gobelinus is to be believed, on that day of January.

[115] and various monuments in the Saint's honour, of which, in Gamans's Further, how earnestly the canons Regular of Böddeken devoted themselves to the cult of St. Meinulphus after the age of John Probus, that is, after the year 1455, about which he seems to have put the last hand to his Chronicle of Böddeken, may also be evidenced by the various monuments, whether painted or engraved in bronze or stone, representing various chapters of the Saint's Life or pertaining to it or to the Saint himself or his relics, which they erected in the church of Böddeken restored by them, or in the new choir added to it. John Gamans, already often praised, sent notice of each of them to our Predecessors. I transcribe his principal words bearing on this. At Böddeken, he says, in the middle of the choir of the psalm-singers there occurs a square stone monument, two feet in height and breadth, almost three in length, with a bronze plate laid upon it with this inscription round about: "In the year of the Lord MCCCCLXXXII the high altar was moved from this place: and it is said that St. Maynulfus saw the stag with the cross lying here. Glory to thee, O Trinity." Engraved on the plate is St. Maynulfus himself, kneeling, in the habit of a deacon, before the stag with the cross on its forehead lying on the ground, with this utterance of his written above: "Now a sure hope" (see Sigeward in the Life, number 20) "promises me that He who once with this same standard penetrated the barriers of hell will be the protector of this place." The same image of the kneeling Meinulphus and the recumbent stag is carved on all four sides with this inscription: "Here the stag with the cross lay down." Overham too supplies notice of the stone monument, here already described in the words of Gamans, in his Observations on the Sigewardine Life of the Saint, page 419; but it differs somewhat from Gamans's, as will become plain from a comparison of the two. Since this discrepancy, whatever it be, does not bear on the matter, I proceed to copy out Gamans's words.

[116] words notice At the Epistle horn, he says, another little written tablet is fixed on the side of the table of the high altar, which runs thus: "In the year of the Lord MCCCCLXXXV, in the Octave of the holy and undivided Trinity, which was then on the very day of Boniface, this church was consecrated together with the new choir and the high altar in honour of the most holy Virgin Mary, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, of St. John the Baptist, of St. Maynulphus, confessor and founder of this monastery, by the reverend father and lord in Christ, the lord John, bishop of Thefelicensis, then suffragan of the reverend father and lord in Christ, the lord Simon of Lippe, bishop of the church of Paderborn. This high altar was consecrated in honour of the holy Trinity, and in honour of the glorious Virgin Mary, of saint John the Baptist, of saint Augustine the bishop, of St. Maynulphus, of St. Anthony the confessor, and the relics written below were placed in it." The Saints, and among them St. Meinulphus, whose relics were placed in the high altar of the church of Böddeken when it was consecrated, are here enumerated, and then Gamans proceeds thus: At the Gospel side a very tall stone obelisk, variegated with carvings and colours, adheres to the wall of the choir before the high altar; in the middle of its base, hollowed out and closed with iron railings, is placed a coloured wooden casket with a gabled roof of gilded copper. A little tablet placed before the railings has this golden inscription: "Casket of the relics of our holy father Maynulfus." At the entrance of the sacristy is seen an old image of St. Meinulfus in the red habit of a deacon, the crown of the head broadly tonsured, with the figure of the church of Böddeken in his right hand, a book under his left arm, and a crown of rays about his head, with a stag at his feet and the inscription, "Saint Meynolfus." This image, which, as Gamans notes, is also painted on the votive altar of St. Meinulphus and in other places of the church of Böddeken, the V. R. F. Giles de Roovere, Prior of Böddeken, caused to be engraved in copper in the past century; and I would also have given to our engraver to imitate the copy of it which I have in my possession, if I had judged the archetype placed in the church of Böddeken older than the fifteenth century, in which the canons Regular were first introduced into the convent of Böddeken.

[117] Further, the praised Prior added this inscription to the image: a notice is here given in part, they erected, St. Meinulphus, confessor, a Westphalian, archdeacon of the cathedral church of Paderborn, founder of the monastery of Böddeken, raised from the sacred font by the emperor Charles the Great, flourished about the year DCCLXX, renowned for miracles; whose relics rest in the said monastery of Böddeken. The year 770, about which the Saint is here noted to have flourished, is undoubtedly erroneous, as is clear from what has been said above. Having observed these things, let us proceed with Gamans from the entrance of the sacristy to the stalls of the choir. Above these, he says, on either side, are two very large and skilfully painted panels fixed to the wall, of which one has joined to it this inscription: "Saint Maynulphus with many resources;" the other this: "Endowed this church, appointed Christ alone his heir." On the wings of both panels on the outside is seen the history of Christ's passion, but on the inside, on the wings and panels, the series of the Life of St. Meinulphus depicted by chapters and intervals. Outside the choir (again they are the words of Gamans), on the left of one going out, is seen the proper altar of St. Meinulphus, erected in that very place where the Saint once lay buried, as a wooden tablet found in the same altar testifies by the inscription it bears. On the same left side, in the upper gallery of the organ loft, at the angle of the two meeting walls beside the first side of the larger window, St. Meinulfus is seen, of fairly large stature, in the same habit as elsewhere, painted on the wall long ago and left, even when the other parts of the church were whitewashed, with the sentence: "This Charles the Great devoutly raised me from the sacred font." On the opposite side Charles the Great is painted in imperial habit, with a shield on which are three yellow lilies, with the sentence: "This Maynulphus, that is, my Ulfius, drawing his origin from kings." And so you now have the principal monuments erected in the church of Böddeken to St. Meinulphus which Gamans reviews in the Notices sent to our Predecessors, and which are most probably, at least in part, the very ones that Schaten praises in the Annales Paderbornenses under the year 837, page 113.

[118] and they most reverently guarded relics pertaining in any way to the Saint. Further, in the same Gamansian Notices it is added that in the choir of Böddeken, around the altar, there also exist four shrines, in one of which — whence too a singular veneration towards St. Meinulphus shines forth — were once preserved sacred remains which, although they were not parts of the body of St. Meinulphus, were yet counted among the Saint's relics because they pertained to him in a certain singular manner: they are, namely, the bell, the veil or peplum, the dalmatic, and the silver cross. On each of these remains I note a few things. The bell called St. Meinulphus's is a little bell which, as John Probus, page 46, and Gobelinus in the Life, number 31 and the two following, set forth, was once wont to give forth a sound of its own accord whenever a nun at Böddeken was shortly to die; so that the Sequence transcribed here at number 112, in which is sung, O how singular the sign, by which the sound of the bell warns us to prepare for death, was perhaps already in use at Böddeken from the age of the nuns, and therefore perhaps it happened that the Saint was already then honoured there both with a proper Mass and with an Office likewise proper. Add these things to what was said at number 95. I pursue what was begun. The veil is that linen covering of the head restored whole by the Saint after burning, as both his biographers narrate, Sigeward at number 23 and the two following, Gobelinus at number 19; in which, as Gobelinus and Gamans, who saw it, say, traces of the scorching are still seen. The dalmatic is the sacred vestment which the Saint is believed to have used when he discharged his office of deacon at Mass. This, of which John Probus also treats at pages 3 and 47, Gamans notes was long ago carried off by Dutch soldiers together with many other ornaments of the church of Böddeken. As for what now pertains to the silver cross, the same Gamans suspects that it was called St. Meinulphus's because it had been procured by the Saint in memory of the cross which appeared to him divinely between the stag's horns; and he adds that it too, which weighed nine pounds, was long since carried off by soldiers.

§ IX. Miracles performed through the Saint's patronage from the time when the monastery of Böddeken was transferred to the canons Regular up to the year MCDLV.

[The Saint, who one of those labouring at the restoration of the monastery of Böddeken] The transfer of the monastery of Böddeken to the canons Regular is narrated to have been followed, as by the restoration of the cult of St. Meinulphus, so also by not a few miracles performed through his patronage. John Probus, already very often praised, brought into his Chronicle of Böddeken those which he had heard had happened from the time of that transfer up to the year 1455. It is my intention in this present § to inform the reader here, in the very words of John Probus, however little polished, of eleven of the principal of these — of which he supplies the first two at page 24 and following of his Work, the third at page 32, the fourth at page 34, the fifth at page 63, the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth at page 94 and the five following, the tenth at page 109, and the eleventh finally at page 113 and following — so that I may not altogether pass over in silence what conduces most greatly to the Saint's glory, adding meanwhile observations from time to time where the matter shall require it. In order to set forth each in the order already assigned in which John Probus does so, beginning with the two which he relates at page 24 and following, and which, while the monastery was still

of Böddeken, already transferred to the canons Regular, was being restored, were done, I make a beginning. They run thus: At a certain time, while the Prior (of the monastery of Böddeken) was having stones brought by carts for the building, it happened that the carter, namely a youth of fourteen years, while the horses were dragging the loaded cart with violence in a deep way, fell from a higher place in front of the cart; and thus the wheel of the loaded cart passed over both his legs; and through such rolling over, being made as it were useless, he was placed on the cart, brought to the monastery, and carried before the altar of blessed Meinulphus, where the Prior, prostrate on his knees, held the sick youth lying across both his arms, and suppliantly called upon saint Meinulphus for his health; which done, the sick youth at once spoke in these words: "Nothing is lacking to me or hurts me;" and so he who had been carried, weak in his feet, before the altar of B. Meinulphus, all who were present praising God, returned to his former works.

[120] At another time also, since the great tower had been plainly without a roof, and preserved another in dangers, and the aforesaid Prior with his men wished to erect a wooden structure for having a roof, I shall not keep silent what kind of miracle happened concerning this. For the mast of the said fabric, which was to be placed in the middle and on which the whole machine of timbers rests, when it had been drawn up from the ground into the air by a windlass, so that it now had to be drawn over the wall, the master of the work approached, wishing to arrange that the aforesaid mast should be brought more conveniently over the same wall of the tower; it happened by chance that the same mast, through some negligence, made its descent to the ground with great velocity, and, seizing the aforesaid master of the work as he guarded himself too little, threw him the distance of one furlong from the building, as had been seen by many; but, the Lord God piously protecting him, at once, as it were in a moment, without any injury, all beholding him, he was seen to sit upon the wall of the aforesaid tower. It is therefore doubtful to no one that B. Meinulphus, wishing to continue the progress of the reforming of his monastery, preserved the aforesaid master from the danger of death by his intercession. The first of these two miracles perhaps not all will hold as an undoubted miracle; and as for what pertains to the second, some one perhaps will doubt whether it was performed through the patronage of St. Meinulphus, inasmuch as he does not seem even to have been invoked; although meanwhile John Probus, the chronologer of Böddeken, judged that there was no question on this matter. Let us now proceed to the third of the eleven miracles to be mentioned here.

[121] It is conceived in these words: Since the Regulars of the monastery of B. Meinulphus, at the time and he is narrated to have raised to life a dead lay brother of Böddeken, when they were first reforming the said monastery, applied themselves to many and heavy labours, as was necessary for them, the pious Lord God so mercifully dispensed with them that they very rarely had among them weak or sick persons, to whom they were not able to give care or leisure on account of the multitude of works. For when it had happened that one of their lay brothers, named Dederic Roes, fell sick, and on one occasion, to drive away his sickness, was joined to a bath, he who had to look after him in the place of infirmarian, on account of the same man's sickness, absented himself from him for somewhat long, and, returning, found that the sick man had sunk down in the water; wherefore, compelled by heavy grief, he made a loud outcry; the Prior ran up, the brothers ran up; and when they had come to him who was sick, the Prior and Brothers, perceiving no indication of life in him, judged him dead; and therefore, humbly imploring the Lord God and saint Meinulphus for him, he who was thought dead by all was received back alive to great joy. It has not rarely happened that the drowned, even if they had lain long under water and gave no sign of life at all, were nevertheless in actual fact found, when they had been drawn out of the waters for some while, still to be among the living: for which reason it can be doubted whether the Prior and Brothers of Böddeken were not mistaken in the judgement by which they considered the lay brother mentioned in the words recited to be dead; especially since the chronologer of Böddeken does not declare for what space of time he lay under water. However that may be, I wished to review here both this and the two cases just narrated, because they are proposed by John Probus as three different miracles performed through the patronage of St. Meinulphus, and because it appears not altogether improbable that the Saint did in actual fact have a part in them.

[122] to a sick boy health Further, all these things, inasmuch as John Probus notes that they were done under the first Prior of the monastery of Böddeken, who was taken from life in the year 1420, and they certainly did not happen before the restoration of the monastery of Böddeken begun by the canons Regular in the year 1409, must have happened in that space of time which runs from this latter year up to the year 1420; which on the same ground is also to be said of the fourth miracle, now to be mentioned here, which the chronicler of Böddeken narrates in this manner: There was a certain cleric, named Sifrid, in the town of Geseke, whose brother's son so great a pain of the limbs had seized that there was no hope of health for him; and his father, observing many miseries in him, desired rather that he were dead than living in sickness; and because the same father was of simple and good life, as is best established to me, who knew the man, he had by no means been abandoned by divine consolation; for since it had been related of saint Meinulphus, the pious patron of the oft-mentioned monastery, that he was powerful with the Lord God, he took his aforementioned sick son and brought him to the said monastery, where, when he presented him, weak and a stranger to soundness, before the altar of B. Meinulphus, he carried him back sound from the altar; and so it came about that he who had formerly brought his sick son sorrowful to the monastery, now, he having been made sound through the prayers of B. Meinulphus, returned home with him rejoicing and glad.

[123] he restored sight to a blind girl, Behold now the fifth miracle, which by the method of our purpose is next to be subjoined to those just reviewed. The chronologer of Böddeken, having narrated some other miracles which happened under Daniel, third Prior of the monastery of Böddeken, without the patronage of our Saint, relates it in these words: There remains still one miracle which happened under the rule of the third Prior (namely of the monastery of Böddeken) through the intercession of B. Meinulphus, worthy to be set forth. There was a certain woman in the town of Salzkotten, whose daughter was deprived of the sight of both eyes; and while her mother was very greatly saddened on this account, she humbly called upon saint Meinulphus that he would deign to entreat the Lord God for her daughter that she might merit to receive at least the sight of one eye. This invocation made, the daughter received the sight of one eye; but the mother, grieving that she had not asked the health of both eyes, said in these words: O! if I had invoked saint Meinulphus for the sight of both eyes, he would surely have obtained both eyes sound. Daniel was substituted in the year 1420 for the second Prior of the monastery of Böddeken, who presided only eight months, and in the year 1424 (see John Probus, pages 56, 57 and 63) he voluntarily resigned his office; so that the miracle now related here undoubtedly happened between the year 1419 and the year 1425.

[124] Somewhat later, of the eleven miracles which I have resolved to review here, a cloth, renewing a miracle he had once performed, the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth happened, although meanwhile a determinate year cannot be assigned to each; for John Probus places them under Arnold Hüls, sixth Prior of the monastery of Böddeken, who, as the same writer teaches at pages 79 and 92, received that convent to govern only in the year 1432, and governed it for eighteen years. The first three of these I now copy out in continuous series, because they are so reviewed by the author of the Chronicle of Böddeken himself. Since divine miracles, by which the human race (the words are those of John Probus) can be called to a state of better life, can by no means be kept silent without fault by those who know them, I have thought it worthy to commit to present writing that which happened to a devout confrere of mine of the aforesaid monastery (namely of Böddeken), by his relation; for as is read in the Deeds of the holy confessor Meinulphus, a candle twisted upon itself and lit (see in the Saint's Life Sigeward at number 28 and following, and Gobelinus at number 21) was placed upon the bare cloth with which the sepulchre of the aforesaid B. Meinulphus was covered, without anything in between; and it, through the neglect of a certain devout canoness who had the custody of the said sepulchre (Sigeward writes in the place just cited that a maidservant, not a canoness, was appointed to guard the Saint's sepulchre), had made its end by burning, and the same cloth had not appeared injured in any part of it. And because the same miracle, from the fact that it was done many times ago, and, alas, in a manner is now less and less venerated in the hearts of certain men through the oldness of time, the pious Lord God, wishing, to the honour of B. Meinulphus His confessor, to rouse some Brothers of the said monastery, by whom B. Meinulphus was perhaps not sufficiently honoured, to devotion and to a little spark of fervour, nay to a fuller veneration of their Patron, disposed to renew the aforesaid miracle, namely of the burning of the candle upon the cloth.

[125] For the aforementioned Brother, to whom what I am now about to relate happened, unharmed by fire, was called Arnold the Frenchman; who at a certain time, after he had celebrated his Mass and wished now to enter the sacristy to unvest, saw from afar a burning light, fallen from the candlestick, lying upon the bare cloth of that table at which priests are accustomed to vest themselves in the sacred vestments for celebrating Masses. What did he do? Fearing damage, abandoning his slow pace, he hastened to the place where this fire was, and was anxious to remove the burning light fallen upon the aforesaid cloth; for he had thought that the aforesaid cloth had been altogether consumed by the fire: but, behold, the same cloth is found without any injury to it or sign of burning; and the place of the fire, on account of the greatness of the miracle, was most neatly adorned and worked in its circumference with the needle and silken threads by the devout custodian of the monastery at that time, namely by Brother John Warburg. O great and stupendous miracle, which was done in our times; great, I say, with those who hold B. Meinulphus, by whose pious intercession it is not doubted that this was done, great in their hearts. That same light , the force of whose burning had been divinely taken away for this, that it should not harm the aforesaid cloth, is kept up to the present times in the said monastery by the counsel of a certain devout Brother: for the same Brother had hoped that such a light, by which this huge miracle was done, would some day be of greater utility; which is by no means believed impossible.

[126] and he keeps unharmed one fallen even from a height; At the time when the stone bakehouse in the monastery of B. Meinulphus had already been in great part built through the solicitude of the venerable Prior Arnold Hüls, and no storey had yet been made in it, but for three storeys to be made

one above another, it had only been prepared with bare beams set apart from one another at four feet; and so that the same bakehouse might the sooner serve the use for which it had been made, it was first covered with straw without clay mixed in; and while the brothers were labouring to make a roof of this kind, one of them, named Hugo, appointed for this, was supplying straw to those roofing the aforesaid building; and while on one occasion he stood on high in the said building under the rafters upon a heap of straw, and did not take care of his footing, he began to slip from the height, and, falling through the three positions of beams for the three storeys to be made one above another, he fell to the ground, and appeared altogether unharmed in body; and after he had walked for one day leaning on a staff because of the fear he had conceived, he then, made sound, joyfully went to perform his former works. A wonderful thing, yet not in the eyes of the Lord, who disposes all things excellently; because unless the aforesaid Brother had been divinely guarded, he would surely have fallen upon one of the many beams through which he fell to the extinction of his life; and if he had not died at once through the said fall, yet he would have been made weak and useless. Let it now be heard how he was guarded by the Lord God. For the aforesaid Brother had said that when he had begun to slip he had invoked St. Meinulphus. O pious and most excellent Patron, who by his pious intercession with God preserved from death his faithful servant, the co-restorer of his monastery, whom he had appointed for this, most of all because he had invoked him in his need.

[127] he recalls a dead man to life, In the district of the castle of Wewelsburg there had lived a certain tenant farmer named Conrad Mölners, who, touched by a certain infirmity, made the end of his life by the common death in the bed of sickness; and when he had died, the mourning and lamentation of his wife and sons followed, as is natural, and the neighbours, men and women, quickly running up, had with the grieving ones a great sorrow of compassion over the death of the much-beloved man who dwelt with them. And when the same Conrad was said by the bystanders to be dead by evident signs, and those whom it concerned were labouring to lay the body of the deceased from the bed upon the floor of the house, as was the custom, there arrived by chance the sister of the deceased from the city of Paderborn, named Adelheid; and understanding this, that they were labouring to put her brother, already deceased, from the bed upon the ground, she came up most swiftly, and, encircling her deceased brother with both arms, broke out with a strong voice in these words: "Do not, I pray, do not take him from the bed; for he is not dead but lives;" and, invoking saint Meinulphus, she spoke thus: "Saint Meinulphus, I ask you that, just as you once by your prayers restored to a weeping canoness of your monastery her peplum reduced to ashes, so now also you deign by your prayers to recall my dead brother to life. I, whatever sort of woman I am, promise that tomorrow I will bring to your altar in your honour a candle of half a talent." This promise made, he who had been dead turned the sight of his eyes upon his sister; and when she noticed this, with great joy she questioned her brother and spoke in this manner: "O singular friend, and where have you been?" He answered: "I went away, and now I have returned, and I saw saint Meinulphus;" and his sister said to him: "Brother, such a vow as I made for you" (expressing what she had vowed) "I will carry to the church of B. Meinulphus." The brother who had revived answered: "Pay, sister, what you have vowed; for when I have recovered more, I promise that I will make my pilgrimage to the relics of B. Meinulphus, two being associated with me, barefoot and clad in linen, in thanksgiving;" which he also fulfilled, and was entirely restored to his former health.

[128] Such are the three miracles performed by the patronage of our Saint under Arnold Hüls, sixth Prior of the monastery of Böddeken, and reviewed in continuous series by John Probus, the chronologer of Böddeken; the broken knee of a woman what is to be thought of them I leave to the judgement of the prudent reader, and I now proceed to another, the ninth of those to be given here, which, as has been said, happened indeed under the same Prior Arnold Hüls, yet is not narrated by John Probus in continuous series with the three just related. The words in which it is set forth by the author of the Chronicle of Böddeken are these: Gertrude, daughter of Renet, knight, of Brenken of the castle of Wewelsburg, after she had for a long time practised the pomp of the world in clothing, having asked and received leave from her vigorous husband, desiring for the attainment of eternal goods to lead a solitary life, with the consent of the Prior of the monastery of B. Meinulphus and of his convent intervening, had inhabited tirelessly for up to a year the place Kerchberg, which is a daughter of the aforesaid monastery; and when on one occasion, for the sake of devotion, she wished to visit the church at Böddeken with her devout maidservant, named Sophia, it happened that on the way the aforesaid maidservant, falling to the ground, badly broke her knee, and was made too weak to take a further step.

[129] When Gertrude her mistress, led by a certain indication, he heals at his invocation, found this to be true, her maidservant being left alone there upon the ground, she made for the doors of the monastery at a swift run, called the physician, and began to go with him towards the place where she had left the sick woman, so that her maidservant might be cured by him: at which time the sick handmaid of God, now being alone, before her mistress had come to her with the physician, most devoutly implored the blessed Virgin Mary and saint Meinulphus that her former health might be restored to her, so that her sick knee might not be touched or seen laid bare by any male; and the prayer made, the aforesaid maidservant most firmly relied, with the great hope and confidence which she had towards the blessed Virgin Mary and saint Meinulphus, that it would come about that she would obtain health through their pious intercession; and, behold, her mistress arriving together with the physician of the monastery and being in the presence of the maidservant, found the knee, before broken, now healed and plainly made firm .. This done, the maidservant said to her mistress: "Thanks be to God! I have now been made sound by the sound" (for she had heard a strong noise and sound made at her prayer) "which I heard." And the mistress, questioning her, said to her: "As I was just arriving in your presence, I heard a sound about you; was that the sound of which you speak?" And she answering said: "Yes, my beloved mistress:" and forthwith rising from the ground without the support of any person, pursuing the journey which the aforesaid mistress and her healed maidservant had begun to make, they arrived with great joy at the church of the monastery of B. Meinulphus.

[130] he restores an insane man to a sound mind, Take now that which holds the tenth place among the miracles to be transcribed here. It runs thus: There was a certain devout priest of the town of Geseke, who had a singular devotion to B. Meinulphus, and for this cause had in his Breviary a suffrage of the same, which he was accustomed to pay daily in his honour. It happened, however, for a cause which God alone knows, that the same man, having become as it were out of his mind, was guarded day and night by his relatives; some priests of the town of Geseke also secretly took away his Breviary, lest from the reading of his hours, because he was now weak in the head, he should be rendered wholly raving; yet because the aforesaid sick priest had been accustomed to serve B. Meinulphus in his prayers, through his pious intercession with God the time of mercy came; for on a certain night, his relatives who were guarding him being present but overcome by sleep, the priest rose and went away, and drawing out his Breviary from a certain corner beside the hearth, he opened it and paid the suffrage of prayer of B. Meinulphus; which done, he had begun to resume the soundness of his senses; after this, when the same health so begun had had some increase, he, who knew that it had come to him through the intercession of B. Meinulphus, made such a vow, that he wished — which he also fulfilled, and having been made sound in his senses he remained so — to visit his sacred relics in thanksgiving with two priests associated with him.

[131] to a sick man, until provision be made for him of the sacred viaticum, John Probus places this miracle under Arnold de Holte, seventh Prior of the monastery of Böddeken; so that, since the former does not carry his Chronicle of Böddeken beyond the year 1455, and the latter first began to govern the convent of Böddeken in the office of Prior in the year 1449, it undoubtedly happened either in this very year 1449 or in some one of the six following. To the same space of time also, and indeed to the determinate year 1455, which is included in it, the chronologer of Böddeken expressly affixes the eleventh miracle, which still remains to be given here, committing it to writing thus: To the honour of B. Meinulphus, Levite of Christ, let the following miracle be heard, which is believed to have happened through his pious intercession with God. In the year of the Lord's Incarnation MCCCCLV, on the very day of B. Lucy the virgin, a certain tenant farmer named Hermann Thonninges, an inhabitant of the township of Breneken, the Lord God piously disposing, was unexpectedly and suddenly taken ill; and while that infirmity continued, he was thought to be in his agony; and because the pastor of the township of Breneken was then staying at Paderborn for some business, those who were seen to have the special care of the aforementioned sick man feared that the same sick man would depart from this life without the Sacraments of the Church. But let it be heard what was done: for that sick man, because when well in his life he had especially honoured B. Meinulphus, merited, now that he was set in infirmity, that a certain woman assisting at his bed of sickness, divinely inspired, besought *, thus invoking St. Meinulphus, that he might merit by his prayers with God to prolong the life of the aforesaid sick man at least so long, until he should receive the Sacraments.

[132] This invocation made, the said sick man, feeling himself easier in his infirmity, he prolongs life, and other miracles, rejoiced in God; yet his friends and kinsmen, less content with such some recovery of his strength, wishing him to be safe through the fortification of the Sacraments of the Church, sending a messenger to the nearer parish, namely to the town of Byren, asked the chaplain to come to them in the said crisis of necessity; and he, the messenger setting forth the business to him, hastened quickly to visit the sick man; by him, now present before the sick man, the sick man was provided with the venerable Sacrament: these things being thus performed in the Ecclesiastical manner, the said chaplain being still present, the sick man passed to the Lord; and who would not believe that it was obtained for the said sick man by the merits of B. Meinulphus that, set in infirmity, he could not die before he received the venerable Sacrament. Further, John Probus in his Work, already very often praised, narrates still many other miracles of a somewhat different kind, as performed by our Saint to avenge injuries inflicted on his monastery, by which it came about that those who had been injurious to the Saint's monastery of Böddeken, whether by theft or robbery or by detraction or calumny, were divinely punished; but since the cases of adverse fortune, or misfortunes, which he relates befell these, by God, as injuries inflicted on His servants,

to avenge, were sent upon them, is for the most part either not established, or at any rate, as to those in which it seems to be established, it appears to be doubted whether they proceeded from St. Meinulphus acting with God as patron of his monastery, of all those miracles I transcribe here, as it were by way of specimen, only one, concerning a monstrous birth, which I have also ascertained from elsewhere, from the authentic testimony of the midwife existing in my possession.

[133] The chronicler of Böddeken relates it at page 75 and following in these words: of which one is here still given, he is related to have performed. Let now be heard a deed done, very horrible to the hearing; for after the aforesaid (fifth of the monastery of Böddeken) Prior (Hermann vonder Stecke) of good memory, while he was still living, had also been transferred from the monastery of B. Meinulphus to his own (of B. Catherine the virgin near Nijmegen), and no new Prior had yet been canonically provided for Böddeken, a certain knight of the diocese of Paderborn, neither fearing God nor reverencing men, violently drove off the pigs of the Regulars (namely the canons of Böddeken), and, leading them to his castle, caused them to be slaughtered. This done, his wife, near to childbirth, brought forth a certain monster, in some part of it like a pig, as one of the midwives who were present afterwards related to some; the aforesaid monster, I say, was dead, and had its feet bent back towards the calf, and to those looking from afar they appeared as the crooked feet of a pig; it also had a great wound, swollen and open, but not bloody. The said midwife, quickly showing the aforesaid monster, horrible to see, received upon her hands, to the husband of the aforesaid woman in labour, for his greater confusion and horror, lest he should presume henceforth to inflict a like violent robbery on the monastery of B. Meinulphus, said in these words: "Behold your child, for these are the pigs of which you despoiled the monastery of B. Meinulphus." He, struck with great horror and confounded with shame, ordered that monster, horrible enough, to be taken away from his eyes. For it was just that he who violently carried off the pigs from the monastery, and caused them to be killed by wounding, should merit to receive through his wife's childbirth a dead and monstrous and wounded child covered with pigskin. Hermann vonder Stecke was created Prior of the monastery of Böddeken in the year 1427, and held that office for five years, that is, up to the year 1432, as John Probus teaches at pages 69 and 75; and Arnold Hüls was substituted for Hermann in the same year 1432, as is clear from what has already been said above. Now since the prodigy just related happened after Hermann had held the priorate of the monastery of Böddeken, and at the time when it had not yet been provided with a new Prior, it altogether follows that its epoch must be reckoned with the same year 1432. But if further anyone should perhaps desire more miracles by which St. Meinulphus obtained from God that those injurious to his monastery should be punished, he will find in John Probus the means by which his wish may be satisfied, at page 37 and the three following, page 45, page 97 and following, page 104 and the two following, page 111 and following, and finally page 115 and following.

* i.e. cereus the candle

* sublata taken away

* exoraret might beseech

§ X. The Saint's relics shared by the canons of Böddeken with others; his cult in the diocese of Paderborn and elsewhere.

Part of the Saint's relics, to be sent to Spain, As long as sacred virgins or nuns inhabited the monastery of Böddeken, they seem to have preserved in their church the whole body of our Saint, or all his sacred bones, none at all being dispersed or shared with another sacred building; and for a very long time, as it appears, the Regular canons, when they had been substituted for the nuns, likewise guarded all those sacred pledges in the same monastery. But in the year 1571 it came about at length that John of Hoya, the most serene and most reverend bishop of the church of Münster and administrator of the churches of Osnabrück and Paderborn, requested part of the most precious treasure, to be sent as a gift to Spain to the most serene queen of this kingdom, daughter of the emperor Maximilian II and wife of Philip II; to which most pious request the canons of Böddeken certainly could not but assent. The very letters which they wrote on that occasion to that most serene prelate conveniently teach us this. Those letters, inasmuch as they had been joined by way of testimony to the Saint's relics sent to Spain, our Cuper, then staying there, copied out in the year 1722, in the month of February, in the manuscript Lipsanologium in folio of the royal monastery of St. Lawrence of the Escorial, and, having returned home, added to our manuscript Notices on St. Meinulphus. I transcribe them here entire, because they teach us some things pertaining to our purpose.

[135] They run thus: To the most reverend prelate in Christ, to bishop John of Hoya, by letters which are recited here, and at the same time most illustrious prince, the lord John, bishop of Münster, and administrator of the cathedral churches of Osnabrück and Paderborn, count of Hoya, our most clement Lord. Most reverend prelate and most illustrious prince, some days ago the letters of your most illustrious highness, destined for the procuring of approved relics of certain Saints for the most serene queen of the Spains, were not only exhibited to us by the venerable and excellent men, the lords Conrad ter Mollen, licentiate, dean and official, and also Henry of Cologne, but we were also exhorted by them with the greatest diligence that, satisfying the request of your most illustrious H., we would share with them some part of the most blessed Maynolphus, confessor, our patron, to be presented to your most illustrious H. And although few approved relics are found with us besides those of our aforesaid patron St. Maynolphus, and it seemed to us an unspeakable wickedness not only to unlock but also to disperse that precious treasure, never before opened or seen by any of us, but guarded with the highest care and great reverence and religiously preserved by our predecessors, nevertheless we judged that more must be given to the commands of your ill. H. than to our own affections; and therefore, anxiously opening in the name of God the tomb in which the bones of our holy Patron have been laid away and piously preserved from the very translation, we have delivered to the aforesaid lord official and chancellor part of the arm of our said Patron, taken from it with due veneration, together with the History, or Legend, of the same holy Patron of ours, as it has come down to us from our predecessors, confirmed with our seal, to be faithfully transmitted to your ill. H.; earnestly begging that your ill. H. will not disdain to embrace in the arms of your grace this humble and devoted promptitude of our minds, such as it is, and to hold us most commended to yourself. Given on the day before the Nones of March in the year MDLXXI. Of your most reverend and most illustrious H. the humble and devoted chaplains, the Prior and convent at Büdeken, of the Order of Canons Regular of St. Augustine, of the diocese of Paderborn.

[136] Take now what occurs to be observed either in these letters or at least on the occasion of them. given as a gift, others with the monastery of St. Martin at Louvain, They do not express how great was the part of the arm of St. Meinulphus which the Regular canons of Böddeken sent to John of Hoya, bishop of Münster and administrator of the church of Paderborn; but that it was at least six fingers long is taught by a Notice added in the margin by Cuper, which discloses that a bone of such length from the sacred remains of St. Meinulphus was sent to the Spains. Further, since they expressly declare that the most precious treasure of our Saint's remains had never, after his translation or raising from the earth was made, up to the time at which they were written, been either opened or seen by anyone, the canons of Böddeken who wrote those letters had not seen, or at any rate had not read, the Composition of John Probus, already very often praised in this Commentary, from which (see number 110) it is most clearly established that the sacred bones of our Saint, the reliquary which contained them having been opened, were publicly exhibited to the people in the year 1409 by the suffragan of the bishop of Paderborn and by John Wael, Prior of the monastery of Zwolle. But how did it come about that those religious men were ignorant of the very Chronicle of their monastery? There is certainly no reason why this should seem wonderful to anyone, since that little Work, as its anonymous editor teaches in the preliminary Admonition to the reader, seems to have lain in darkness up to the beginning of the present century. Moreover, they easily persuaded themselves that the casket of the Saint's sacred relics had never been unlocked by their predecessors, because they themselves, as they indicate most plainly in the letters recited, made it a matter of religious scruple to open it. But the Regular canons who flourished after the sixteenth century did not think that they must so scrupulously abstain from opening the reliquary of our Saint and extracting relics from it. The matter will become plain from what is now to be brought forward. Among the manuscript Notices on our Saint there occur letters testimonial concerning the sacred relics of St. Meinulphus which the monastery of St. Martin of the canons Regular at Louvain preserves, written by Peter of St. Trond, Prior of St. Martin at Louvain and general of the Windesheim congregation, and communicated to our Papebroch in the century just elapsed. These, because they bear on the present purpose, I transcribe here, even with the copyist's errors.

[137] as the letters which are here transcribed testify, They are conceived in these words: For the eternal memory and testimony of the truth. This larger particle of the relics of St. Meinulphus or Menolphus, archdeacon of the cathedral church of Paderborn, I received from the very reverend Father and Lord Matthias Damiani, Prior of Gaesdonck, in the year of the Lord MDCXC , on the 22nd of September, taken from a long bone about half a foot, which the very reverend Father and Dom Theodore Mesmecker, his predecessor, and commissary of the chapter of Windesheim, with the licence of the very reverend Lord Prior of Böddeken, had received from the very chest of his relics, customarily kept in the same monastery in the choir on the Northern side, at the time of the visitation made there by him. And another smaller particle, and a tooth of the same St. Menolphus, I myself extracted in the year of the Lord MDCLXIX , in the month of June, from the aforesaid very chest or ark of the relics of the same Saint, in the presence and with the consent of the very reverend Lord Hermann Crüel, Prior, and John Hermipennius, Superior; and I caused the same tooth and the same smaller particle to be offered to the very reverend and most ample Lord Amatus Coriache, vicar general of the archbishopric of Mechelen, and to the other lords representing the vicariate, the see being vacant, in the year of the Lord MDCLXVII in the month of December, by means of a petition in which I asked that they would deign to declare and permit that the same particle and tooth of St. Menolphus, as true and undoubted relics, could be publicly exposed and honoured by the people: to which our petition the most illustrious lords answered that there was no need of the consent of the ordinary or of the approbation or licence of the lords of the vicariate, because I myself testified (as I did testify to them in writing) that I had taken them with my own hand from the aforesaid reliquary or ark. In faith of the foregoing I have subscribed these with my own hand. In the year of the Lord MDCLXXIII, on the 27th of March.

Br. Pet. of St. Trond, Pr. of St. Mart. at Louv. and G. of C. W.

[138] shared, and the head, perhaps at the request of Ferdinand von Fürstenberg, Twice, therefore, in the century just elapsed, the Regular canons unlocked the sacred treasure of the relics of St. Meinulphus, with the assent of the Prior of the monastery of Böddeken, and extracted parts from it, afterwards shared with the monastery of St. Martin at Louvain; and once indeed it was done by him who wrote these letters testimonial, Br. Pet. of St. Trond, Pr. of St. Mart. at Louv. and G. of C. W., that is, Brother Peter of St. Trond, Prior of St. Martin at Louvain and General of the Windesheim Congregation; and once by the very reverend Father and Dom Theodore Mesmecker, commissary of the chapter of Windesheim. Moreover Edmond Martène, in his second Literary Journey, speaking of the things seen by him at Paderborn in the sacristy of the cathedral church, writes thus at page 239, in French words rendered by me into Latin: They showed us in the sacristy a great silver cross, six or seven feet high, six candlesticks of the same metal, matching the cross, and two busts likewise of silver, in which are enclosed the heads of St. Liborius, bishop of Le Mans, patron of the cathedral church, and of St. Menulfus the deacon, who brought the body of this Saint from Le Mans. They are gifts of the bishop Ferdinand von Fürstenberg, as pious as he was learned. The cathedral church of Paderborn, therefore, possesses the head of St. Meinulphus; so that, in order to share it with this church, the canons of Böddeken must have unlocked again, after the year 1571 — in which, from what has been said, they still possessed the Saint's body entire — the ark or casket containing this sacred pledge; unless perhaps — which, however, I do not think — they extracted that precious part of the body of St. Meinulphus which is now in the possession of the cathedral church of Paderborn together with one of the parts which, according to what has been said, they shared with the monastery of St. Martin at Louvain, and transmitted it as a gift to the cathedral church of Paderborn.

[139] The most serene and most reverend prince Ferdinand von Fürstenberg, who was of the highest veneration towards Meinulphus already very often praised by us above, bishop of Paderborn, skilled in Poetry no less than in History, who, as Martène teaches in the words just recited, having Overham too agreeing with him, gave the silver bust of the Saint to the cathedral of Paderborn, also comprised the principal themes of the Life of St. Meinulphus, as I learn from manuscript Notices existing in my possession and from Overham's Observations on the Sigewardine Life of the Saint, in the following votive Epigram, to which he prefixed this title: On St. Meinulphus, deacon and native of Paderborn, who, renowned for many miracles, rests in the convent of Böddeken, his birthplace, and is venerated on the IIIrd of the Nones of October:

Renowned no less for piety than for ancestral blood, Meinolphus, the first glory of his Padera, Here is laid. After he warned that he must be raised from the earth, The stone was seen to have burst asunder of its own accord. Venerate the ark, the guardian of the sacred pledge, Whoever you are, lover of the ancient religion. Say: Though the Godhead shown between the stag's horns, The initiate deprived of his eyes, and the maiden's veil, And so many miracles besides, at which the former age And the present stood amazed, might lawfully be passed in silence, Yet thy virtues, Meinolphus, the very stones of the sepulchre, The marble being burst, would vie to speak.

[140] Moreover the same most serene prince bishop Ferdinand, was granted to the cathedral church of Paderborn. Cult as I have already taught above from Overham, was the first to have imperial coins struck, marked with the image of St. Meinulphus and with this Inscription added, St. Meinulphus, deacon of Paderborn; so that he was of an altogether singular veneration and affection towards our Saint. Hence, further, it comes about that, since moreover I do not find that the Saint's head, which the cathedral of Paderborn now possesses, was in its possession before the year 1661, in which Ferdinand was first made bishop of Paderborn, the suspicion arises that that sacred pledge was obtained from the Regular canons of Böddeken by this bishop of Paderborn, who, from what has been said, caused the silver bust of the Saint, in which it is enclosed, to be made; so that therefore these perhaps unlocked the reliquary of St. Meinulphus in the century just elapsed not only on the two occasions mentioned above, but also on yet another, on which they extracted from it the Saint's head to be given to Ferdinand, bishop of Paderborn. However the matter stands, they at any rate shared, as is clear from what has already been said, a notable part of the relics of their Patron with the cathedral church of Paderborn. But this being so, with what ecclesiastical cult was St. Meinulphus thereafter honoured in it? I took care that inquiry should be made into the cult which he at present enjoys there and in the diocese of Paderborn on the 5th day of October; and to Augustine Aldenbrück, priest of our Society, who did not find it burdensome to send letters to Paderborn for that purpose, the reply was written in these words: Concerning St. Meinolphus nothing else is established in this city (namely Paderborn) and the rest of the diocese, or received by custom, as I understand both by word of mouth and from documents studiously reviewed, than that in the cathedral church a certain memory is celebrated on the 5th of October, and in the diocese under the double rite on the same day, yet not with the obligation of hearing Mass and abstaining from servile works.

[141] to the Saint in this, in the diocese of the same name, On the fifth day of October, therefore, which is the Saint's birthday in heaven, not an Office, but only a commemoration — unless perhaps memory here signifies an Office — is made of him in the cathedral of Paderborn; so that it may seem wonderful that he is not honoured with ampler ecclesiastical honour, now that he has been taken from the living and enrolled among the Saints, in the church in which he lived as a canon while alive. There exists with us a Calendar of Paderborn, printed more than a hundred years ago, which expresses the name of St. Meinulphus at the 5th day of October in red letters, in exactly the manner in which it marks other Saints to be venerated with the obligation of hearing Mass and abstaining from servile works; whence anyone will conjecture that he once enjoyed, both at Paderborn and in the whole diocese of Paderborn, an ampler ecclesiastical cult than that which he now enjoys. But although this is so, our Saint is still venerated today in the diocese of Paderborn on his birthday at least with an Office of the double rite, on the testimony of the Paderborn Notice just transcribed here; nor do I doubt that this consists partly of Lessons drawn from the Life of Meinulphus and therefore proper to him, such as I find cited here and there in our manuscript Notices from the old Paderborn Breviaries, and such as perhaps were also read in the diocese of Paderborn already from the age of Gobelinus Persona, inasmuch as in that age, as this writer testifies in the Cosmodromium, age 6, chapter 40, the feast of the birthday of St. Meinulphus was likewise wont to be celebrated there on the 5th day of October. Further, the Saint, as Overham teaches in his Observations on the Sigewardine Life of the Saint, has the church of the parish which is called Dornhagen, situated in the diocese of Paderborn, consecrated to him; and since this is the last thing that occurs to be commemorated concerning the cult of the Saint in the diocese of Paderborn, I now proceed to that which he enjoys elsewhere.

[142] among the Regular canons of the Windesheim Although the sacred relics of our Saint, shared, as I have taught above, with the monastery of canons Regular at Louvain in the century just elapsed, and offered for approbation by Peter of St. Trond, Prior of St. Martin at Louvain, had not yet been approved by the lawful authority of the ordinary in the year 1673, as is clear from the letters of the same Prior recited at number 137, yet they were at that time honourably preserved there, as I learn from letters sent to our Predecessors from Louvain in the year 1694, together with other relics of other Saints customarily exposed to public veneration. But those sacred pledges were at length also approved after the year 1694 by Humbert de Precipiano, archbishop of Mechelen. So teaches, in letters sent here from Louvain to a friend by whom, at my instance, he had been approached by letter on this matter, the R. D. A. I. Melaert, himself a member of St. Martin at Louvain, adding also that in the church of this monastery of his the sacred relics here in question are exposed to public veneration, and that there is in it a little chapel in which the image of St. Meinulphus is kept, having painted at its right a little girl with a vernacular inscription added, by which it is indicated that her eyes, twice injured by burning — her name was Elizabeth Verhoy — were healed through the Saint's patronage in the year 1707.

[143] Further, the words of the anonymous writer transcribed here at number 48 had just persuaded me that the Saint is venerated every year with an ecclesiastical Office both in the said monastery of St. Martin at Louvain and in all the other monasteries of the Windesheim Congregation. canons of the Windesheim Congregation, But, as I now learn from the Directories and Propers which are or have been in use in our Belgium for the said Congregation, the Saint is not venerated there today with an Office; although meanwhile it appears that it is to be concluded that he is honoured with this honour in Germany by the aforesaid Congregation, from its Proper printed at Cologne in the year 1701, inasmuch as in it an Office of St. Meinulphus is prescribed at the 5th day of October. For the rest, in order to dispatch everything which pertains in any way to the Saint's cult, the place is still to be mentioned in which he has, or at any rate, before the heresy of Luther arose, had, an altar consecrated to him. John Probus teaches it in the Chronicle of Böddeken, part 2, chapter 12, page 27. The words in which he does so there, and in which at the same time he comprises a miracle performed through the Saint's patronage, are these: There was also another Brother, John Kilverman, one of those who were sent with the first reformers of the monastery of B. Meinulphus at Bödeken, an old and devout priest, who had a special grace for sowing the word of God by preaching. He, when he saw the monastery set in great poverty, taking the companion assigned to him, made a begging round about in aid of the aforesaid reformation, from which he brought no small money for the building.

[144] It happened also, while he was making his begging in the territory of the count of Schwowenberg in a certain township named Glinten, and was brought to the village of Glinten in the county of Schaumburg. near the Weser, and was begging a woman there to stretch out a helping hand for the reformation of the monastery of B. Meinulphus, that the same woman, hearing B. Meinulphus named, broke out with gladness of mind in these words: "Beloved lord, for the honour of B. Meinulphus I will gladly give you a gift; for I was deprived of sight for three years, and I was advised that, for the recovery of sight, I should visit the altar of B. Meinulphus which is built in his honour among us in the church of the said township; I promised to visit it; and this promise made, I at once merited to receive, through the intercession of B. Meinulphus, these clear eyes which you see that I have." The county of Schwowenberg, or, as it is more commonly written, Schauenburg or also Schaumburg, which comprises the village of Glinten mentioned in the words recited, and which, having once had its own counts, now obeys partly the count of Lippe, partly the prince of Hesse, is situated in Germany between the duchy of Brunswick to the East and the principality of Minden to the West, and extends to the Visurgis or Weser; so that, although I do not find the village of Glinten, in which the Saint has, or at any rate had, an altar consecrated to him, expressed in the Geographical Maps,

yet its situation becomes known closely enough.

* to be read, unless I am mistaken, 1670

* to be corrected, as I think, 1667

LIFE,

By Sigeward,

From the edition of Overham, collated with the Fragments of Brower and the Hardehausen apograph.

Meinulphus, deacon, at Böddeken in the diocese of Paderborn, in the Westphalian circle. (S.) BHL Number: 5881

By Sigeward.

PROLOGUE.

To Albinus, a father worthy to be constantly loved, His little son Sigeward ^b, the bond of faith.

The author inscribes his little Work to Albinus, Among those, my Albinus, most learned of the learned, who use friendship liberally by their right, are those who know not how to know the faults of their friends. To the fellowship of these, most delightful Father, you are admitted by that simple intention of your mind, you who, led astray by a salutary error, chose not to know that I am deformed by the stains of worthlessness and unskill, whom you judged fitting for so arduous a matter. For a certain one of your intimates, thirsting for that golden fountain of your mouth, assailed you with prayers that you would gild by correcting, with the elegance of your pen, the life of blessed Meinulfus, not hitherto set forth with a sufficiently free mouth. But you, O traveller worthy of imitation, as you always proceed with reason as your guide, had provided for yourself a subtler counsel: namely, that you would rather pour out that work entire from your own store than rebuke the sayings of the ancients. But while you are hindered by the very many cares of your occupations, you have deigned to make me, the lowest among all your hearers and not worthy to be called among them, the deputy of your work.

[2] and says that he wrote in it at his command, Than which intention, which so greatly awaits the praise of your disciple, I esteem nothing of more importance: but I fear lest through my fault it fall into the contrary. For since I shall not be able to carry through the burden I have taken up, not only must I stick fast in the mire, but the fault of the one who fails falls into an injury to the one who commands: finally, although I know that I am unequal to the work commanded, yet I fear to resist the burden imposed by you; wishing rather that the infamy of my unskill should prove me kindly, than that the transgression of obedience should be able to defame me as malignant. Moreover I hope, nay I know for certain, that you, most sweet Father, will not suffer the work of your son to go forth to public examination unless the file of your correction first chastise it to the nail.

[3] that he follows the faith of an old author, Certainly, if I had undertaken a matter of private right, in which it would be permitted me to range at my own will, I hope indeed that I should not be a shame to you: but now both the care of the soul, which bids one seek out in sacred histories rather the naked truth of the matter than the charm of brilliant speech, and the most strict law of another's journey compel me knowingly to take the way of a faithful interpreter. I say another's journey, because someone had gone before me in the course of this same work, whose statements truth, my mistress, commands me not to change ^c. Only the order of the words is left to be arranged by the office of my pen: nay more, if the speech of my predecessor has either languished through diminution or exceeded through increase, this is permitted to be healed by the medicine of my care. Come now, my Father, come, I say, my most gracious Father, protect me, I pray, from every dart of sinister interpretation under the shield of your commanding defence: nor will this, God granting, be difficult for you in the doing, whom none of the wise attempts to injure.

[4] But I do not heed the gaping mouths of the envious, whose barking no bite accompanies; and professes to pursue the truth. and against whom no just approach lies open to detraction of me, except that such sacred things have been committed to me, a sinner. But if any of them is without sin, let him cast a stone at me. And lest my loquacity add weariness to your many occupations, I judge that this only should be briefly attached at the end: that I have God, the knower of secrets, as witness, and the most approved majesty of your person, that I have spoken nothing in this Work beyond the truth. Wherefore, if any reader think it worthy to approach this Work of ours, him I beseech again and again, by that most equitable examination of the last judgement, not to wish to brand with the fault of falsehood my recent telling, to which the authority of the old writing bears witness.

ANNOTATIONS.

ANOTHER PROLOGUE.

The aim of the writing. By the favour of the grace of the Holy Spirit, we are about to write the life of saint Mainulfus the Levite, for the hope and example of Levites, nay also of priests themselves, who will greatly exult in rendering the account of their priesthood if they have lived in emulation of this Deacon ^a. In sum, there is no order of which we shall deserve ill by writing these things, since it is equally necessary for all to be cherished by the intervention of so great a man, and since it is useful to be instructed by his imitation. But we comprise a few of the many miracles of this Man, and pursue those few in the sequence of a humble style: judging it more fitting that the learned reader should disparage our style as it were unlearned, than that the sharpness of our style should shut off from the less capable the approach to understanding. For in writings of this kind the useless breeze of favour is by no means to be courted, but the advantage of inward progress. But let us now set about the beginning.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's birth, baptism, study of letters, state of life, progress in virtue, purpose of founding a monastery, its execution, visions, a miracle, his death.

The Saint, born of a most noble lineage, by himself, At the time when the emperor Charles subjected the Saxon ^a nation to his empire, and, having subjected it, brought it over from idolatry to the faith of Christ, Mainulfus ^b was born of that same nation, of both parents very noble ^c. But already in his tender age he was bereft of his father by the necessity of death. His father being dead, this Boy had not yet received the mystery of sacred baptism, although his age had already granted him the power of walking: because that nation, still frail in the Catholic religion, did not yet have the custom of consecrating tender infants by baptism ^d. And, to speak more fully, the nation itself had not yet come continuously to the faith, as will plainly appear from the following example.

[7] to whom his mother had fled to complain of an injury, For when the mother of this Boy, first widowed of her husband, wished to reach the palm next to virginity, that is, abstinence from a second marriage-bed: behold, the brother of her deceased husband, himself a pagan both in fact and in profession, visited her, clothed with the appearance of consolation, but revolving in his mind the tinder of a most shameful crime. For that incestuous guest, in whose heart the ancient enemy had placed for himself a most certain lodging, violated, alas the wickedness! against her will his brother's wife, who received him with a most devoted office of hospitality ^e. But she, having escaped as quickly as possible from the hands of the corrupter, hastened without delay to the presence of the aforesaid Emperor ^f; and to him she had uttered with free mouth what grief dictated in her heart: most holily beseeching that he who discharged on earth the office of the eternal Protector would protect her from so great a persecutor. And the Emperor, grieving with the most noble grief of the grieving woman, granted her requests to the one who asked.

[8] with Charlemagne as sponsor, he is baptized, There too he caused her Son to be admitted through the laver of regeneration within the womb of holy mother Church, and he himself received him from baptism. And well indeed did divine providence reserve its little Servant, who could have been baptized at home by lesser persons, to be baptized at the king's retinue or court ^g, to which without doubt a very great gathering of the people flocked: so that already at the very threshold of life it might make him known to many, from knowledge of whom many might profit. And his mother, to whom the King's sponsorship had granted a sure hope of security, returned with hope and joy as her companion: and in place of a master she set up for herself the fear and love of God, to whose discipline she ordered the whole course of her life. She was called Wigthruth, which name she obtained as by a certain presage of the truth, because for the name of Christ she waged war lawfully against vices and concupiscences ^h.

[9] he learns letters, The boy Mainulfus, however, placed under school rule to the discipline of letters, ascended from that disposition to the habit of them; and what he had of literary knowledge he devoutly cultivated by the practice of works. For since he knew that the way which leads to life is strait and narrow, already from his tender nail he formed his mind by harsher studies. For as a certain one teaches:

He who strives in the race to reach the longed-for goal Has borne and done much as a boy, has sweated and been cold: He has abstained from wine and love ⁱ.

But when he left the schools, he left also the desire of worldly honour; passing with an undivided mind to the purpose of the Canonical law in the place which is called Paterbrunno.

[10] Here the pontiff of that same place, himself a glorious artificer of virtues, he gives himself to the canonical life at Paderborn under bishop Badurad, Badurad by name, received him with most kindly care to be nurtured, and, having received him, cherished him in the most ample bosom of fatherhood and graces ^k. But since the matter and the place prompt it, we shall not find it burdensome to recount at least one indication of the virtues of this pontiff. Behold, twenty-seven years having passed after his burial, the garments which had gone into the sepulchre with him appeared so whole and sound that not one fringe of them had suffered the law of putrefaction. Which thing clearly expresses that he himself while living was whole of life and pure of crime. While blessed Meinulfus clung continually to this man of so great virtue, he appeared holy with the holy, innocent with the innocent, and elect with the elect. For though he was good in his boyhood, yet he was made better in his youth: since, not content with one virtue, he disposed ascents in his heart, so that he might always pass from virtue to virtue.

[11] Amid these things it happened by divine prompting that the aforesaid pontiff proposed a question thus to those standing about: and on the occasion which is here set forth, what mystery the word of the Gospel contained, saying: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests: but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head ^l? Which question someone presently solved, as the matter is, saying: That Christ seeks the dwelling of our heart, and seeking does not find it, because our wickedness hinders the entrance of Him who seeks. Which word had descended into the breast of Meinulfus beyond what can be said. For he grieved inwardly that Christ knocks humbly, but in vain, at the door of our heart, since no one is willing to open to Him who knocks. And so from that hour, though he was good before, he was now, so to speak, made new in goodness; opening himself as a lodging for Christ on earth, so that he might receive from Him the exchange of an eternal mansion.

[12] Therefore, because he willingly received Christ, Christ, having been received, made a mansion with His Receiver. he purposes to found a monastery, Happy mansion under such an indweller! in which nothing was permitted to fortune, because in it so great a Master of the household held the office of disposer ^m. But let us return to the plain order of the narration, lest, while we praise unskilfully, we wear away the praises of so great a Man through the fault of our wit. For if you cannot extol someone with worthy praises, you praise him more beautifully if you confess yourself unequal to his praises. Blessed Meinulfus, therefore, since he strove to attain also in act every virtue which he had in potency, being now sure of his Lord's faithfulness towards him, the faithful servant blushed to offer himself alone to his most faithful Lord: wherefore he burned with a wonderful desire of building a monastery; but the delay of finding a suitable place slowed him in his burning; so that the divine goodness might weigh that monastery, once built, at so much greater a price, the more constantly its Servant laboured for building it.

[13] and the place in which to do it, by a vision, first to his swineherd, But when the Lord now wished to spare His labouring Servant, He deigned to show him the place of His predestination. For his swineherd, while he was occupied in pasturing the herds after his usual manner, behold, unexpectedly beheld the splendour of a wonderful light in the place where now the same monastery stands by God's authorship. He saw moreover a copious multitude of hinds, now standing, now circling the same place. O ineffable goodness of Christ! while He dictated the honour of His Servant, He called up the miracle of His own nativity. For as that was first revealed to shepherds, so the vision of this monastery to be built was first made known to a herdsman. Hence it is plain how beloved of God he was, the future place of whose sepulchre the Lord made wonderful by so great a revelation ⁿ.

[14] from whom having heard of it Certainly, that this thing appeared to the herdsman during the pasturing signifies that the Lord's flock was to come thither to be refreshed with the Lord's pastures; but that he was the herdsman of him, that is, of Mainulfus, sets forth that all the inhabitants of that same place, namely the shepherds with all the flock committed to them, ought, after the service of Christ, to devote themselves chiefly to the service of saint Mainulfus. And that he saw hinds, not stags, prefigured that that flock of the Lord would be gathered from the female sex. For if anyone seeks the mystery of the light seen, nothing prevents him from understanding by the light the presence of the Holy Spirit, which once also willed to appear to the Apostles through fire. The aforesaid herdsman, however, dismayed by this vision, was not at all solicitous for the flock, but feared that he was now at present about to suffer his end. Nevertheless, when afterwards he scarcely recovered his spirit, he went in haste to his Lord, and discussed with him in order all the sights he had seen.

[15] he discloses it to Badurad, The man full of God, with the ears of heart and body pricked up to the words of the speaker, when the speaker made an end of speaking, the most choice hearer began to offer to Christ the sacrifice of praise for most welcome tidings ^o. Certainly he began, and, having begun, most honourably completed it: which completed, he made the aforesaid pontiff partaker of these tidings, whom also he hoped would be the companion of this joy. Nor, hoping, was he deluded in this hope, because the most Christian pontiff truly rejoiced with the rejoicing man, and at once, intent on the divine mercy, he playfully alluded to the name of herdsman, saying: "Let not the lowly person of the herdsman grow vile to us, since the very nativity of the Saviour first shone forth to shepherds." The same man also, full of eyes before and behind, put no faith at all in the devil, because he is accustomed sometimes even to transform himself into an angel of light. Therefore he chose the counsel that the Lord was to be consulted again on the same matter: namely, that He from whom the first command had taken its beginning might set forth a second indication.

[16] and taught thereafter by one offered to himself once and again, Blessed Mainulfus, giving assent to him, reached the aforesaid place with the herdsman as guide, and there, passing the night alone with the Alone, gave neither sleep to his eyes nor rest to his lips: but he trained his limbs together with his soul to divine prayer, and therefore, in the midst of praying, he saw the herdsman's vision aforewritten entire. He saw it, and reported what he had seen to the pontiff. And the pontiff, desiring to make the vision equal in number to the threefold name of the Creator, persuaded him to go a third time to explore the credit of the visions. And he, knowing that obedience pleases the Lord more than victim, went joyful, but returned more joyful, because a third vision was the companion of his return. Here indeed a solemn exultation came to the pontiff. For he knew securely that nothing of illusion could creep in here, where the holy Trinity created credit for the command by its likeness to itself. For as God is threefold in persons but one in majesty, so this vision confessed a trinity in number, a unity in substance: certainly one and the same thing appeared three times in one and the same manner.

[17] These things thus accomplished, B. Meinulfus, and at the same time the bishop, he seeks permission to found a monastery, incited by the faith of the vision divinely given, nevertheless decided to yield to the royal authority, humbly fulfilling that precept: "Be ye subject to every human creature for God's sake [p]." For they knew that flight leads to the vice of fault if it lacks art. For if this monastery were built without the king's command, perhaps suspicion would arise in some that those were not lawful builders of monasteries who became despisers of the vicar of God, that is, of the king. That this might not happen, B. Mainulfus asked the emperor for a charter of testament; which, having asked, he received, namely sealed with the ring of the king himself, and, having received it, brought it back with him [q]. He brought home with him also another thing far more excellent, which it is permitted to confess without danger to have been a gift of the everlasting King.

[18] For as he returned, one of his intimates offered him a casket, he divinely finds relics to be placed in the new church, which he himself had found hanging among the shrubs, not by chance, but divinely. This the Man of God venerated as received from the very hands of God: because when he sought much, and yet found no owner of the same casket, he knew that the Lord of lords Himself had conferred such a benefit on His Servant. O noble gift, like both to the goodness of the giver and to the wish of the receiver! Thus, he who wished to build a church to God and the Saints, what could he receive more welcome or more fitting for its completion from the Holy of holies than relics of the Saints? And of these he found in the casket a treasure so precious and so copious as our eloquence does not suffice to express, because this too exceeds our powers and our person. Here now he burned more confidently to build a church to God, because he had received such a pledge of divine completion.

[19] Amid these indications of divine inspiration B. Mainulfus, by a new heavenly vision constrained by love of the aforesaid place, went to see that same place: because what the mind urgently desires, the eye cannot see to satiety. And when he had come to the place, he found again a certain memorable sacrament of divine revelation. For he saw a stag of excellent body, lying prostrate indeed in its limbs, but with its horns raised on high, as though thus awaiting the coming of the Man. Which, having seen the Man of God, indicated in a manner that it was not lawful for it to lie down at his coming: but raised itself hastily, and, as it were by its own prayer, rose up to the Saint as he came. But the Saint, seeing so terrible a beast, was by no means terrified, nor on this account was he less strong of mind, because no terror shakes the just man, tenacious of his purpose, in his solid mind: wherefore he came nearer, that from the end of the matter he might learn its beginning [r].

[20] And when, meeting one another, they were now face to face at close quarters, he is refreshed: again the stag confessed the praise of the holy Man by humbly prostrating itself before him to whom it had first risen by raising itself. And he ascribed this new gesture of a brute animal to nothing but the divine clemency: and therefore, while he strove to observe more keenly the order of the matter, behold, he saw the sign of the Lord's cross shining between the stag's horns, with whose splendour it seemed to surpass all the beauty of gold. And the good Soldier of the best Emperor, having recognised the standard of his Lord, at the same time recognised that his Lord was present to help him, and he had uttered the gladness of his heart with the voice of his mouth, saying: "Now a sure hope promises me that it will come to pass that He who once, armed with this same standard, had destroyed the barriers of hell, will arise as the protector of this place against the diabolical powers."

[21] what, this being ended, he saw the stag no more [s. O with what consequent signs Christ foretold to His Soldier what these prefigured.] the things which had to be done after these! For as in the vision aforewritten the hinds had prefigured the handmaids of God, so here by the stag, which appeared alone, can be understood Christ Himself, the guardian of His handmaids, to whom alone, namely the most noble bridegroom, the sacred virgins gathered there ought to cleave. Blessed Meinulfus also found a staff in the same place where he had seen the stag lying; which place now contains the principal altar of the same monastery, which was well prefigured in the wooden sign, because Christ Himself, who presides over the altar, reigned from the wood. Here too the holy Man renounced all delay in building the monastery, because he appointed the next day for that business.

[22] He founds the monastery, Here indeed a friendly rivalry of zeal sweated manfully at the divine work: everywhere they felled trees, they spared none of the briars or shrubs: some, straining, push great weights with their shoulders; some drive the columns on and chastise delays: and he himself applied everywhere the balance of discretion, and apportioned the labour of the works in just parts. For thence the old cultivation failed, namely to the destruction of the old man, and a new work arose to the honour of the new man. And the blessed Man believed that labour to be rest, provided only he might bring what was begun to a noble completion. For because he laboured urgently, he merited to finish what was begun elegantly. And the work being finished, he had caused the church which he had built to be dedicated, once built, to God and His Mother on the IVth of the Ides of November. Which having been dedicated, he gathered thither no small flock of sacred virgins [t]; which may God keep faithful to Himself up to the end of the world.

[23] the veil of a nun And when that flock of the Lord was leading an angelic life on earth, the ancient enemy cunningly intervened. For he would by no means be discharging his office if he nowhere opposed the handmaids of God. First indeed, desiring to break off from them the seal of chastity, he wanders now over these, now over those approaches, and every place with art, and presses, baffled, with various assaults; because Christ Himself stood for them as a tower of strength from the face of the enemy. But because he could not prevail within, he would not be an enemy if he had not done some harm at least without. For a certain one of the handmaids of God, oppressed by cold, in the hope of being refreshed, entered a certain house adjoining the monastery; in which, when she had been placed near the fire with an unencumbered mind, it happened that the fire consumed all the veil of her head.

[24] burned For she, after the manner of women, was attacking the dirt of her head with the office of the comb: and the veil being consumed, a brief reckoning bade her pour forth tears: but God willed to bestow solace on the weeping woman to the honour of His servant Mainulfus. And presently, by His gift, B. Meinulfus had entered the same house. For in the presence of so great a Man useless sadness had no right. For as compassion for his neighbours was his inseparable companion, having learned the matter, he took the grief of the grieving woman ill, and, covering his face with his hands, besought Christ with pure

prayers; and at once, as he inquired more diligently into the sequence of the matter, the fringes of the consumed veil were brought to him, namely the useless remnants of the fire, and there was shown to him that place of the flame which was the destroyer of the destroyed garment.

[25] Here suddenly, in place of grief, a huge astonishment and joy arose, he prodigiously restored it to wholeness, while the garment, of which every hope of recovery had also departed, returned whole from the midst of the fire [u]. O miracle deservedly to be admired, and, except among the most elect, unheard of! But by the excellence of this sign God made it plain that this His Athlete shone with other signs as well. He, however, cultivated not the signs, which the elect have in common with the reprobate, but the virtues, which the reprobate utterly lack. Nor indeed did that same sign, of which we have lately made mention, add anything of pride to his venerable conscience; nay rather it bears witness to the Church concerning his merits. For signs do not merit the perennial reward; but virtue, opening heaven to those who have not deserved to die, attempts a journey by a way denied, and spurns the common throngs and the damp earth with fleeing wing.

[26] After the King of kings had granted His Soldier glorious victories against the ancient serpent, and he closes his last day at Böddeken. He did not wish the fortune of wars to raise him further; but preferred to confer on him together both the reward and the end of his labours. That very thing too the veteran Soldier himself thirsted for most ardently, being himself both mature in age and most worthy in virtue, to sit beside the senators of the heavenly capitol. And since the will of the Lord and of the Servant agreed familiarly, as for this Lord to will, to be able and to be is one, on the IIIrd of the Nones of November [x], as He willed, He translated His Servant to Himself; who, translated from earth to heaven, had left his earthly body to its kindred earth in the monastery which he himself had built [y]; which that happy man laid down as the lowest burden, but we rightly embrace it as a venerable price. For by the indication of signs it was continually plain, nay is plain today, that this is acceptable to God.

[27] It is plain, I say, but it would be much more clearly plain The biographer's observation on this. if anyone could set forth, as it is, how great a danger of hell he had escaped, or how great a reward he now possesses in the kingdom of his God. But since God has prepared for those who love Him what neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man, let it suffice for earthly creatures to utter, contemplate and believe of that kingdom only this, that there is joy ineffable there: of the other things indeed it is necessary to be silent, which it is impossible to know. We, however, although the poor and niggardly vein of our wit hinders our will, yet a rich and kindly will compels us to hand down by pen and to memory whatever more of the miracles of this Man has come to our knowledge. But the things which God deigned to work through him while clothed in this body we here end; and we prepare to pass to those which the Lord showed through him after his burial.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. First Epistle of Peter, chapter 2, ℣. 13.

q. The diploma, here called by the biographer a charter of testament, by which permission to found a monastery was granted to Meinulphus, the Saint sought and obtained from Louis the Pious. See the preliminary Commentary, number 71.

r. Unless disceret is to be read, I do not sufficiently understand what these last words mean.

s. What appears to be thought of this vision, and of the other thrice repeated by which the Saint learned the place for building the monastery, and likewise of the miracle by which he divinely received sacred relics of the Saints, I have declared in the preliminary Commentary, number 66 and the two following.

t. Of what institute these were has been discussed in the preliminary Commentary, number 80 and the four following.

u. Our Gamans still saw this veil whole, with the trace of the fire, at Böddeken in the past century. See the preliminary Commentary, number 118.

x. That November is wrongly put here for October is noted in the margin of our Hardehausen apograph, and rightly indeed, as appears from what was disputed in the preliminary Commentary, number 89.

y. Gather from this that the Saint both died and was buried in the monastery of Böddeken, with whose nuns, as it appears, he had dwelt and over whom he had presided.

CHAPTER II.

Miracles after his death; the raising of his body from the tomb.

The Saint, at whose tomb there is a great concourse of the people, The body of the blessed Man being buried, therefore, the poor of Christ began to flow abundantly to his sepulchre, as much roused by the fame of past miracles as kindled by the hope of future ones. Some indeed came to beg health of bodies, others rest of souls, so that whatever benefit each one's will desired, for obtaining it he sent B. Mainulfus as intercessor to the Lord: nor did anyone, thanks be to God, lament that he had prayed in vain, provided only that, praying, he did not hesitate in his heart. Whence it came about that both natives and strangers venerated the sepulchre of the blessed Man with honour; and the nuns themselves also, out of love for the Buried one, vigilantly busying themselves about the honour of the sepulchre, adorned it according to the measure of their means with a linen covering. They also chose one, placing on her the custody of the sepulchre ^a, from which she did not withdraw as far as the law of the weak body allowed. Whom one night, after she had spent the greater part of the night in praying and watching, had overcome. Obeying it, overcome, she granted her limbs the necessary rest of sleep; but the rest passed into anxiety.

[29] For as she awoke from sleep it came suddenly to her memory that, when sleep was coming upon her, she had left a burning candle upon the veil of the sepulchre. With astonished mind she rose, went with great haste to the sepulchre, and in going endured a great torment of grief over her forgetfulness. But when she arrived, she found the clemency of God her consoler. For the burning ... end ... injury: because it did not dare to spare the candle, offered to God for the cause of burning; but it was commanded to pardon the cloth, fitting to be preserved. O God glorious in His Saints! who plainly sets forth the dignity of this His Soldier, at whose relics after death He willed to bring forth again this so noble sign, which He had brought forth before through him while living in the body ^b.

[30] But this sign was followed by another not inferior, through which a certain man was compelled to enter into salvation: his former servant, once, again, for the blessed Man appeared to his chamberlain in a vision, instructing him with a friendly illumination that he should renounce the world and its pomps and pass over to the warfare of the eternal King. He, however, held that vision for an illusion, much less did he do what he learned through the vision. But the Saint, condescending to the weakness of the man, appeared to him again, so that the repeated admonition might be to him the exposition of a true vision. But he did not even yet put faith in the vision.

[31] and appearing to him a third time, But the Saint of God, not yet ceasing from the man's salvation, added a third to the twin visions, and rebuked his hardness with this voice: "You know not, wretch, you know not how cruel a captor presides over your captive mind; who compels you to struggle against both Christ who sends and me who am sent. Certainly, since you were foolish by living ill, and would not of your own accord cease to be foolish, the divine revelation admonished you that, admonished at least, you might come to your senses. But you, fool, are perniciously deluded, who receive a true revelation as an illusion: for to none of the believers is it doubtful

that that vision is free of illusion which is an inviter to the Christian religion; and if you had heard it from anyone whosoever while awake, you ought by no means to have neglected it. Now therefore, since words cannot correct you, words must now be turned into works. For the divine vision, which you pretend not to understand, I will unfold to you by a most plain exposition, which will strip your mind of doubt and beget full certainty for all who see you."

[32] He said these things, to a better life and presently proved what he had said. For the man, shaken out of sleep, perceived his face bereft of its beard, and found the beard, torn out, close at hand. And afterwards sleep had no place at all in him that night, but in place of sleep astonishment, shame and grief oppressed him. What was he to do? His mind was in bitterness, and yet he had no intimate with whom to air these things: intimates indeed he could have had many, but he himself would rather be unknown to all than known. At length choosing for himself one course, which was yet opportune in act, namely that he should turn necessity into will, he ran as quickly as possible to the church, and there through St. Mainulfus wonderfully obtained the mercy of God.

[33] he brings, For when the priest was beginning the opening of the morning praise, saying, "O Lord, thou wilt open my lips," this man, who had not previously learned letters, took it up, saying: "And my mouth shall declare thy praise." How well did this unlearned man promise that he would declare the praises of the Lord! because not only he, but all who know of this matter, ought for this same matter to be praisers of the Lord. For it is one of the chief miracles that he who laid himself on his bed a layman raised himself up a canon; nor, even if he had passed that whole night sleepless, could he be charged with idleness, since he proceeded with business of this kind. Surely B. Mainulfus would not have wished to deprive his servant of his beard for the canonical profession, unless he had wished to restore to him a more welcome price for canonical use ^c.

[34] and when his sepulchral stone, And now, these miracles having been performed, the delay of the intervening time was not long when again, by the revealing grace of God, the dignity of B. Mainulfus appeared more manifestly. In the times indeed of king Arnulf ^d and Biso, bishop of Paderborn, one day while the deacon was reciting the Gospel, in the course of the reciting, the stone laid over the sepulchre of the blessed Man, split in the likeness of a cross, thundered, and struck all present with a strong astonishment. And while this astonishment shook them, behold, another greater one followed: for presently, during the immolation of the Lord's Body and Blood, the stone, lately divided into four parts, is scattered into innumerable particles. This good stone indeed was a witness to the blessed Man according to its power; since it was not in its power to praise by speech, it praised by the voice of its bursting.

[35] Nor was it lawful even for the earth itself to keep silent the praises of this Man. the earth too which covered the coffin sinking down, For, loosened on the surface of the sepulchre, it sank down in a wonderful manner, and ceased to be the sepulchre of him whose coffin it offered freely to be looked upon. Hence it is plain how reverend this man is to rational substances, whose praise the irrational earth thus confessed. For it confessed that it was not lawful for it to hide in its hiding places this body, which would much more rightly be venerated on sacred altars. Moreover, with the splitting of the rock and the sinking of the earth there arose the delight of a most sweet odour, so that it is not a vain belief that the author of sweetness was present to them. Here truly

The uncertain crowd is split into contrary passions.

[36] For, disputing long what this sign portended, had leapt apart a second time, they chose at length to make this matter known to bishop Biso, so that he might settle them by judging the dispute. And he ordered that the breach of the sepulchre should be restored whole. By his order the sepulchre, repaired again, was a little afterwards shattered by divine command. When this was ascertained by the bishop, he repeated the former order, and the people again obeyed his order. But in this the bishop is not to be charged with madness: it is more rightly ascribed to the providence of the divinity, which permitted them to doubt somewhat for this reason, that through a more efficacious sign it might wipe away every doubt both from them and from us.

[37] At the same time, therefore, B. Mainulfus admonished a certain priest Mainard ^e in a vision and another miracle had been added, that he should reproach the pontiff over his transgression: but the priest, putting the fear of the bishop before the divine admonition, nowhere stirred a foot. But the Man of God admonished the priest again a second time, as before; and fear, as before, again prevented the priest. At length he appeared to him also a third time, and accused his softness and sloth. And because he wished to snatch him from eternal vengeance, he would not let his delight * go unpunished here: but he threatened him, with his eyes open, with the absence of seeing, and left it to his choice whether he would rather live blind or discharge the embassy. He, awakened, took it very ill that the image of his dreams had lied to him in nothing.

[38] Yet because blindness was a hostile familiar to him, he is raised from the earth by bishop Biso, thus admonished to it. he by no means put off the journey: but, a guide having been summoned and the rest of the provision for the journey prepared, he accomplished the journey — with a guide, namely, a staff and blindness as his companions — which before he could have completed by himself without any trouble. So he narrated to the pontiff all that had befallen him, nor did his words need artifice, since blindness itself was their credible exposition. At this the pontiff, greatly terrified, feared for the danger of his life, because he too was conscious to himself of the same transgression. Wherefore, hastening to overcome his errors by sedulous duties, he went humbly to the sepulchre of the holy Man. There too he translated the sacred body from the sepulchre, and, having translated it, placed it reverently in the same church. And at the translation of the blessed body from the sepulchre, the soundness of eyes that had been taken away returned to the priest ^f. In which is to be praised the manifold clemency of the best Lord through the merits and prayer of His excellent Soldier, who by a bodily blow cut off a future wound of the soul; and yet the useful physician granted a swift end to that same blow of the body.

[39] Many other miracles too Jesus did near these relics, among which we judge this one worthy to be told and heard, which we now wish to bring forward. The water in which the Saint's relics had been washed, The water, then, in which the sacred relics were washed by the pontiff's command, the handmaids of God reserved in good hope, believing not in vain that it was worthy of reservation, because that which had touched the saving body by washing could not lack a saving touch. Certainly, because their faith was good, simple and prudent, good faith merited to ascend to a good work. For a certain paralysed woman, namely one deprived for a long time of every office of her limbs, having learned of the miracles of the blessed Man, asked her relatives that she might be carried to the aforesaid church, because she wished there to experience the divine mercy through the merits of St. Mainulfus. Finally she asked, and by asking obtained.

[40] a paralysed woman is healed, When this was ascertained by the handmaids of God, they were at once full of good hope, not hesitating at all in their heart concerning the help of the divine mercy: especially because the woman herself, who had come in hope of cure, had been of constant faith in the Lord. For they had learned from the teaching of the Gospel that all things are possible to him that believes. And so they anointed the half-dead body of the paralysed woman with the aforesaid saving water, and, having anointed it, commended it to Christ through the merits of St. Mainulfus. And He, because He knows not how to desert those who hope in Him, did not desert the faith of these women either. For within a few days the woman recovered from that most bitter wearing of the body, and flourished again to such health that not any sign of infirmity remained in her.

[41] and another from a cancer Nor do we suffer it to be hidden from holy Church how God there succoured a certain other woman, who laboured under a plague immense and pitiable; and therefore the majesty of the miracle is the greater. For the disease, to which medical authority has given the name of the Cancer's wound, bitingly wore away her right breast, and after long wearing away ate it utterly. It being eaten away, it besieged also the adjacent places of the flesh: to such a point did its force prevail that it had stripped even the surface of the ribs of the covering of flesh. This indeed stands out enough of itself, nor needs exposition, whether she was in grave bitterness of heart, whom the pain of the body so exasperated. For it is even reported that she openly professed that she would rather die than survive such pain.

[42] when she had offered a candle at the Saint's relics, At length, when the divine mercy willed to have compassion on the disease of its handmaid, it inspired into her mind this thought: that she should believe that what is impossible with men is possible with God. With this hope vivified, she resolved to invoke the Lord through the merits of St. Mainulfus, making at once for the relics of the holy Man, and offering with her what the poverty of her slender means gave, namely a candle formed in the likeness of her wound. There too, as she had before disposed in her mind, she directed prayers to the Lord and to St. Mainulfus. And the omnipotent Lord, not despising a contrite and humbled heart, would not refuse help to one who asked, being as it were bound by the merit of His Soldier. She indeed returned, but to her as she returned Christ swiftly set forth that He had sent a welcome intercessor to Himself.

[43] is cured. For presently, on the following day, new skin began to revive on the surface of the wound: and, to make what we say brief, within seven days the wound passed into such soundness that the breast rose again entire on her chest, of which not even the pain had left any trace there. This indeed is a very wonderful thing to say, but yet it is credible to sound minds, because Christ would falsely be called wonderful in His Saints if He worked no wonders in them. He indeed through the merits of His servant Mainulfus has done and does very many miracles; of which some the surviving tongue of fame has announced to us, others envious silence has laid in the sepulchre of oblivion.

[44] B. Mainulfus had in potency many more signs He had the power of performing more which he by no means brought forth in act. And I have not just now said potency according to dialectic, but according to the voice of the Lord, who says that all things are possible to him that believes ^g. If the Blessed one believed the Lord undoubtingly, he had the power of doing anything whatever: but he believed; therefore he had the power of doing anything whatever. For to believe the Lord undoubtingly is to fulfil His commandments faithfully; it follows that he is seen to cleave to the Lord. But he who cleaves to the Lord is made one spirit. For B. Mainulfus always desired, and having desired merited, to be made one spirit with the Creator; but that anything is impossible to the Creator, no one, even insane, presumes to believe.

[45] Here indeed it follows in order that he does not lack participation in this possibility who merits to be made one spirit with the Lord. miracles the Saint had. Wherefore, if B. Mainulfus merited to be made one spirit with the Lord, he could also work signs: but he merited to be made one spirit with the Lord: therefore he could work signs. The necessity of which conclusion plainly settles for us that there is no need of question whether he did few or no signs at all, provided only that the power of signs was not absent from him.

And indeed it would be more salutary for the progress of our soul to know his merits, and his morals and virtues, rather than his signs, so that after their pattern we might form the manner and order of our life.

[46] But since it did not befall us to be present at his merits while he lived in the flesh, Why God willed us to know some of the things he did. behold, divine providence has brought some of his signs to our knowledge, so that the certainty of the signs might set forth to us that a great purity of life and a holy chastity of acts went before. Now therefore a sure hope of the divine mercy promises us that He will heal the languors of our souls through him through whom He restored strength to so many languishing bodies. May He deign to grant this at the prayers of B. Mainulfus, who Himself was to B. Mainulfus the beginning and the end of victory, and conferred on the victor the prize of infinite glory, who has neither beginning nor end of reigning. He Himself is

Beginning, bearer, leader, path, and likewise goal.

ANNOTATIONS.

g. Mark 9, ℣. 22.

* perhaps delictum offence?

ANOTHER LIFE,

By Gobelinus Persona,

From the remarkable parchment manuscript Passional of the convent of Böddeken, collated with the apograph of Fr. George Garnefelt, Carthusian.

By Gobelinus Persona.

PROLOGUE.

The author sets forth the cause of his writing, While we sat and wept by the rivers of the Babylon of Paderborn, and hung our instruments upon its willows, the sound of an instrument then newly hung among the young shoots of olives planted in place of the willows, through which the Holy Spirit worked — namely the honour of blessed Meinulphus, confessor of Christ, reviving — struck the inner hearing of my heart. Whence, kindled in mind by a spark of that spirit which once inflamed Zacharias and Aggaeus to exhortation of those rebuilding the temple of the Lord, rejoicing that the aforesaid young shoots of olives, the brothers, namely the canons Regular, had scarcely been installed in the township of Bödeken to reform that church in which the body of the aforesaid Saint rests, I rendered them the services of exhortation ^a.

[2] and whence he drew what he writes. And in order that many, who together with me may praise the Lord on the strings and the organ, may be partakers of the grace of that Spirit, I have collected, from various ancient writings and from my encounter with deeds known to me, to the praise of God, the honour of saint Meinulphus and the edification of my neighbour, concerning the life and miracles of this Saint, as well as other deeds suitable for these things written below. And if, for the fuller understanding of what is to be said, I digress at first by running back to times far earlier, let my reader not impute it to curiosity, but rather ascribe it to the affection of proclaiming the magnificence of the glory of the kingdom of which it is written: Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all ages ^b.

ANNOTATIONS.

b. Psalm 144, ℣. 13.

ANOTHER PROLOGUE.

Who, from the Macedonians After Alexander, son of Philip, the Macedonian, who first reigned in Greece, having smitten Darius, king of the Persians, hastened to war against Porus, king of the Indians, he stationed among the Riphaean mountains, about the Caspian sea, a part of his army gathered from Macedonians for the guarding of that country. And when, the Indians having been subdued and he having returned to Babylon, he perished by poison, the Macedonians then dwelling about the mountain named the Rock of Marpesia after a certain leader of an Amazonian army, learning of his death and troubled in mind, greatly despaired of being able to return to Macedonia by land, on account of the hatred of the nations which they had worn down by wars. Wherefore, ships having been prepared, launching themselves into the Caspian sea, they sailed long through the vastness of the Northern Ocean seeking seats for themselves; of whom at length, after many perils of the sea, twenty-four ships came to land at the mouths of the river Elbe, in the place which is called Hadelon, and now in the Latin tongue the land of Hadeleria, of the diocese of Bremen.

[4] And from those Macedonians the nation of the Saxons is reported to have been disseminated, so called from the place, the Saxons sprang namely called the Rock * of Marpesia, from which they had gone forth to sea. Whence some of them occupied by force the lands there about the shore of the Ocean sea, who were afterwards called Holtsassen, from the woods and marshes in which they lived, but now, the name being corrupted, Holtstein; others, going up the river in ships, attacked the Thuringians, who then held dominion beside the mountain Harz towards the North; and these obtained simply the name of Saxons. And when these Saxons and Thuringians frequently assailed one another with mutual wars for obtaining seats, at length the Thuringians, withdrawing beyond the mountain Harz, leave the places to the Saxons ^a. But because all these Saxons had been accustomed to serve in military arms, scarcely did one suffer another to be set over him. Whence some of them, seeking seats for themselves more widely, crossed the river Weser, and reduced to servitude all the inhabitants of that region, dispersed through woods and fields, almost up to the river Rhine.

[5] Whence the excessive plurality of military arms and the necessity of servile condition have lasted between the Weser and the Rhine up to our times. and whence the Westphalian nation, from which the Saint sprang, drew its name. And these afterwards preferred to be called Westphalians, which is said to have happened for this cause. When Charles the Great, king of the Romans and Franks, before he had ascended to the height of the empire, had compelled the Saxons, subdued by him in war, to receive the faith of Christ, they, often forsaking the faith they had received and at length promised by oath to be retained, relapsed into paganism. Whence they were called by the true Christians deceitful and wavering. But because these, among all the Saxons, first received the faith of Christ, and had held the Western tract of that region, after the Christian faith had grown strong among them, they, as a badge of religion, since they were the firstfruits of the faith in their nation, preferred to be called in their tongue Westphelinge, which in the Latin tongue sounds Western waverers ^b; and from this nation this Man, saint Meinulphus, sprang.

ANNOTATIONS.

The things which Gobelinus records here, both about the origin of the Saxon nation and about that of the name by which it is called, are fabulous. And indeed, since the Caspian sea, as all geographers now teach against Mela, Pliny and some other ancients, is so separated from all seas that from it one can sail neither to the Northern Ocean nor to any other sea, how could the Macedonians, having launched their ships into the Caspian sea, have landed from the Northern Ocean at the mouths of the river Elbe? Schaten, in the History of Westphalia, book 3, page 172 and following, not undeservedly writes thus: I find the origin of the Saxons sprinkled with as many fables as that of the Franks, as though the writers of the Saxons too would not sufficiently illustrate the glory of their nation unless, together with the Romans, Franks, Frisians and other nations, they fetched it from foreign and immigrant peoples. The first and most ancient writer of Saxon History, Widukind, a monk of Corvey on the Weser, inquires much here (namely in book 1 of the Annals) concerning the origin of the Saxons, which was not ascertained even then, and asserts that some derive it from the Danes and Normans, others from the Macedonians; but that it is certain to him that the Saxons were brought by ships to Hadolaum, which place they set as Hadeleria, not far from the mouth of the Elbe in the archbishopric of Bremen. But whence, or of what nation, the newcomers were, he did not express. Accordingly, after Widukind, others bring into Germany these first Saxon newcomers from the remnants of the Macedonians who had previously served under Alexander the Great. And lest these fabulous writers should yield anything to those who drew the origins of the Franks from the Sicambri, remnants of the Trojans, they feign that, Alexander being dead, these Macedonians, after they had exhausted other places of their spoils, committed themselves to the sea with CCC triremes, of whose shipwrecked fleet only twenty-four ships were carried into the Elbe, and, having advanced farther, landed in the territories of the Thuringians, and, the inhabitants having been put to flight, took that land into possession. Sonorous trifles again; persuaded by which, nevertheless, the abbot of Ursberg, the chronicler of Stade, Gobelinus, Siffrid, Furmerius, Wittius and others dare to affirm these dreams, no writer of antiquity being brought forward. Thus far Schaten, presently also subjoining: Hence others, and chiefly the more recent of the writers, Goropius Becanus, Peucer, Reineccius, Letzner, Cisner, hand down that the Saxons sprang from the Sacae or Sassones, peoples of Asia, and migrated into these regions; and they do nothing else than heap a new fable on the former fable, no differently from those who fabricate the name and nation of the Saxons from the river Saxona, flowing into the Mulde. I believe indeed that where some likeness of name offered itself, they followed it like a wandering fire of the air, with no guide, no writer of antiquities, or certain trace of truth; so that those at length judged rightly who, with Krantz, Conrad Celtis, Althamer, Wilich, Clüver and the rest, wrote that the Saxons were an indigenous nation, that is, one which grew into a nation from small beginnings in the very region which it inhabits, such as Tacitus has handed down to us all the peoples of Germany to be. In almost all these things which the words just recited convey, Schaten has Ferdinand, bishop of Paderborn (see the Monumenta Paderbornensia, page 88 and following), agreeing with him exactly, as also on the origin of the name by which the Saxons are called; concerning which, in the praised History of Westphalia, page 176, after he has questioned himself, he answers thus, a few things premised: As far as room for conjecture remains, the Saxons drew their name from the long knives or swords which they called Sachz, with which the nation fought, no differently from the Quirites from QUIRIS. This is the opinion of Widukind, the old historian of Corvey, with whom Gregory of Tours, Gobelinus, Engelhus, Lipsius, Meibom, Lindenbrog agreed, which has also been observed from the laws of the Goths. Expressly the man of Viterbo:

The short sword itself is called among them Saxa, Whence the Saxon is noted to have begotten his name.

This opinion too pleases me, of those who have traced the name of the Saxons from the long knives called Sachz; but Schaten here wrongly counts Gobelinus among them, as anyone will perceive who has considered what that writer writes here and in the Cosmodromium, age V, chapter XI.

here but also in the Cosmodromium, age 1, chapter 5, to be fabulous. Certainly that one is preferable which Schaten likewise hands down in his History of Westphalia, page 421, in these words: That the Westphalians and Eastphalians had their name given from the flatness of the fields (for Felt in the old speech of the Teutons signifies the flatness of a region), you may hold certain even from this, that the Annals of the Franks so call Osterfali and Westerfali, regions in Transalbine Saxony different from our Eastphalia and Westphalia, at the borders of the Danes: the former you will read in the year of Christ DCCCVIII, the latter name in the year of Christ DCCCXIII. In this manner Paul Warnefrid on the deeds of the Lombards, and from him Aimoin. "The Lombards," he says, "having gone out of Rugiland, dwelt in open fields, which in the barbarian speech are called Feldt." Wherefore those seem to me now to err who derive the name of the Westphalians either from the Vandals and Welsh, or from the goddess Vesta worshipped among the ancient Saxons, or from the stakes or boundaries of regions, or from the foal, which we call Valen, as from the badge of the nation. Thus he, adding afterwards some things by which he refutes Krantz, who stands for the last opinion, concerning the foal.

* Garnefelt: Saxo

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's noble birth, homeland, baptism, state of life, purpose of founding a monastery, its execution, the preceding visions, his death, temporary resuscitation, burial.

Charlemagne, having subdued the part of Saxony which is now called Westphalia, In the year, therefore, of the Lord's Incarnation seven hundred and seventy, when Charles the Great had subdued in war that part of Saxony which is at present named Westphalia, all the elders of that part came to him at the place of Paderborn, which is so called from the river Pader rising there ^a, with the sole * exception of Widukind, who was one of their leading men, whom some judge to have been a king, others a duke ^b. And those who had come, having received the Christian faith, all received the Sacrament of baptism in the same place; to which place the king himself is believed to have given the name of Paderborn, calling its river Pade from the likeness of the source of the Po, the greatest river of Italy, rising from three springs at the foot of the Alps ^c; and he chose it for an episcopal see to be founded there. In the third year following thereafter, therefore, king Charles founded a small church in the same place ^d, which, because that place was not yet fortified, he then committed to the bishop of Würzburg, or Herbipolis. And in the fifteenth year following thereafter the king himself instituted in the same place as first bishop of Paderborn a certain canon of the church of Würzburg, Hatumar by name, a Saxon or Westphalian by nation, previously delivered to him as a hostage in the earlier wars ^e. In the fourth year of whose pontificate Pope Leo the third, driven from the city of Rome by the persecution of his rivals, came to this place to the king ^f. And he, received with great honour, as was fitting, confirmed the episcopal see there by Apostolic authority.

[7] [he raises from the sacred font the Saint, whose mother he kindly receives, and on him] In those times, therefore, a certain rich noble man, dwelling not far from that same place, already imbued with the Christian faith, entered upon the way of all flesh ^g, who left a Catholic wife, named Wichtrud, and a little Son, by the benefit of age ready indeed for walking, but not yet reborn from the font of baptism. She, seizing an opportunity, confidently approached king Charles together with her Son, and devoutly besought his favour. The king, therefore, receiving the woman, with an affection of piety caused her Son to be baptized in his presence, and himself raised him from the sacred font, and imposed on him this name Maynulfus or Meinulfus, not, as I judge, without a singular mystery. Since, as is read in the Life of saint Hermagoras, first bishop of Aquileia, blessed Mark the Evangelist, sent by saint Peter from the city of Rome to Istria to preach the Gospel of Christ, and because he cleansed from leprosy by baptizing Ulfius, son of Ulfius, prince of the city of Aquileia ^h, obtained from that prince and the elders of that city such favour that he freely preached the Christian faith in it without resistance and persecution, and purified all of them, converted to the faith, by the Sacrament of baptism;

[8] imposes the name of Meinulfus. the king conceived in his pious mind that through this Boy, as one sprung from the elders of that region, the Christian faith would lightly * make progress in this region, as through Ulfius, the spiritual son of blessed Mark, it made progress at Aquileia. Whence he wished to name him Meinulfus, that is, my Ulfius, as if he should say, This is my Ulfius, as that one was the Ulfius of blessed Mark ⁱ. And that both, namely Maynulfus and Meinulfus, are found written in books is established to have happened for this cause. For the Latin pronoun Meum is said in the vulgar tongue Mayn among the Bayari or Bavarians, and Mein among the Eastern Franks, between whom and the Westphalians Hesse alone lies in the middle, all of whom in those times were under the dominion of Charles the Great. And since the Franks are nearer neighbours to the Westphalians, and the first clergy of Paderborn was taken from Franconia, namely from the church of Würzburg or Herbipolis, with its bishop, the letter E in the first syllable of this name remained in more common use.

[9] After Hatumar, the first bishop, had ruled the church of Paderborn for eight years, He becomes a canon here at Paderborn, he died, and there succeeded him a certain one of the clergy of Würzburg, but a Westphalian by nation, Badurad by name, who ruled the church for forty-eight years, in whose eighth year saint Ludger, first bishop of the church of Mimigardeford, which is now called Münster, died ^k. And so Badurad completed the cathedral church of Paderborn, which Charles the Great had begun ^l; and under him the boy Meinulfus was consigned to school disciplines ^m. And when he had advanced in knowledge and age, as much as was needful, under school discipline, bishop Badurad attentively commended him to the brethren of the aforesaid church, so that he might advance under the Regular life in devotion and morals ⁿ. Where, as maturity of age came on, he advanced so far that the bishop, observing in him gravity of morals and various indications of virtue, received him as his singular secretary ^o.

[10] For he was sharp in wit, chaste in body, devout in mind, and afterwards a deacon, strong in justice, endowed with temperance, provident in counsel, brave in adversities, generous in alms, eloquent in tongue and comely in form; and at length, called to sacred orders, he attained the order of the diaconate, in which he remained up to the end of his life. That this bishop Badurad too, to whom saint Meinulfus thus clung in the services of companionship, was a man of great virtue, those who lived in his times left to posterity through their writings this singular proof. Namely, after his death, as they say, twenty-seven years having passed, when it happened that his sepulchre was opened for some cause, the garments in which the body had been clothed and delivered to burial were found so sound and whole that not even a fringe of them had been loosened or touched by putrefaction; whence a pious opinion proceeded concerning him, that, because he had merited eternal life through wholeness of mind and purity of life, the preservation of garments buried in the ground for so long a time afforded a certain indication [p].

[11] On one occasion bishop Badurad, among the other conferences customary to him, proposed to those standing around him such a question: he desires, or purposes, to found a monastery, What Christ wished to be understood by these words: "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head [q]." To which a certain one of those standing around, Meinulfus being present, answered: "Christ, the Son of man, seeks for Himself the dwelling of our heart, and, our sins standing in the way, does not find it." Which answer, presently approved by the bishop, so vehemently kindled the mind of saint Meinulfus with so great a desire of receiving Christ in the lodging of his heart, that he longed with the highest vows of his mind to prepare for Him not only the dwelling of his heart but also an earthly dwelling, namely a material church.

[12] And when he was very solicitous about a place * fit for this, and the place it happened that his swineherd, while he was pasturing a herd of pigs after his usual manner in a certain valley of his patrimony, unexpectedly saw the splendour of a wonderful light among the shrubs; and while, stupefied, he gazed more curiously into the place in which the splendour appeared, he beheld a multitude of hinds, now circling that same place, now standing in it. The swineherd, therefore, struck by so unwonted a vision, leaving the herd, sought his lord Meinulfus, and having found him announced what he had seen. This man devoted to God, therefore, having heard these things, conceived in his pious mind that through this vision of the swineherd the divine grace had indicated to him the place in which he was to build a church. But because he presumed to define nothing in this, as was fitting, without the counsel of the bishop himself, he approached the bishop [r] and indicated to him what he had perceived from the swineherd.

[13] in which to do it, Having heard these things, the bishop, filled with great joy, said: "Let not the person of the shepherd grow vile to us, since the Nativity of our Saviour first became known to shepherds." Yet attending that the angel of satan sometimes transforms himself into an angel of light, he added: "It is expedient that this place be visited a second time, if perhaps the divine clemency deign to indicate another indication of its will." Saint Meinulfus, therefore, went to that place with the swineherd, and, the earth being wrapped in the darkness of night, while on bended knee he applied himself to devout prayers, he saw in every respect the splendour of light and the movements of the hinds, as that swineherd had narrated. He, praising the magnificence of God, rose from prayer, and, joyfully approaching the bishop, narrated to him what he had seen.

[14] divinely taught, And the bishop, rejoicing with himself over the gift of God, gave him such an answer: "That all ambiguity may be excluded, it seems opportune to ask of the Lord a third vision concerning this matter." Wherefore saint Meinulfus, humbly returning to that place, having poured out devout prayers, saw anew the vision which he had seen before. Wherefore, filled with the greatest joy, having returned to the bishop, he made * him partaker of his joy, announcing to him a second time what he had seen. They, therefore, thus rejoicing with mutual joy, gave thanks to the supreme Trinity, which, because it is one in essence, threefold in Persons, had deigned to reveal to them the same mystery by a threefold vision under the same form. And although all doubt concerning the choice of that place had now ceased in them, yet the bishop judged that deference must be paid in this to the royal authority, so that no work should be begun there until the king's authority intervened.

[15] he obtains from the emperor permission to carry out his purpose, And since in those times Louis, son of Charles the Great, having taken up the sceptres of the Roman empire, had then newly established, in the provincial council which he had caused to be held at Aachen in the third year of his empire, the state or Order of Canonesses who are called Secular, and beasts of the female sex alone had appeared in the place of the aforesaid visions, saint Meinulfus piously presumed that it would be pleasing to the divine Majesty and acceptable to the emperor's favour if in the place mentioned he founded, from his own goods and on his patrimony, a monastery for canonesses of this kind, so that there under the custody

of chastity they might render to God a devoted service. He approached, therefore, the presence of the emperor, disclosing to him the pious desire of his mind; and he, accepting his petition with a grateful mind, graciously granted letters sealed with his ring concerning his consent [s]: and Meinulfus, having returned from the emperor, while he pursued his journey, was greatly consoled by a certain new gift.

[16] and carries it into execution, honoured by two more miracles from God, For a certain casket, fit for laying away relics of Saints, appeared hanging among the shrubs near the way; which a certain one of his intimates taking hold of, presented to him; and when, inquiring everywhere, he ordered inquiry to be made who its owner was, and no one appeared who said that it belonged to him, he, ascribing it to the gift of divine grace, piously presumed that it had been transmitted to him by God; yet he decided that it was not to be opened except in the presence and at the command of the bishop; whence he forthwith brought it to the bishop, who, having reverently opened it, found in it many relics of Saints most worthy of veneration; of which Saints, however, the relics were, is by no means established as having come down to posterity. Hence saint Meinulfus burned more confidently to build a temple to God; and while, to see the aforesaid place again, he went to it accordingly alone, in order to weigh the capacity of the place together with the quality of the buildings to be built there, another indication of divine inspiration plainly met him.

[17] For in that place in which he had formerly seen hinds restless in their movements, honoured by miracles, he saw a stag of excellent body lying down, with its horns raised on high; which, having seen the Man of God, as if indicating by its gestures that it was not lawful for it to lie down at his coming, hastily raised itself. And when the Man of God, as one confident in the Lord, not terrified, approached nearer to the stag, again the stag, as if more evidently intimating the praise of the Man, prostrated itself on the ground. And he, ascribing in his heart this new gesture of a brute animal to the divine clemency, gazed more keenly at the stag. And, behold, between the stag's horns he saw the sign of the Lord's Cross, whose splendour seemed to surpass all the gleam of gold [t]. Having seen this, the holy Man, recognising his Lord, at the sign of whose standard he rejoiced that He was present, broke out into words of this kind: "Now a sure hope promises me that He who once with this same standard penetrated the barriers of hell will be the protector of this place against diabolical incursions;" and, dwelling on these words, he saw the stag no more.

[18] Hence the holy Man, having called workmen, distributed works to each, he carries into execution, and, trees having been felled and thorns and briars rooted out, forthwith cleansed the place; which cleansed, he founded the church with its monastery, which he caused to be dedicated on the fourth of the Ides of November. He conferred on that same place many estates from his paternal goods, and instituted there a congregation of canonesses, which canonesses, as has been said above, were called Secular; and he called the place Nien-Bodeken, which in the tongue of the country sounds new little cask, for difference from the ancient township there, which was already then called Bodeken, and, for difference from this, was afterwards called Old Bodeken [u].

[19] After the nuns in the aforesaid monastery had advanced somewhat in their state, he restored a burned peplum to wholeness, it happened that one of them entered a certain house near the monastery to relieve the harshness of the winter cold; when she applied herself to the fire, and, her head being uncovered, wished to part her hair with a comb, she incautiously laid down beside her the peplum with which her head had been covered, and at once saw it, having slipped into the flames, blazing with fire; and she, suddenly thrusting her hand into the flames, scarcely drew back its fringes from the fire, the rest being reduced to ashes. And while she lacked another veil with which to cover her head, she poured forth tearful lamentations; this holy Man, not by chance, but by the disposing of divine providence, entered the same house. And seeing the groans of the weeping girl, he deigned to console her first with words, then by a wonderful deed: for with his face devoutly let down between his hands, he prayed the Lord with earnest prayers, and, the useless remnants of the scorched veil having been collected, he restored the veil itself to the wailing girl, and enjoined on each of those then present there that they should not reveal this so wonderful deed to anyone. Whence up to this present day there is preserved among the relics of saint Meinulfus a linen cloth which is said to have been the aforesaid peplum, in which, although sound and whole, traces of the fire are still plain.

[20] He dies, revives, and having addressed the bystanders, dies again. When the time was at hand at which the Lord would invite His servant Meinulfus to the banquet of eternal life, he, full of virtues and mature in age, on the third of the Nones of October passed to the Lord, his spirit indeed being taken up among the angelic choirs, but his body placed within the very church which he had founded in the aforesaid place. But while *, after the departure of the soul from the body, the body itself still lay supine on the bier, as is found written in ancient writings, that body, reviving, raised itself by sitting up on the bier, and, its eyes being opened, broke out to those standing round in these words: "Since, having entered in your presence upon the way of all flesh, I have merited life again, give thanks to the supreme Trinity, because it was done for your sake, and by prayers with the Mother of God I merited to obtain that this should be done." And again: "It will not seem easy to me to taste a second time a bitter death, though not such as just now: go, I pray, to the bishop, and, reminding him with how many sweats I built this monastery, ask that, whatever abbess shall be elected here by the congregation, even though she be the daughter of a handmaid, he not oppose her being made so, saying this to him, that, stripped of the body, I have learned what ought to be done concerning those who seem to be shepherds of the churches." These things therefore being said, his eyes closed again, he laid himself back in the place from which he had first raised himself [x].

ANNOTATIONS.

and in the time of the former wars given to him by his parents as a hostage, he set over it as bishop; but concerning Hathumar, first bishop of Paderborn, treatment has already been given in our Work at the 9th of August, on which he is venerated here as a Blessed; and from what has been said there, page 451, number 14 and the two following, B. Hathumar seems to have been raised to the see of Paderborn later than the year 795.

p. Badurad is honoured with the title of Blessed in the Catalogue of the bishops of Paderborn published towards the end of the past century, and his lawful and immemorial cult can be sufficiently established by almost the same arguments by which it is asserted with us for Hathumar, Badurad's immediate predecessor in the see of Paderborn, in volume 2 of August, page 448 and following, as appears manifest even from the very texts which are adduced there from Schaten's Annales Paderbornenses for the cult of Hathumar. Hence someone will perhaps wonder why, just as treatment has already been given in our Work of B. Hathumar at the 9th day of August, on which he is inscribed in the Abdinghof Necrology, so likewise treatment has not been given of Badurad at the 17th of September, on which the name of this prelate, on the testimony of Schaten in the Annales Paderbornenses, page 149, is marked in the Necrology of Herford and Abdinghof. But, although (see Schaten in the Annales Paderbornenses under the year 815 and under the year 858), as the bones of Hathumar, so also those of Badurad were both elevated by Imad, bishop of Paderborn, in the year 1068, and restored to their former veneration by Ferdinand, likewise bishop of Paderborn, in the year 1666, Hathumar is more commonly held as a Blessed than Badurad.

q. So nearly Matthew and Luke. See the Annotations on Sigeward already.

r. This was Badurad. See the preliminary Commentary, number 70.

s. The prince from whom Meinulphus sought the permission to found a monastery was truly, as Gobelinus here teaches, the emperor Louis the Pious. See the preliminary Commentary, § V, where I have also shown that the canonesses instituted in the council of Aachen in the year 816 were neither in name nor in fact secular canonesses, such as many are now found. Nor does it stand in the way that Gobelinus thought a little otherwise; for besides the fact that his opinion has been refuted in the place of the preliminary Commentary just cited, this writer does not seem sufficiently consistent with himself in the matter, inasmuch as he says both here and in the Cosmodromium, age 6, chapter 41, that the convent of Böddeken was built by the Saint for secular canonesses, such as the council of Aachen instituted, writing so here at number 18, and nevertheless calls the canonesses for whom the Saint built or founded it canonesses Regular — which, however (see the Commentary in the place just cited), they were not either — in the Cosmodromium, age 6, chapter 40.

t. What appears to be thought of this vision, of the sacred relics of the Saints divinely presented to Meinulphus, and likewise of the thrice-repeated vision narrated above here, by which he prodigiously learned the place for building the monastery, I have declared in the preliminary Commentary, number 66 and the two following.

u. In the Garnefelt apograph is added, concerning which more will be said fully below in its place; but since Gobelinus does not say more below concerning either the village or the monastery of Böddeken and the naming of these places, those words seem redundant.

x. Sigeward does not mention this miracle, and it therefore appears doubtful whether it is consonant with the truth. See the preliminary Commentary, number 90.

* Garnefelt reads solo

* i.e. facile easily

* Garnefelt adds ad

* Garnefelt adds eum

* Garnefelt adds post

CHAPTER II.

Miracles after his death; the raising of his body from the earth.

He preserves a cloth unharmed by fire, The body of blessed Meinulfus being buried, many flocked to his sepulchre, roused some by the fame of past miracles, others by the hope of future ones; and the handmaids of God covered that sepulchre with a linen cloth out of reverence, and appointed one of their number, singularly devoted to God, to the custody of it and of its lights; who, on one occasion overcome by sleep, left unextinguished a wax light twisted in the manner of a circle, placed upon the linen cloth itself without anything between. And, loosed from sleep, she remembered that she had left the light burning upon the cloth of the sepulchre; whence, vehemently troubled in mind, she ran hastily to the sepulchre. And when she suddenly directed her eyes to the place in which she had left the light, finding ashes, she saw that the light itself had been consumed by its own burning, the cloth being altogether unharmed. Whence all magnified the Lord, who through fire had made known again the merits of the holy Man after his death, as while he lived ^a.

[22] Not long after his passing from this world the holy Man appeared in a vision of sleep to a certain chamberlain of his [b], his former servant, once, again admonishing him that

he should not delay to renounce the world and its pomps, and should transfer himself to the warfare of the eternal King. He, reckoning that vision an illusion, took no care at all to amend himself. But the Saint, condescending to his weakness, deigned to admonish him, as before, by a second apparition.

[23] And when not even so did he take up any amendment of his life, and appearing to him a third time, the holy Man, appearing to him a third time, addressed him in these words: "You know not, wretch, you know not how cruel a captor presides over your captive mind, who compels you to struggle against both Christ who sends and me sent by Him. Certainly, since you were foolish by living ill, and would not of your own accord cease to be foolish, the divine revelation admonished you, so that thus admonished at least you might be able to come to your senses. But you, fool, are perniciously deluded, who think a true revelation to be a fantastic illusion. For to none of the believers is it doubtful that that vision is free of illusion which is an inviter to the Christian religion, and if you had heard it from anyone whosoever while awake, you ought by no means to have neglected it. Now therefore, since words do not correct you, words must now be turned into works. For the divine vision, which you pretend not to understand, I will make you understand by a most full unfolding, which will strip your mind of all doubt."

[24] The man therefore, shaken out of sleep, felt the chin of his face bereft of its beard, he brings him to a change of life and state, and found the beard, torn out, close at hand, while he felt about here and there. Hence all sleep fled from his eyes, and grief together with shame oppressed his mind. Rising, therefore, he betook himself to the church, and, suppliantly invoking saint Meinulfus, asked that he would obtain mercy for him with God by his prayers. And, behold, while the priest was beginning the opening of the morning Office, saying, "O Lord, thou wilt open my lips," this man, who had not learned letters, suddenly answered, "And my mouth shall declare thy praise." Whence, astonished by so great a miracle, judging that the tonsure of the clerical state had been designated for him by the tearing out of his beard, he betook himself to the clerical warfare, and ended his life, amended, in good works and by a salutary end ^c.

[25] About fifty years after the death of blessed Meinulfus, and when afterwards, his sepulchral stone leaping apart, while Arnulf was bearing the royal sceptres of the Romans and Franks ^d, who in the year of the Lord eight hundred and ninety-seven took up the Roman empire ^e, a fourth bishop, Biso by name, ruling the church of Paderborn ^f, on the fifteenth of the Kalends of the month of February, while the deacon was reciting the Gospel in the church of Böddeken, the stone laid over the sepulchre of saint Meinulfus, split in the likeness of a cross, thundered, and struck all present with a strong astonishment [g]. And when all ran up, wishing to inquire whence so strong a sound had arisen, they could discern nothing other than the breaking of the stone. But as the priest continued the Office of the Mass, while he was dwelling on the mysteries of the canon, the same stone was scattered into innumerable parts, and the earth, loosened on the surface of the sepulchre, pressing itself downward, offered the coffin of the blessed Man freely to be looked upon.

[26] Moreover, with the splitting of the rock and the sinking of the earth there arose so great a delight of a most sweet odour, that it is not a vain belief that the Author of all sweetness was present there. All, therefore, disputing what this sign portended, had exhaled a most sweet odour from the sepulchre, the matter itself was brought to the bishop, who, having examined each of the circumstances, ordered the breach of the sepulchre to be restored whole. The sepulchre was repaired by the bishop's order, and again, a little after, by divine ordinance was shattered; and when this was ascertained by the bishop, he reiterated the order aforesaid, and the people, obeying his order, repaired the sepulchre.

[27] and had performed yet another miracle, At the same time, therefore, a certain priest Meinhard ruled the parish and rural church in the township of Attelen of the diocese of Paderborn, set not far from the township of Bödeken; to whom saint Meinulfus appeared in a vision, and admonished him that, having obtained the presence of the bishop, he should reproach him over the transgression of the divine admonition committed concerning his sepulchre. But the priest, a simple man, putting the fear of the bishop before the admonition of the vision, did not approach the bishop. Wherefore the Man of God, appearing to him a second time, admonished him as before; and fear, as before, prevented the priest; at length he appeared to him also a third time, threatening him with blindness of the eyes, which he would never escape unless he first fulfilled the office of embassy to the bishop.

[28] he is raised from the tomb, The priest himself, loosed from sleep, took it ill that the image of his dreams had not lied to him, and, his eyes being open, felt that he could not see at all. Wherefore, having asked for a staff and taken a guide for the journey, he set out on the journey, and, coming to the presence of the bishop, narrated all that had befallen him. Having heard these things, the bishop, fearing for himself, suddenly betaking himself towards Bödeken together with the priest, went to the sepulchre of the holy Man, and translated his body from the sepulchre, and, having laid it in a fitting ark, reverently placed it in the very church which the Saint himself had founded. And at once the soundness of eyes that had been taken away returned to the priest Meinhard, as had before been promised him by the oracle of the Saint himself ^h.

[29] and by his patronage a paralysed woman, The water, then, in which the sacred relics were washed by the pontiff's command, the handmaids of God reserved for themselves in good hope; whence a certain paralysed woman, deprived for a long time of the office of her limbs, having learned of the miracles of the blessed Man as fame brought them, was brought to the church of Bödeken and humbly asked for his suffrages; and the handmaids of God, having anointed her with this saving water, commended her to Christ through the merits of blessed Meinulfus. And the woman, having returned home, within a few days recovered from that wearing of the body, and flourished again to such health that not any sign of infirmity remained in her.

[30] and another, afflicted with a cancer, is healed. A certain other woman laboured under the disease of cancer, whose right breast had already been consumed by the same disease, and its force had so prevailed in her that her ribs were seen stripped of flesh. This woman, coming with great devotion to the church at Bödeken, offered before the sacred relics a wax light made to the measure of the circumference of her wound, and, recommending herself with many tears to the merits of the blessed Man, returned home. Presently on the following day the surface of the wound began to be covered with a new skin, and so within seven days the restoration of the flesh began to be increased, so that, all anguish of pain ceasing, the woman's breast was brought back to its former state.

[31] Another miraculous deed also, handed down to us not indeed by the aforesaid writings but by the relation of the old, is said to have happened continually in its time in the aforesaid Monastery. A certain well-sounding bell is preserved in that Monastery with such reverence ⁱ, [A bell, when a nun of Böddeken was about to die, giving forth a sound of its own accord;] that it is not lawful for a lay person, on the testimony of the cloth in which it is reported to be wrapped round, to touch it with bare hand. This bell, as often as any one of the nuns of that monastery was shortly to die, was accustomed to give forth of itself a strong sound without human ministry. Which not only the clerics and canonesses of that monastery, but also lay persons of both sexes of that Parish, said and say that it is established to them to be true, constantly alleging that which is written, "We have heard with our ears, and our fathers have declared to us ^k." All assert that this bell was found among the relics of saint Meinulfus when they were translated from the sepulchre. But because they confess that they do not know the cause why it was delivered to burial with his body, yet all judge that this was done not without a certain mystery.

[32] While I pondered on this more attentively, such a reason presented itself to my mind: whence it came about that it was found in the Saint's sepulchre, that since saint Meinulfus discharged the office of deacon, to which perhaps it then belonged to ring this bell at the elevation of the Sacrament while the Conventual Mass was being performed — as it is still recognised in some conventual and collegiate churches that this belongs to the deacon or subdeacon — it seemed to those who had laid his body in the sepulchre that the bell appropriated to his office was worthy * to be laid away with him in the sepulchre; as it is still the custom, introduced even from the most ancient times, that certain persons are delivered to burial with the insignia of their state; just as a bishop with mitre and staff, a priest with paten and chalice, are customarily entombed. This aforesaid sign of the bell did not cease up to the last times of the complete desolation of that monastery. Many indeed still survive, and very many have died in our times, who testified that they had heard the sound of this bell whenever any one of the college was about to pass away thence shortly, not only by temporal death but also by civil death.

[33] For a certain woman still continues there, who, when one day, having taken the loaves which she had laid down in the church, turned to go out of the church, the aforesaid bell sounding strongly, was struck with such fear that, suddenly letting the loaves fall to the ground, she crossed the threshold of the door through which she had entered at a swift run. Moreover, when negotiations had already been begun concerning the transfer of the state of that monastery ^l, the sound of that bell was heard by many; whence the Abbess, still living there in misery, alone of the college, was vehemently terrified that she would shortly die, and, running about here and there, with stupefied mind she said to each in these words: "Did you hear the sound of the little bell?" And when all who had heard reported that they had heard it, she despaired of her life. At length, thus agitated by various torment of mind, the negotiations already held concerning her transfer being brought back to memory, she presumed to console herself and others: nevertheless, thus struck with terror, she afterwards consented much more easily to her transfer, having taken up this presumption in her heart, that, if she withdrew from the place, she would postpone for longer times her passing from this temporal life.

ANNOTATIONS.

yet at least about twenty-seven years after his death appears, from what has been disputed concerning the epoch of this solemnity in the preliminary Commentary, § VI, to have taken place, Gobelinus wrongly writes here that the apparition of which he treats here happened not long after the Saint's passing or death; unless perhaps the signification of these words not long after could be extended to about twenty-five years by this biographer of ours, who was writing more than six hundred years after the Saint's death.

* Garnefelt: digne worthily