Gunther

ON BL. GUNTHER, CONFESSOR, OF THE ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT, AT BŘEVNOV IN BOHEMIA,

In the year MXLV.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Gunther, conf., of the Order of St. Benedict, at Břevnov in Bohemia. (Bl.)

BY J. B.

§ I. The Blessed's celebrated cult in Bohemia, his memory in the sacred Fasti: who was his biographer.

How great is the force and efficacy of divine grace, by which God calls to himself the man on whom he has mercy, Bl. Gunther, with a notable cult, was taught by Bl. Gunther, whom he led out from the midst of the delights of the world first indeed to the retreats of the monastic life, and then also to rough solitudes removed from the society of men, in which he lived and died the more joined to God the more he was separated from them; a man illustrious indeed by the splendour of his birth, but who by the contempt of it, and by the holiness of his life, approved after his death by very many prodigies, obtained a celebrity, especially throughout Bohemia, much greater and more powerful. How great was the veneration of the faithful toward him, how great the concourse of the Bohemians and the neighbouring nations to his sepulchre, which he obtained in the monastery of the Benedictine Order at Břevnov near Prague, the chief city of Bohemia, the enumeration of the prodigies wrought by him there, to be subjoined to his Acts, will luminously teach. But although a notable cult has long since been paid to Gunther, he has nevertheless not hitherto been entered in the roll of the Saints or Blessed with solemn rite and by pontifical decree: action on that matter, however, began to be taken in the thirteenth century, in the time of Alexander IV, who presided over the Church from the year 1254 to the year 1261, and of Martin, during whose government of the abbey of Břevnov Gunther shone out most with prodigies: but the matter was not then brought to a conclusion, even at the warning of Gunther himself, if any credit is to be given to a writing which Balbín, in the Annotations to chapter 5, book 3 of the Epitome of Bohemian Affairs, page 188, says he found among the monuments of the metropolitan church of Prague, and exhibits couched in these words.

[2] although he has not been entered with solemn rite in the roll of the Saints It is to be known that, when in the time of Pope Alexander the Lord Jesus Christ, worker of mighty deeds, was then working almost innumerable miracles (namely by the merits and intercession of Gunther), and the report of such great miracles was resounding with sweet sound through diverse parts of the world, with brightness, through Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Thuringia, the kings of the earth and the princes of the peoples came together into one, that they might exalt with glory and honour the tabernacle of the Holy Spirit, namely the body of blessed Gunther, so that he who is exalted with honour and glory before the Lord in heaven in the presence of the angels and Saints of God might also be held in honour before the mortal men of this world; whence, when the most celebrated report reached the ears of many prelates, diverse of them resolved to direct their prayers in supplication to the said Lord Alexander, Prelate of the Roman Church, that he would deign to inscribe the body of such and so great a Man, namely of blessed Gunther (or rather Gunther himself), who was illuminating the world by his life, in the Catalogue of the Saints, of whom he was a partaker in heaven. And the counsel of all was that Martin, abbot of Břevnov, who was beloved of God and men, should carry out this solemn embassy; and the abbot, following in all things the footsteps of the Apostles, enjoined on the brethren a fast of three days, that God, to whom all things future and past are known, might deign to reveal to them the good pleasure of his will on this matter.

[3] And on the third day the same abbot, coming to the sepulchre of Bl. Gunther, he has not been entered, with contrite heart, with huge groaning and weeping, began to ask his holiness whether he was worthy to accomplish this, or not? And when he had long wept and prayed thus, behold, a voice sent from heaven sweetly addresses him, saying thus: O Martin, do not labour for this matter, for this grace has been reserved by God for men to come; for he is not yet born who is predestined to this work. Peter, it said, shall be born, to whom this grace has been granted by God. Having heard this voice, the same abbot, giving thanks to God, ceased from his purpose. This is the tenor of the writing found by Balbín in the codex of the church of Prague; immediately after which in the same codex are subjoined words of this kind: The present writing was found in the sacristy at Břevnov, which was written, as it seems, a hundred years before. Balbín (whose Epitome of Bohemian Affairs, praised here, came out in the year 1677) judged that the Prague codex from which he transcribed these things easily exceeded two hundred years; to which, if you add the hundred years before which that writing found in the sacristy of Břevnov, and from which these things seem to have been transcribed into the Prague codex, was written, and finally about as many years preceding the finding of the writing, and subtract them all from the year 1677, you will be not far from the age of Martin, abbot of Břevnov, who is read toward the end of the Miracles to be published below to have been still surviving among the living in the year 1263; so that that writing is perhaps not altogether to be rejected: but whether Gunther really foretold that a certain Peter would one day obtain his solemn entry into the roll of the Saints from the Apostolic see, the age to come will reveal.

[4] There is besides another place in Bohemia in which a sacred cult has likewise been wont to be paid to St. Gunther in Bohemia and a frequent concourse of the faithful to be seen; where also a certain spring flows, which received its name from Bl. Gunther and became famous for prodigies: it is situated on the borders of Bohemia, where this adjoins Bavaria, between the towns of Sušice and Hartmanice, in the district of Prachatice, and in it Gunther, having spent the last years of his life, departed from the living to the Heavenly ones. Hear what Fr. Albert Chanovský, who abundantly watered with his Apostolic sweat not only the district of Prachatice but also several other districts of Bohemia neighbouring it, wrote of that place in the last century in the Bohemia Pia, chapter 4: Near the city of Sušice, he says, going toward the borders of Bohemia and Bavaria, near the town of Hartmanice, there is a memorial of the same St. Gunther, frequented by celebrated pilgrimages. He adds after a few things: There is a stone in the place of the cave which he had built for himself, where the traces of his hands and knees are impressed, because he was accustomed to kneel on it. Again, after a few things about the body of St. Gunther, when dead, translated to the monastery of Břevnov, he goes on to write thus of the aforesaid place: But in that place where he led the eremitical life, even in our times healings were done through the water flowing out through the place of the cave; where there now exists a chapel. And St. Gunther seems to have obtained this water for himself from God. It is on a hill and runs down copiously enough from its spring: but when it has flowed out a little, it is soon absorbed into the earth. The townspeople of Hartmanice tried to lead that water into the town, because it is scarcely half a quarter of a mile distant from there; but they could never accomplish this. And a certain man's blind horse is said once to have cropped grass near the aforesaid water, and, when it had drunk the water, it was given sight: which report being spread, some blind persons washed their eyes there and received light; whence even now many sick flock there, and, having washed their body with that water, receive health through the merits and intercession of St. Gunther, and they now call the place, formerly called Březnice, AT THE GOOD WATER.

[5] he enjoys down to this age. St. Gunther is also read in the Acts to be published below to have spent the last years of his life in the place Březnice: but since a place of this kind, or certainly one of a name near to this, occurs more than once on the geographical maps of Bohemia, lest these be confused with that in which Bl. Gunther made the end of living, what has already been said of its situation and changed name is to be diligently noted. For the rest, Fr. Chanovský affirms the prodigy of the horse healed of blindness by drinking water from St. Gunther's spring only from the opinion of others, and perhaps only from the opinion of the common people: but what he says besides in general about the prodigies accustomed to be done in his age at Bl. Gunther's spring does not seem able to be called into doubt: one of these he records specially in these words in the place cited. There in this year MDCXXXIX (he died worn out by Apostolic labours in the year 1643), in the summer, a man was healed of a grave disease. He was called Jan Kačírek, servant of the lord Jan Thomek; and he was entirely deprived by gout of the function and use of his feet and hands. But, hope and a vow having been conceived toward St. Gunther, carried by others' hands to the waters of Gunther, his health already despaired of, he washed his body with the greatest confidence and recovered his health entirely. Bonaventura Piter, abbot of the Order of St. Benedict at Rajhrad near Brno of the Moravians, in his letter to us which he wrote in the year 1761 on the 27th day of October, mentions the same place and the sacred cult wont to be paid in it to Bl. Gunther in this our age thus: Although the cult of this Man of God was believed to be as it were buried by the Hussite fury, it nevertheless flourishes in all Bohemia; especially in the place At the Good Water, where the parish church sacred to his honours has an old wooden statue placed on the High altar. To which frequent pilgrimage is made from various provinces, Bohemia, Bavaria, Austria, etc., and the benefit of health returns.

[6] and he is inscribed in some sacred Fasti. From what has been said of St. Gunther's sacred cult it is clear that he has not undeservedly been inserted in some more recent Menologies or Martyrologies: he has a place in Ménard in the Benedictine Menology at the 9th day of October. In the monastery of Břevnov, he says, near Prague, of Bl. Gunther, monk of Altaich and afterwards hermit, kinsman of St. Stephen, king of the Hungarians, a man of great holiness. Bucelin also mentions him in the Benedictine Menology at the same day; but the elogium he composed there for Bl. Gunther, because it is rather prolix, I do not transcribe. Nor did Ferrari pass over Bl. Gunther in the General Catalogue of the Saints, whose words are these: Near Prague, of Bl. Gunther, hermit. And these indeed announce Bl. Gunther near Prague or in the monastery of Břevnov, not far distant from Prague, because the remains of his body were entombed there and he obtained sacred honours: but Chastelain in the Universal Martyrology has thus in French: In the forest of Rinchnach (in the margin is read: the Narvald forest, or rather Nordwald or Northern) in Bohemia, St. Gunther (he calls him St. Gonthier in French), a noble Thuringian; penitent, monk and hermit; buried at Břevnov near Prague. In Rinchnach indeed Bl. Gunther a monastery

raised, and spent many years; and in Gunther's age that place was situated in the Nordwald forest, stretched through the borders of Bavaria and Bohemia; but it pertained properly to Bavaria, as it does today, so also in the eleventh century, in which Gunther inhabited that place, although not far removed from the borders of Bohemia. And what Ménard says, that a bond of kinship existed between Bl. Gunther and St. Stephen, king of the Hungarians, is the assertion of many others too; but it is to be discussed more fully below. Now hear a few things about the Acts or Life of Bl. Gunther.

[7] Heinrich Canisius published the Life of Bl. Gunther in volume 3 of the Lectiones Antiquae, printed at Amsterdam in the year 1725, from page 185. His Acts exist, Mabillon also published the same in the sixth Benedictine Century, part 1, from page 480: the Life of Gunther from a Ms. codex of the monastery of Lower Altaich (not Upper, as Mabillon writes, contrary to what is read in Canisius's dedicatory Epistle to volume 2 of the Lectiones Antiquae printed at Ingolstadt in the year 1602) in Bavaria, which Mabillon collated with another copy of the Life of Bl. Gunther transmitted to him by Georg Geisser, abbot of St. Georgen at Villingen. We have two copies of the Life of Bl. Gunther, of which one, transmitted to us long ago by Father Gamans, is entirely similar to the Canisian Life of Bl. Gunther: and the other was copied from a parchment codex of the duke of Altems, which seemed to have been written for the greatest part in the thirteenth century; this is interpolated here and there, as will be seen in its place. It has annexed at the end not a few miracles wrought by Bl. Gunther in the monastery of Břevnov in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, which we shall subjoin from it to Mabillon's Life of Bl. Gunther. Bonaventura Piter, abbot of Rajhrad, in the letter praised above, says that he saw more miracles wrought from the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in some coeval Ms. codices of the same monastery, but complains that, although he had resolved to publish the Life of Bl. Gunther in print, he could not obtain them. Further, from the same codices seem to have been taken those prodigies of Bl. Gunther which we shall give below, and which belong to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, some perhaps even to the twelfth. These are perhaps fewer than the prodigies which Bl. Gunther is read in the said codices to have wrought in the monastery of Břevnov in the twelfth century. However it be, we give what we have.

[8] Further, the author of the Life of Bl. Gunther reveals that he was not only of an equal age with him, partly by an author familiar with the Saint, but partly but also familiar with him: Which we indeed, he says at number 7, who knew him more familiarly, frequently heard, etc.: but since not only these words, but also some earlier numbers of the Life of Bl. Gunther are read couched in the same words in the Life of St. Godehard, bishop of Hildesheim, written by Wolfhere his disciple, which you have printed in volume 1 of May from page 502, hence Wolfhere is related to have consigned to writing, as the Life of St. Godehard, so also the Life of Bl. Gunther, who, converted under Godehard while still abbot of Altaich, put on the Benedictine habit, and under this name he is praised by Fr. Stilting in volume 1 of September in the Commentary prefixed to the Life of St. Stephen, king of the Hungarians, number 286, from Mabillon, who in the sixth Benedictine Century, part 1, page 475, in the Preliminary Observations on the Life of Bl. Gunther, writes thus: The Life of Blessed Gunther was written by the same Wolfer whom we said above, at the year MXXXVIII, to be the author of the Life of St. Godehard, in the Preliminary Observations on the Life of the same Saint. This is proved from the five or six first numbers of this Life of Gunther, which have been copied entire from the Life of St. Godehard. Nor is it to be said that they were perhaps brought into the Life of Gunther by some later author, since the whole lucubration is by the same author, as is manifest even from the reading alone. But I do not see how it becomes manifest from the reading alone of the Life of Bl. Gunther that everything contained in it is by the same writer, that is by Wolfhere alone: certainly he who wrote the Altems Acts, of which at number 7, generally uses no other words, if you except the few things which he added of his own here and there, than the author of the Canisian Life: he affirms, no otherwise, if you look at the manner of speaking, that he knew Bl. Gunther familiarly and often heard him: and yet, after he had transcribed all of Wolfhere's words about Gunther in the Life of St. Godehard, he presently goes on thus: These things, then, we have written briefly of the Life and conversation of St. Gunther, as we found it written in the Legend of St. Gothard the confessor by holy fathers many times past: which warning having been set first, and being now deserted by Wolfhere, he goes on to set out the rest of the deeds of Bl. Gunther. Why could not whoever was the author of the Life published by Mabillon in like manner make Wolfhere's words his own, and interpolate them, even without warning the reader on that matter?

[9] by another, less ancient, Nor indeed do those things seem to have proceeded from an author who knew Bl. Gunther more familiarly and frequently hung upon his lips, which he writes at number 8 about Gunther's virtues and the temptations of the demon overcome by him, in these words: Of the virtues of this venerable Man, by which he overcame the adversary, or what snares of his he endured, nothing is held ascertained by anyone, because he remained for a long time unknown to men. For he did not live so withdrawn from the sight and fellowship of men, as long as he stayed in the monastery of Rinchnach, as not to be known to the emperors themselves, St. Henry and Conrad the Salian, as is clear from their Diplomas, and to the court of St. Stephen, king of the Hungarians; although perhaps in the last five years of his life, hidden in the solitude of Březnice, he avoided the society of all mortals much more solicitously. And how is it said truly that the temptations which Gunther suffered from the demon were ascertained by no one? Since Arnolf, from count of Cham and Vohburg a monk of St. Emmeram, who pursued the latter's miracles in two books, and dealt very familiarly with Gunther, had his temptations explored at least in part, one of which, which, as he says, he had learned by report, he committed to writing, promising also that after a little time, life accompanying him, he would write another more grievous one. So the temptations of Bl. Gunther and his battles against the demon were not so hidden from his intimates that they were ascertained by no one, which nevertheless the writer of his Life affirms: whence I have a not empty suspicion that someone more recent than Wolfhere, after the death of Bl. Gunther, made his own what Wolfhere had written of him, keeping his phrasing, and then added to these the rest of his deeds of his own. If the biographer of Bl. Gunther had studied brevity, he could indeed have touched on his temptations in passing or passed them over in silence; but that they were ascertained by no one, neither Wolfhere himself nor anyone else of the number of Bl. Gunther's intimates seems to me likely to have said.

[10] composed, however, from ancient writings. There is added that in Arnolf, already praised, in Hermann the Lame, in Hartwic, the biographer of St. Stephen, and in others, certain deeds of Bl. Gunther, and notable ones, to be brought forward below in their places, are recorded, of which the biographer of Bl. Gunther makes no mention; so that from this too the Life of Bl. Gunther may seem too jejune to appear, at least undoubtedly, the offspring of a contemporary writer familiar with the Blessed himself; if you except, namely, what Wolfhere wrote in passing of Bl. Gunther as a disciple of St. Godehard, of whom he was treating of set purpose. Far be it, however, that anyone should think these things said by me in order to take away credit entirely from the biographer of Bl. Gunther: for although I do not think that he was familiar with Bl. Gunther, as he seems to profess, I do not deny that he is ancient; since already from the thirteenth century, as appears from what was said at numbers 7 and 8, the Life of Bl. Gunther was known, and composed perhaps from the writings of Wolfhere and of others who in the codex of the duke of Altems are called holy fathers; yet it does not appear sincere on every side, as can be gathered even from the invention of the roasted bird restored to life by the prayers of Bl. Gunther, which is neither read in the Life of St. Godehard nor seems to have proceeded from an author contemporary with Bl. Gunther.

§ II. The Saint, sprung of noble family, becomes a monk, and founds the monastery of Rinchnach.

The Saint, of noble family Wolfhere in the Life of St. Godehard calls our Blessed a noble Man, illustrious in dignity and merits: In the same times, he says, there was in the parts of Thuringia a certain noble man, illustrious in dignity and merits, Gunther by name. The Saxon Annalist, whose lucubration ends at the year 1139, in Eckhart, calls him a noble and powerful man of Thuringia at the year 1006: Lambert of Hersfeld at the same year, a noble man of Thuringia: so that it appears not at all doubtful that Gunther was born of a noble and illustrious place among the Thuringians: but what was his dignity, what the merits which Wolfhere attributes to him among the Thuringians, I have found explained neither in the Life of St. Godehard by Wolfhere, nor in the Life of Gunther himself, nor elsewhere. Leuber, in the Catalogue of Kings, Electors, etc., in Mencke, volume 3 of the Writers of German Affairs, column 1839, enumerates thus some Ekkehardine margraves of Thuringia of the tenth and eleventh centuries: 1. Gunther, count of Pleissen, son of count Bruno of Wettin, margrave of Thuringia. 2. Eckhard I, son of Gunther, margrave of Thuringia DCCCCLXXXVII. 3. William, count of Orlamünde, margrave of Thuringia MII. 4. Hermann, Eckhard II and Gunther, son of Eckhard, MII. The reckoning of time indeed does not prevent the Gunther reckoned here in the later place from being the same as our Gunther: but Thietmar, a contemporary writer, in book 7 of the Chronicle, says that that Gunther, together with Eckhard and Hermann, his brothers, received in Meissen the funeral of the margrave Gero, slain in battle by the Poles, brought back to his own at the request of St. Henry, and accompanied it to Nienburg, where it was entombed: and the Saxon Annalist relates that this happened in the year 1015; in which, namely, Bl. Gunther, having long since embraced the Benedictine institute, had already spent some years in the solitude of the Nordwald forest; and so what Thietmar, bishop of Merseburg, here narrates of Gunther, the brother of Eckhard and Hermann, seems to fit Bl. Gunther less aptly. Wipo moreover, in the Life of Conrad the Salian, testifies that this one was archbishop of Salzburg.

[12] and indeed, as they say, But with whatever dignity Bl. Gunther was at length adorned, or in whatever office he served, before he bade farewell to the world, he must certainly not have been of the number of common nobles, if he was joined by kinship to St. Stephen, king of Hungary, as his biographer and others with him generally relate; but neither would I dare to assert this affirmatively. Sufficiently certain indeed, as will appear from what is to be said, is Bl. Gunther's with St. Stephen

king of Hungary, friendship and familiarity: but this very thing perhaps gave the biographer of Bl. Gunther a handle and some sort of foundation for asserting the kinship of the two. Certainly in what degree of kinship they were joined, or how it arose, no writer, at least whom I have seen, has rightly set out: nor could I, although I searched for it not sluggishly, find it anywhere. Our apograph of the Life of Bl. Gunther, transcribed from the codex of the Duke of Altems, calls him St. Stephen's sororius, that is the brother of St. Stephen's wife: thus kinship is turned into affinity: but since to confuse kinship with affinity is not infrequent among Writers, I do not wish to raise a dispute on that matter; but the same apograph which had called Gunther St. Stephen's sororius afterwards names St. Stephen Bl. Gunther's maternal uncle. The Hungarian Writers generally record only two daughters of Géza, duke of the Hungarians, sisters of king Stephen I, Sarolta and Gisela; of whom the former was married to Aba Ovo, or Samuel, third king of the Hungarians: and the latter, mother of Peter, second king of the Hungarians, was married to William, duke of Burgundy, brother of St. Sigismund, as some, though wrongly, write; according to others to William, count of Poitou; to whom perhaps is added a third, married to Otto Orseolo, duke of the Venetians. But how these pertain to Bl. Gunther I do not see at all.

[13] sprung of royal stock, No more is it clear how Bl. Gunther was the sororius, or brother of the wife, of St. Stephen, king of the Hungarians: St. Stephen had only one wife, Gisla, sister of St. Henry, the second of this name, as he is commonly called, emperor; and daughter of Henry the Quarrelsome, duke of Bavaria: but that the latter had a son named Gunther none of the old writers has said. Further, Henry the Fowler had a sister who married a certain Wido, a Thuringian; whom the Saxon Annalist mentions thus at the year 934: But the army (of the Hungarians) which was in the East (of Saxony) heard of the king's (Henry the Fowler's) sister, who had married Wido the Thuringian, and she was born of a concubine, that she inhabited a neighbouring city, and that she had much money of gold and silver, and they began to attack the city with such force that, etc.: Was Gunther perhaps a grandson or great-grandson of this Wido by the illegitimate sister of Henry the Fowler, and in this way a kinsman of Gisla and St. Henry, and hence an affine of St. Stephen, king of the Hungarians? But neither would I dare to affirm this, because old monuments are lacking by which to prove it. Neither Wolfhere in the Life of St. Godehard, nor some Diplomas — such as those of St. Henry in Gretser on the Saints of Bamberg, Gewold and Mabillon; those of Conrad the Salian and Henry III in Gewold; that of Břetislav, duke of Bohemia, in Ziegelbauer in the Monuments of Břevnov subjoined to the Epitome of the History of Břevnov — although they mention Gunther or his nobility, make mention of a kinship or affinity by which he was joined to St. Stephen, king of the Hungarians, or to Gisla, sister of St. Henry. Krüger, in the Pulveres sacri at the 7th before the Ides of October, says that Gunther was among the near kinsmen of Judith, mother of Břetislav, duke of the Bohemians: which nearness of birth, he says, was the cause why St. Stephen, king of Hungary, numbered him among his affines on account of Gisela his wife: but Břetislav's mother was not Judith but Božena (otherwise Beatrix), a country woman, on the testimony of Cosmas of Prague at the year 1002: and if perhaps there is to be understood here not the mother but the wife of Břetislav, who was received from the sacred font by Gunther, Judith, whom he writes at the 24th day of July was sprung of the royal blood of the Saxons, Krüger brings forward nothing to make it credible that any bond of kinship existed between her and Bl. Gunther. The royal family of Gunther, therefore, until it be brought out more certainly from somewhere and from approved monuments, we leave undecided, content to have asserted from the ancient Writers only the nobility of his family.

[14] Of this, besides the testimonies of the ancient Writers, an argument can also be sought from this, the secular life that Udalric, duke of the Bohemians, chose Gunther to receive from the sacred font his son Břetislav, born to him of Božena about the beginning of the eleventh century; which, besides Gunther's biographer, Břetislav himself testifies in express words in the Diploma of the year 1045, by which he confirms the endowment assigned by him to the greater church of the monastery of Břevnov (see Ziegelbauer, page 242), saying: Also for the love and memory of blessed Guntherius the Hermit, who had received me from the sacred font of baptism, burying him in the church of Břevnov, I conferred on the same church my circuit in the province of Prachatice, etc. But in what year Gunther was born into the world, or what were his parents' names, is in obscurity. That he followed the military life when age permitted is clear from Wolfhere, on whose testimony, laying down his girdle (without doubt the military one) before the altar of St. Maurice, he shaved his head and beard, to give his name to the monks of Altaich. Further, while he lived in the world, he seems to have pursued the things of the world somewhat more than was fitting, and not to have led a life free of every vice; but one which, converted to better things, he amended excellently. These things of Gunther were handed down by Arnolf, monk of St. Emmeram's at Regensburg and writer of the Miracles of St. Emmeram, in book 2, that is in the Dialogue, in the following words: There is a certain religious old man, as I judge still alive, converted from a layman, Guntharius by name (so he is also now and then called Guntherus by others), who in the world, once swelling with abundance of goods and vain with nobility of family, was a son of pride, but through the mercy of God afterwards became so humble a monk that I cannot or ought not rightly compare to him any cowled man of our time converted from the vanity of the world. That Arnolf lived in the same age as Gunther his words just reported manifestly betray: but that the same also at one time enjoyed familiar converse with Bl. Gunther is clear from the following words, in which Arnolf testifies this of himself: This above all is wonderful, he says toward the end of his narration about Gunther, which I myself received with my ears from the mouth of the Old Man, and scarcely wrung from him in a certain familiar conversation of sacred reading. It will help to have observed this of Arnolf; which will come to be reconciled below, so far as can be done, with Wolfhere, a writer likewise contemporary, where the year in which Gunther withdrew into the desert will be treated.

[15] he amends, Further, in what year Gunther began by divine grace to free himself from the snares of the world in which he was held entangled, and to change his manners for the better, Wolfhere intimates in the Life of St. Godehard, when he says that Gunther, having conceived the purpose of amending his life, betook himself for counsel and help to St. Godehard, at the time, namely, when he had recently been appointed abbot in the monastery of Hersfeld in Hesse by the emperor St. Henry: Who (Gunther), groaning for the faults of his youth, and having considered more diligently the quality of his acts, coming before the face of the Lord in confession; but distrustful of his own weakness of body and mind, went to Hersfeld to the new abbot (Godehard), worthily, as afterwards appeared, doing penance, and opened to him every secret of his heart and will, says Wolfhere in the Life of St. Godehard, number 12, in Mabillon. The biographer of Bl. Gunther says in almost the same words that he went at Hersfeld to St. Godehard, the abbot newly set over the same church by the emperor himself. The abbot of Hersfeld, to whom, lately deceased, Godehard had succeeded, was Bernhar according to the Saxon Annalist at the year 1005; who in the same year is also noted to have died on the 17th before the Kalends of August in the Necrology of Fulda, which, begun from the year 779, ends at the year 1065. In the year 1005, therefore, advanced beyond the 16th day of July, Gunther's conversion was begun, and was shortly advanced by the diligence of St. Godehard so far, as Wolfhere goes on to narrate, that, having renounced his goods and handed them over to the monastery of Göllingen, sacred to St. Wigbert, Gunther desired to be clad in the monastic habit. The place called Gelinge, where the Benedictine monastery of which there is talk here was most probably built, I find on Blaeu's Map of Thuringia on the river Wipper, on the border of the districts of Sondershausen and Frankenhausen; and St. Wigbert, to whom that monastery was sacred, was the same as St. Wigbert, abbot of the monastery of Fritzlar, concerning whom see what was said in our Work at the 13th day of August, on which he is venerated.

[16] and changes it for the monastic: Bl. Gunther at the beginning of his conversion did not so renounce his goods as not to wish to provide in some fashion for his future lot: wherefore he made over his goods to the monastery of Göllingen on this condition, that, after he had professed the Benedictine institute, its administration should be in his hands. Godehard consented to his wishes in the hope that he would gradually instil into him sounder thoughts and more salutary for his soul, as also in fact happened. Meanwhile, however, it seemed good to Godehard to determine nothing too hastily about Gunther, and, after he had begun duly to provide for the monastery of Hersfeld, which had needed amendment, while the year 1005 was probably still passing, he took him with him, still clad in lay dress, to the monastery of Altaich (for he presided over this and Hersfeld at the same time), situated in Bavaria not far from Deggendorf, and called the lower, to distinguish it from the other situated in the same Bavaria near Straubing, to which the name of upper was given; and when Gunther had arrived there, in order to lay more solid foundations of the religious life, and to make satisfaction for the faults of his former life, with Godehard's good leave he went off to Rome to visit the threshold of the holy Apostles, and, having returned thence to Altaich in the same year, as far as appears, having laid down the military girdle and completed his novitiate, he made the vows of religious profession according to the prescriptions of the Benedictine Order in the year 1006. Thus, as to substance, Wolfhere of Bl. Gunther in the Life of St. Godehard, and from him also Gunther's biographer. With these the Saxon Annalist agrees, writing thus at the year 1006: Gunter, a noble and powerful man of Thuringia, by the counsel of abbot Godehard renouncing all that he possessed, was made a monk at Alatha (read Altaha). Likewise Lambert of Hersfeld, whose Chronicle ends at the year 1077, but who is to be interpreted kindly, writes thus at the same year 1006: Gunther, a noble man of Thuringia, was made a monk at Hersfeld, but afterwards passed to Altaich by the counsel of abbot Godehard. At Hersfeld indeed Gunther, as we have just said from Wolfhere, first went to Godehard and conceived the purpose of the religious life; which, however, he carried out at Altaich, Godehard prudently deferring his wishes, not at Hersfeld. Finally the author of the Chronicle of Hildesheim, ending at the year 1137, in volume 3 of the Writers of Gaul in Duchesne, page 518, agrees in these words at the year 1006: Gunther, impelled by divine mercy, renouncing the world and its pomps, was made a monk.

[17] Having made the vow of profession after he had been proved only for a short time, the monastic: Gunther, mindful of his compact, wished to return to his homeland to take up the administration of the monastery of Göllingen. St. Godehard did not think he should altogether oppose a noble man, and recently converted, in that matter. Gunther therefore went off into Thuringia; but having begun the administration of the monastery of Göllingen,

he found it so entangled in the inconveniences of poverty and labours, to which he himself was not accustomed, that he wearied both himself and St. Godehard with frequent complaints: rebuked therefore at one time by St. Godehard with rather severe words, and warned either to stand by the obedience he had promised or to return to the world, he was so struck by these words of Godehard that, sending away his complaints, and casting off all memory of the compact he had entered into, he subjected himself entirely to the will and government of Godehard in the monastery of Altaich. These things again Wolfhere in the Life of St. Godehard: but Gunther's biographer writes that St. Godehard, in order to bring Gunther back to the duty of due obedience and humility, used the help of St. Henry, afterwards emperor, and that Gunther acquiesced in the counsels and exhortations of both: which, although it is plainly in keeping with the holiness of St. Henry and his familiarity with St. Godehard, does not obtain with me the degree of certainty which the other things narrated by Wolfhere do, because the biographer of Bl. Gunther perhaps added it of his own to Wolfhere's words. But thereafter, by the exhortations either of Godehard or of him and St. Henry together, Gunther shortly turned into another man. Hear Wolfhere: At which word (of Godehard) the hearer (Gunther), astounded, trembled, and, at last late shuddering at the excess of his error, groaned, all the aforesaid compact forgotten from the heart, and every complaint of whatever inconvenience abolished, he betook himself to the monastery of Altaich, where then, under the care of the same father — that I may speak in the favour of all — a singular zeal for the divine worship was burning, and there, most humbly subjected to the brethren, and in a short time fully instructed in the strictness of sacred religion by the infusion of the divine dew, he afflicted himself beyond the regular precept, even his superiors wondering.

[18] Thus far indeed there seems to be agreement between Wolfhere and Arnolf (both, as we have said, knew Gunther): he is summoned into Hungary, but here is a place in which the one seems to depart somewhat from the other: both indeed say that Gunther, when, having returned to the monastery of Altaich from the abdicated administration of the monastery of Göllingen, he had in a short time made notable progress in virtue, not long afterwards, through zeal for acquiring greater perfection, and not against St. Godehard's will, sought solitude and began the solitary life, namely, on Wolfhere's testimony, in the third year of his conversion, that is in the year of Christ 1008, as Lambert of Hersfeld, the author of the Chronicle of Hildesheim, and the Saxon Annalist noted. But whither did Gunther go from the monastery of Altaich? Arnolf writes thus: He first, under Gotheard, abbot of the monks of Altaich, proved in all patience and subjection, began to desire to walk the path of a higher life. Whence also, having received licence from the father of the monastery, he undertook the solitary life, for carrying out which with divine help, in order to prove himself with spiritual caution and prepare his mind by the exercises of the virtues, he sought a certain hill, distant from the aforesaid monastery about one rast, which the German idiom has already named Rancinga, on which, staying almost three years, he was content with scanty fare and the humblest dress. And so according to Arnolf Gunther may seem to have lived in the place called Rancinga until the year 1011; when, on his testimony again, in order to avoid the fellowship of the men flocking to him and through fear of vain glory, fleeing thence he withdrew into the desert which is called the Northern forest: Thus Arnulf: but Wolfhere, making no mention of Bl. Gunther's dwelling on the hill Rancinga, brings him straight from the monastery of Altaich into the Northern forest; they can, however, be reconciled if a twofold withdrawal of Bl. Gunther into the desert be asserted, of which the one happened in the first three years of his conversion, and the other in the third year of his conversion, and it be laid down that Arnolf here speaks of the first, Wolfhere of the second. For the rest, Arnolf says that on the hill Rancinga Gunther lived content with scanty fare and the humblest dress and a small cell, and led so hard a life that through admiration of it there began to be a concourse to him of men offering gifts, with which they venerated Christ in his Servant; whereby indeed it becomes manifest that the name of Bl. Gunther had already then begun to be spread through the mouths of men on account of the holiness of his life.

[19] weary of fame But the fame of his holiness seems at that time to have penetrated not only into the neighbouring places but also into Hungary: for his biographer writes at number 4 that St. Stephen, king of the Hungarians, having been informed of his holiness, summoned him again and again to himself into Hungary, which the pious king at length obtained with difficulty. I think this happened between the years 1006 and 1008, that is in that space of about three years in which he inhabited the hill Rancinga, for this reason, that the biographer, having narrated Gunther's visit to king Stephen, presently continues thus: But the Servant of God, desiring rather to suffer the evils of the world than its praises, to be wearied with labours for God rather than to be extolled with the favours of this life, sought, with the permission of his abbot Godehard, the retreat of a desert place with some who clung to him from Altaich, in a certain Bohemian glade (otherwise called the Northern or Nordwald forest, in which was the place Rinchnach). And while Bl. Gunther was staying with Stephen, king of Hungary, his biographer writes that a prodigy happened: namely that Gunther, invited to the royal table, since he knew that by the Rule of St. Benedict he must abstain from meats, would eat nothing of a roast peacock, even at the king's urging; but obtained from God by his prayers that the bird, recalled to life, flew away into the air. But it appears scarcely credible both that the fact itself happened and that the holy king, fearing God and the holy Men whose holiness he had ascertained, urged Gunther to use food forbidden to him. The words in which the biographer relates the event you have at number 5. Basnage, in the reprinted Lectiones antiquae of Heinrich Canisius, volume 3, page 184, in an Observation on the Acts of Bl. Gunther, receives this passage not without contempt. Not only, he says Ironically, did he abstain from meats, but he asserted that the illicit foods themselves would contaminate him. As if indeed Gunther or his biographer had said that the eating of peacock was illicit in itself, or as if it were a crime to say that a food, otherwise licit, contaminates the soul of those who for a special cause and prohibition are kept from eating it. He laughs too at the bird recalled to life: but a writer contemporary with the blessed Man, as Basnage thinks, did not write this; it is rather the invention of an interpolator, of which there is no mention in the Life of St. Godehard. He laughs finally at the roasted bird flying away from the table, and indeed, if you hear him, without feathers; Gunther's biographer said that the bird, recalled to life, flew away from the royal table: but he did not say that this was done without feathers. Could God perhaps, in Basnage's judgement, restore life to the bird, but not feathers? But let us dismiss these things.

[20] So great an esteem of Gunther had indeed arisen among the highest and lowest he withdraws to Rinchnach, as to drive a less constant man from lowliness of mind: but Gunther was no longer such as to delight in human praises; and he thought it better to change his place than to expose himself to the danger of vain glory: Then he, fearing, says Arnolf, lest the throng of the people and the petty glory of the world should under the appearance of religion steal away or diminish something of the true goods, fleeing thence withdrew into the desert which is called the Northern forest. As soon as Gunther came there, he escaped indeed the applause of the popular breeze, as he had in his wishes, but fell into various and grave hardships and temptations, which nevertheless he happily overcame: one of these, a grave one indeed (promising also to describe a graver one, which I do not know whether he performed or not), Arnolf relates in this manner: But in winter time, when the Norican soil is covered beyond the usual with the immensity or density of snows, there befell the aforesaid Servant of God a certain as it were wrestling torment … For when, on account of the excess of snow, bread could not be brought to him for nine continuous days from the monastery (of Altaich, three miles distant from there) according to custom, nor could it be sent there from elsewhere by any man, nor, the nearest newness of his settlement hindering, had he anything worked there (he had therefore come there a little before) whence he might be able to take nourishment; afflicted by a fast of three days, on the fourth day, not wishing to tempt God, he began to dig out and pull up wild herbs from the icy depth of the snow, which had already grown beyond the stature of a man of middling height, and to put them into a pot to be cooked. These having been softened a little on that day by fire and water, he put off his dinner until the fifth day, on which, awaiting the canonical hour of refection, he set before himself for the sake of refection the pottage which he had prepared the day before, cooked again, but having tasted it he could not eat it.

[21] and there, increased by some companions, Whence, rebuking himself, he said: O Gunthar, your pride does not allow you to be refreshed with this humble food. Where now is the steaming or softest fine flour? Where now are the shoulders of goat or the flesh of bears? etc.: Therefore, in place of the abundance of more delicate food and drink to which you were once wholly given in the riches of the world, be content now with the breakfast of a poor little refection in the name of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of all, who, though he was rich, for your sake became poor, that you might become a partaker of his riches. What more? At length on the sixth day, fully giving thanks to God, he took a refection with beech leaves, necessary indeed to the body, yet very contrary to it; and so, not without great tumult and controversy of diverse thoughts, that is with the manifest incursion of diabolical temptations, he awaited the consolation of the divine mercy … This faith and the exercise of faith was followed by the consolation of the divine mercy, which sent him bread sufficiently. Thus far Arnolf about Gunther's fasting. And it seems, from the series of the things adduced hitherto, to have happened in the year 1008, already verging to its end; Calles, however, in the Annals of Germany, refers it to the year 1011 from the Saxon Annalist, who writes thus at the end of the same year: There had been in this year an unusual winter, inopportunely long with the harshness of frosts, so that it retained for a long time ice not to be melted by the heat of the sun, and rendered many bodies of men languid. Further, it profited not Gunther only but others too that he had borne so grave a hardship so generously and unconquerably; the report of which matter procured for Gunther, who hitherto seems to have lived alone there, several companions, who gave themselves to the solitary life in the same desert under his auspices and those of the abbot of Altaich. Then … the more known he became to himself through patience, says Arnolf, the more useful he was thereafter to others as an example of humility and perseverance, the Fountain of all good things bestowing it. Whence it came about that some of the clerics or monks, and also of faithful laymen, called forth by him and through him, nay called forth by divine instinct, began, under the communion of his prayers and labours, to serve as soldiers to the King of kings in the same desert (of the Northern forest), of which he himself, for the love of Christ, wished to be a dweller.

[22] he founds a monastery, Now increased by a number of some companions

Gunther began to direct his cares to building in good time cells suited to his institute for himself and his own, and above all a church in which they might devote themselves to the divine offices and praises, leave having been obtained for this both from Godehard and from the emperor St. Henry. He was of singular devotion toward St. John the Baptist: to him, therefore, and to the most holy Virgin Mother of God and the Holy Cross he built a sacred house with what speed he could: the work, completed in some fashion, the emperor St. Henry endowed with pious munificence, as is to be seen in his diploma, which is noted as given in the year 1009, in Gretser on the Saints of Bamberg after the Life of St. Henry. But although, from what has already been said, the church of Rinchnach was built at least in some fashion in the year 1009, its solemn consecration was nevertheless deferred for some years: Henry III, in his diploma to be cited below at number 38, relates that the bishop of Passau in Bavaria, to whose diocese the monastery or provostship of Rinchnach belonged, performed this at Gunther's request. The bishop's name and the year of the consecration performed are taught by Johannes Aventinus in the Diplomatic Excerpts of Passau, volume 1 of the Writers of Bavarian Affairs, page 708, where these things are read: MXIX, in the XVIIIth year of Henry's reign, the VIth of his empire, on the 4th before the Kalends of September, bishop Berenger (who is also Benno) consecrates in the Nordwald a church for Gunthar * to St. John the Baptist, the Virgin Mother of God, the Cross; namely on the very feast day of the beheading of John the Baptist. The years of Henry's reign and empire added in this place to the year 1019 bring it about that it seems scarcely or not even scarcely doubtful that in Johannes Aventinus, in the Antiquities of Lower Altaich, page 726 of the volume just cited, the year 1029 is wrongly read for 1019. Further, if St. Henry profited Gunther by benefits, the latter in turn profited the emperor by his counsels, as Andrew, priest of Regensburg, writes in the History of the Foundations of some monasteries of Bavaria, volume 2 of the Monasteries of Germany, page 212, in these words: And this Henry was specially induced to benefit this monastery (of Lower Altaich) by the known holiness of the most blessed father Godehard and of his disciple Gunther the hermit, whom he held as intimates as long as he lived, and he enjoyed their secret counsels. What Andrew here writes of Godehard the Saxon Annalist luminously confirms in his Henry: and what he writes of Gunther, although the praised Annalist does not testify to it, is nevertheless very like the truth; and that Gunther was of great authority with other princely men too, what is to be said further will declare more fully.

[23] St. Henry prolonged his life until the year 1024: which St. Henry endowed but, bereaved of this patron, Gunther found another in Conrad the Salian, Henry's successor; from whom he obtained that the goods conferred on his monastery by St. Henry should not only be confirmed but also increased: as Conrad's diploma on that matter makes credible, which Gewold reports thus: In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. Conrad, by the favour of divine Clemency emperor augustus of the Romans. The shoot of every planting etc. Wherefore we will it to be known to the whole body of the faithful of God and of us how we, on account of the intervention and petition of our beloved wife Gisla, empress augusta, and of our most loving offspring king Henry, and of Bruno, prelate of the church of Augsburg, and also of Godehard, venerable bishop of Hildesheim, and of our other faithful, Gebhard of Regensburg and Benno of Passau, bishops, have given and confirmed to the church situated in the desert which is called Nortwald, built by Guntherius the monk, who first led the hermit's life there, in honour of the most victorious Cross, and of holy Mary Mother of God, and also of blessed John the Baptist, for the use of the brethren serving God there under the Rule of St. Benedict, whatever we had from the place where the water Leipfluisa falls upon the road which the aforesaid Guntherius newly prepared, and so down along the Leipfluisa as far as the water Rinichnach, and so along the Rinichnach, as it has been bounded, as far as the Vollenbach, and so along the course of the Vollenbach as far as the Mettma, and along the descent of the same water as far as the place where the Forhenbach flows into the same Mettma, and from the Forhenbach, as it has been bounded below, as far as the Sala, and so down along the Sala as far as the river Regen.

[24] And along the descent of the river Regen as far as that * Petrach, and his successor which flows between the two Petrahas, and so up along the same Petrach as far as the lake which is on mount Hatwich, and thence, as it has been cut through, as far as the rising of the Swarzaha, and so thence as far as Büehohimberch, and thence, as has now been bounded, as far as the place where the Kelberspach falls into the White Regen, and so along the White Regen as far as Affsollserswerchet, and thence to the great stone which lies on the Eastern side near the Road which leads into Bavaria, and so along the Road and over the Black Regen, as far as the same new way prepared by Gunther the monk, and so along the way as far as the Leipfluisa, with all appurtenances, etc. On this condition, namely, that no one etc.: (here the diploma of St. Henry is partly copied) Given on the Kalends of January, in the XIIth Indiction, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand and XXIX. And in the year of the lord Conrad the Second reigning the Vth, of his empire the second. Done at Augsburg. Sign of the lord Conrad, most invincible emperor augustus of the Romans. Udalric the chancellor recognized it in the stead of Aribo. Conrad, surnamed the Salian, made king of the Romans at Mainz in the year 1024 on the 8th day of September, was crowned emperor at Rome in the year 1027 on the 26th day of March; the XIIth Indiction ran in the year 1029. The chronological characters in the said diploma are therefore right. Of Gisla, Conrad's wife, the Saxon Annalist writes thus at the year 1026, in which she bore him Henry, afterwards emperor: Gisla married first Ernest, son of the margrave Liuppold, and bore him Hermann, duke of the Swabians. Duke Ernest having died, count Bruno of Brunswick took her to wife, and she bore him count Liudolf. Count Bruno also having died, Conrad, her kinsman, married her by force. He writes that she died in the year 1044. Moreover he writes that Henry, the son of Conrad and Gisla, was made king of Germany in the same year in which he was born.

[25] Conrad the Salian. The same Annalist mentions Bruno as bishop of Augsburg at the year 1027, and says he departed from among the living in the year 1029. He has at the aforesaid years that Godehard, consecrated bishop of Hildesheim by Aribo, archbishop of Mainz, in the year 1022, died in the year 1038; and Aribo in the year 1031. He mentions Gebhard as bishop of Regensburg at the year 995, of whom again at the year 1035 he has this: Gebhard, bishop of Regensburg, died, to whom likewise Gebhard (II) succeeded. Benno or Berenger, of whom above at number 22, was made bishop of Passau according to the Chronicle of Hildesheim in the year 1013; and he died in the year 1045, as Hund writes in the Bishops of Passau. Finally Udalric the chancellor is read as subscribed to various diplomas of Conrad the Salian, two of which you have in Eckhart in the Genealogical History of the princes of Upper Saxony, the one at page 299 and following, of the year 1028; the other, reported at column 314, of the year 1038; so that hence there is no doubt of the genuineness of this diploma. But the order of events now requires that we resume Arnolf's narration about St. Gunther, interrupted for a while.

* Perhaps Guntharii?

* villam

§ III. He amends a priest who had fallen into pride.

A certain priest, Arnulf relates that a Saxon priest, Tammo by name, one of the companions of Bl. Gunther, deceived by the cunning of the demon, came to such arrogance that he would not be subject to the blessed Man, as being unlettered; but that when at length he perceived that he had been mocked by the demon, he came to his senses through Gunther's prayers and pious solicitude. That the matter happened about the year 1030 I gather both from the following words of Arnolf about Tammo: He is now passing his eighth year under the exercise of the highest humility, obedience and abstinence; and from the time at which Arnolf published book 2 on the Miracles of St. Emmeram. Further, that the books of the Miracles of St. Emmeram were published by him, the first under Burchard, abbot of St. Emmeram, and the second in the year immediately following under Udalric, Burchard's successor, namely in the year 1035 or the following, was rightly said in our Work, volume 6 of September, page 457, in the Commentary on St. Emmeram, number 16, if that Catalogue (of the abbots of the monastery of St. Emmeram, prepared by Christoph Hoffmann, and inserted in volume 2 of the Library of the same monastery, published in the year 1748) is accurate. But in volume 1 of the Writers of Bavarian Affairs, which came out afterwards in the year 1763, page 46, there occurs a very brief Chronicle of Bavaria printed from a very old parchment codex of the monastery of St. Emmeram, from which it is clear that in the praised place of our Work full credit was rightly not given to Hoffmann's accuracy: for that Chronicle, which runs only from the year 732 to the year 1063, has thus at the year 1037: Abbot Burchard died at Rome on Easter day. To him succeeds Oudalric. And so Arnold published the second book of the Miracles of St. Emmeram in the year 1037 after Easter or the following; and from there, eight years not complete being subtracted, the time of the event mentioned above (which Mabillon in the Annals refers later, to the year 1041) will be had. Further, the matter itself, though narrated rather prolixly, because it was received by Arnolf from Gunther's mouth, and was not only passed over by Gunther's biographer but perhaps also unknown to him, I relate in Arnolf's own words, as an addition or supplement to the Acts.

[27] It happened that a certain priest sprung of the race of the Saxons, the companion of the blessed Man, into pride called Tammo also by his household, came after the manner of new arrivals, and, under the appearance of a laudable residence, tried to mingle himself with the conversation of the Man of God or of his fellow-soldiers. And when the Man of God, partly with experience as mistress running before, had presented him to the abbot of the monks of Altaich (gather hence that the monastery of Rinchnach, or provostship, as Stengel calls it, was subject to the abbey of Altaich), and he had promised obedience according to custom according to the Rule of St. Benedict, at once, under the tenor of the obedience which he had promised to the abbot, as the others too were accustomed to do at that time, and still are accustomed to do, who remain as hermits in that place, he was handed over, that is commended with the greatest diligence, to the aforesaid Old Man, and returned with him to the retreat of the desert. And when, with the other brethren most humbly serving the Most High, he too, according to the institutes of the fathers, was spending some time in the cell assigned to him with humility accompanying, through the stealing in of vainglory he was so suddenly weighed down with the mass of pride that not only did he whisper into the ears of certain fellow-dwellers, disparaging the venerable Old Man with clandestine mutterings, but he also dared to break out openly into calumny of so great a Man, saying: What and who is Gunthar? A layman and an unlettered man, whose life is rightly despised. To whom the servants of God who happened then to be present and had heard these things answered, saying: As it seems to us, humility, which is the guardian

of the virtues, has withdrawn far from your mind, and the monster of pride has manifestly invaded you, which of old persuaded the sons of wicked confidence wantonly to build the tower of Babylon, and has now suggested to you such wicked things about the Man of God. He without doubt first brought the banners of the Cross of Christ into this desert… This Man too is of great authority, who has now come into old age and senility by excellently obeying the divine commands. To whom he arrogantly answered, saying: His authority too is for the least to me, for it avails nothing at all. I must indeed remain apart, and in a special cell, not under the censure of Gunthar, I must serve Christ, who gave both to know and to be able, of my own free mind.

[28] by the deceits of the demon What more? The same priest, separated for some days from those whom he despised, saw certain visions ministered by the subverter, nay beheld phantasms, by which his heart was so lifted up that, not at all content with a humble and simple vow, he sought things greater than himself, that is, desired miracles. Whence it happened that in the dead of the night in which the festivity of St. Agnes (which is venerated first on the 21st day of January, a second time on the 28th of the same month) is celebrated by Christians, applying himself somewhat to prayer, he drank in a voice at first delightful, but after a little lamentable to hear, and saw a vision with his eyes. He heard, then, first of all a harmony, and as it were two choirs of men and women singing together at a distance, and, as it was heard, answering each other most beautifully in vicarious alternation, until little by little, with the increase of the same chant and the augmentation of a flashing light, they came right up to him. Then the enemy of the human race, who, as the Apostle Paul testifies, transfigures himself even into an angel of light, presented himself to him with such great brightness that he was thought to be anything rather than the devil. And when the priest gazed at him for a long time and marvelled at his beauty, he who had appeared said to him: Do you see that I am Christ? Why do you not adore me? Do not doubt, since I have come for this, that I may tell you what you must do. And he, whom diabolical illusions had already deceived, said: If you are the son of Mary, behold, I adore you; and falling down he adored him, entirely forgetful of that answer which he used to read in the Lives of the Fathers that a most cautious old man had given concerning a temptation of this kind. For it is written there that a certain old man was tempted in like manner by the devil, but, the divine clemency fencing round its servant, the tempter was presently detected in a few words as to who he was. For when the perverse one said to the old man, who was long silent: I am Christ, why do you delay to adore me? he received the answer from him: If you were Christ, you would by no means ask of me that this homage be now paid to you, which I have always, as far as I was able, humbly shown to the true Christ my Lord, etc.

[29] and by lies For the rest, if the humility of Christ reigned in the aforesaid brother, he would never, falling, adore the pride of the devil, which will be most evidently clear in what follows. For after he had most wickedly adored, the ancient enemy inflicted another wound on him, and at the same time said: Antichrist is already reigning in Judea, and Elias and Enoch are preaching there; with these too, who are to be slain by Antichrist, you will be crowned with martyrdom in the present year for the confession of my name. But before you go there, you must correct all things in the monasteries of this province that are worthy of amendment, and preach the word of truth to many. And the priest, desirous of new things, began: What sign will you give me, by which I may be made certain that I shall do what you have said? To whom the seducer answered: Not one sign will be given you for certainty, but you are to do three today before the third hour of the day, namely one in the left eye of Gunthar, which he has almost lost through sickness; another in the brother who has now been sick for many days and is blind, whose name is Remigius; the third in him who is called Razo, whom his enemies blinded and maimed. Moreover have as a sign of certainty the sandals which you will find close by, placed under a certain hollow tree, which I command you to use henceforth in celebrating the solemnities of the Masses. What more? These things having been thus persuaded to the proud man by diabolical fraud, and, set among the shrubs behind the dwelling in which he remained a wanderer, as it were a certain ascent and descent having been shown together, with other inextricable portents of phantasm, at the very twilight of dawn the aforesaid priest, deserting his own and solitary cell, under the empty appearance of the diabolical promise, made for the cottage of the lord Gunthar. And when the venerable hero saw him, astonished and wondering at his sudden coming, as one who, pride commanding, had been separated from him, and had with malign will withdrawn from him, as one ignorant of letters, the supplement of his skill, wishing to say nothing he kept silent.

[30] Then he who had come swollen with vain glory said to the reverend Old Man under the appearance of religion: having fallen, We are not ignorant that according to the institutes of the fathers we ought by no means to have gone out of our cell and come here unless called: but the coming of our humility is by the precept of our Lord Jesus Christ very necessary to you and to others. To whom the Old Man, protected by the defence of the spirit, said: Whence is this to you, or when did the Lord Christ give new precepts to your fraternity? And he answered: This night. And the Old Man says: What? The priest answered: That I should correct and renew the regular observances in the monasteries of Noricum; and preach the word of God widely to the peoples, and also, their infirmity being healed, restore sight to two brethren, namely Razo and Remigius, and give back the clearness of light to your eye, troubled now for many years with pains. When the Old Man heard these words uttered by the mouth of Tammo, he met his boasting, saying: Believe me, Gunthar would rather lack both eyes than see by the grant of him who deceitfully promised you these things. Nothing is truer than that you have been circumvented by diabolical art and deluded in every way. To which sentence the priest who had come joins frivolous words, saying: If before this next third hour of this day I have not done what I said, do not believe me. And the Man of God said: The Truth in which we believe will make plain today to you and to us all that the father of lies has deceived your arrogance. Then the priest, withdrawing himself from the gaze of the Old Man, and persisting in the obstinacy of his bound * mind, led with him into the church the blind brother, as if to pray for him that he might receive sight from the Lord. But when there had been long praying, and the light which was asked was not given, he drew out the petty glory of vanity, tried in vain, almost until the sixth hour.

[31] he comes to his senses at Gunther's admonitions, Then, surrounded on every side with horror and terror and disturbed not without great confusion, he hastily goes to the lord Gunthar, and falling on his face said to him with tears: Unless your prayers, O reverend Father, help me mightily, and the prayers of other servants of God rescue me from the pit of destruction, I know more certainly than certain that, my sins bringing it about, I have ceased to be the servant of Christ; that he will henceforth claim and possess me as his own servant, the minister of all wickedness, whom — alas, alas, wretch that I am! — I adored in place of the Lord of lords. To this the lord Gunthar, girded with spiritual arms, answered: Peter, the prince of the Apostles, to whom the Truth itself said, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church," three times denied Christ, the best master. But after the Lord looked upon him, and he wept bitterly, he received remission through Him who alone knows how to have compassion on our infirmities in his great and many mercies. Therefore by your fall you ought not to make full joy for the devil in this, that you fall into distrust; but rather humbly seek the clemency of almighty God, which no faults of mortals surpass. And when the priest, after the Old Man's admonition, still dismayed with grief at his new fall, coming next to the hour of divine service, tried to mingle himself with the assembly of the brethren gathered there, and to serve in the psalmody with them for a while, the ancient enemy began to press him sharply, and also to be manifestly troublesome to him, saying: The things you read and sing, written of me, are mine: you, willing or unwilling, will remain mine henceforth, because you are wholly reduced into the dominion of my pleasure. Do not be deceived, nor be beguiled by the vain and false suggestion of Gunthar; no one will snatch you out of my hand.

[32] and with difficulty at length From that day the aforenamed priest, weighed down with the burden of dangers, although he gave himself to the strictest penance, could by no means turn away the new and ancient enemy from being excessively hostile to him at all hours. Whence it came about that the lord Gunthar summoned a man of good counsel, namely the abbot of the monks of Altaich, Ratmund by name (he was made abbot of Altaich in the year 1026 according to the Chronicle of Hildesheim; and died in 1048 according to Johannes Aventinus in the Antiquities of that monastery), and he, having taken with him the Pontiff of Passau (Berenger or Benno, as the reckoning of time shows), came to hold an inquiry into a matter of this kind. And when the bishop, holding secret discourse with the abbot and the Lord Gunthar, had heard of the priest's fall, and had perceived that he had been deceived by diabolical illusion, treating prudently of whence this great evil arose, he said: Behold, there has happened in this brother what we read set forth in the Gospel truth: He that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Therefore it is necessary that provision be made that the pestiferous exaltation, which through diabolical persuasion has miserably cast the man down, being wonderfully healed by the medicinal humility of Christ, may be raised up into the strength of faith and so directed into the way of eternal salvation. Then the bishop, by the authority of the sacred canons, ordered the fallen brother to cease from the priestly office until satisfaction, and the assessment of a useful counsel. What more? Afterwards too, the diabolical infestation exceedingly confounding the same monk, and deterring him even in the service of God with daily and nightly tumults or outcries, word was sent round about to fathers and brethren that by common prayer, and by the singular and healing secret offering of the saving sacrifice, they should beg from the most merciful Lord pardon for the fall of the weak brother. And when there had been kindly praying by some, and especially labouring for him by the Lord Gunthar before the sight of the divine Majesty, as one who at all hours had stretched out the hand of consolation to him as he tottered and wavered, and had promised that the kind Jesus would most certainly have mercy on him; at length, after the rolling by of six months, he who was being assailed by the most wicked destroyer, feeling relief, received a remedy. Refreshed by its very necessary fomentation, he is now passing his eighth year under the exercise of the highest humility, obedience and abstinence.

[33] This above all is wonderful, which I myself received with my ears from the mouth of the Old Man, from the assaults of the demon and scarcely wrung from him in a certain familiar conversation of sacred reading. For when the aforesaid priest, placed in the strait of the greatest temptation, ran again and again to the Old Man, and cried out with complaining voice: I cannot stand,

I am not able to endure, pray for me, Man of God; the Old Man said: I trust in the kind Jesus that he will free you; only be patient and constant, etc. The tempted one subjoined: Would that it be done to me according to your word. But I greatly fear the danger of the temptation which is rushing upon me, wretch that I am, beyond the human measure. For in the very hour of prayer, when I open my mouth to the praise of God, the adversary seems to me as it were to send his rapacity within into my belly as far as the heart, and to take away the strength of my heart and draw out my senses altogether, and make me a stranger to myself. Above all these things he boasts that he knows my whole knowing, willing and being able. The Old Man answered: Do not hesitate in faith about the divine help to be sent in good time from above, which, although it is put off for a time, is nevertheless not taken away. The devil has no power at all to harm and weary you unless permitted by God; and God would never permit these things to be done unless he wished to humble you. For sometimes the Lover of men pretends not to know what we suffer; but nevertheless he will often furnish that at which we may marvel. Do not fail, brother, but according to the Apostle stand in the faith, act manfully and be comforted in the name of Him who alone knows how to heal human frailty. And as to your complaint that the devil boasted of the knowledge of your will and ability; this itself, which you know well, suffices you against this struggle, that is, that the devil was a liar from the beginning, and thrusts down the sons of distrust to incurable destruction.

[34] These things said, at once Satan was present in the presence of the Old Man, he is freed. disturbing the tempted brother and saying: Gunthar has not only spoken a lie now, but often lies, and strives to deceive you, and moreover laboriously seeks and loves a slender and fine fur garment. And when he attacked and provoked the Old Man with insults, the Old Man, fearing lest perhaps the impudence of the devil should send the brother's mind into despair of the saving good, broke out and said: O enemy of God and men, may your pride and your lie remain with you in eternal perdition. But we, who not only use sheep and goat skins, but also enjoy the simplicity and humility which are signified in them, through Him who loved us shall easily overcome you, the most wicked wolf, and by the power of Christ we tread on your power. Believe the sinner Gunthar, that the brother whom, by God's permission, you cruelly pursue for a time will, in spite of you, be freed and saved by the grace of Christ, the Son of the living God, who came into this world as son of man to seek and to save that which was lost. After these and such contests, and very many other darts of his wickedness hurled in vain against the tempted brother, by the divine mercy the devil was so put to flight that, departing with calamitous cries and complaining lamentations, he made known manifestly against his will how much he grieved, and will still grieve, that he, the victor over man, had been vanquished by a man.

* Perhaps obstinatae, obstinate?

§ IV. The remaining deeds of Bl. Gunther, his death, burial and relics.

He holds a sermon on St. John the Baptist, To what year should be referred what his biographer relates of Bl. Gunther at number 7 in Wolfhere's words, namely that on the feast day of St. John the Baptist, his singular patron, he once discoursed before the brethren, Wolfhere hearing, so aptly and vigorously on his Life and manners that, although he was rude in letters, he wrung most abundant tears from his hearers, I plainly do not know, for lack of a chronological note by which the year of the event might be determined. He says only that there stood by Gunther as he spoke to the assembly of the brethren, besides others, Ratmund, abbot of Altaich, who we said began to discharge that office in the year 1026 and died in the year 1048; but there occurs nothing by which I may determine in what year this abbot was in the monastery of Rinchnach. Gunther could easily attain that force of speaking, even without the help of letters, from frequent conversation on sacred matters continued through a course of many years, from continual meditation on them, and from sedulous and frequent hearing of the divine word: for the rest, in that matter the unction of the Holy Spirit is often of more avail than any human erudition or industry whatever. Let us therefore allow here again Basnage to deride the sacred eloquence of the unlettered Gunther at his pleasure and after his custom; who, if he had heard Gunther speaking, would perhaps have said, with his impudence toward the Saints, what was once said of St. Peter, that he was full of new wine.

[36] he is the author to St. Stephen that he found the monastery of Bél, About the year 1030, as the writers of Hungarian Affairs generally relate, St. Stephen, by the counsel of Bl. Gunther, began to found a monastery of the Benedictine Order in a place of the Bakony forest called Bél, which, already completed in the year 1037, he piously endowed, as his surviving letters on that matter declare. Gather hence and from what was said at number 19 that Bl. Gunther, whether for the sake of affinity or of blood-relationship, or certainly of holy familiarity, went to St. Stephen more than once, although Wolfhere mentions only one visit of Bl. Gunther to St. Stephen, nor does the biographer, feigning the person of Wolfhere, relate more. Receive, transcribed from volume 1 of the month of September of our Work, page 569, the words of Hartwic, who wrote the Life of St. Stephen, in which he not only confirms what has just been said, but also shows both with what authority and favour Gunther prevailed with him — not so much on account of the bond of affinity or blood-relationship with St. Stephen as, I judge, on account of the esteem of his holiness — and of what mind and piety he was toward the poor: he speaks thus: Of this matter (the pious liberality toward the poor which Stephen was accustomed to exercise through the work of clerics and monks, especially those whose holiness he had ascertained) very many give testimony, but of these one, for ever a partaker with him of the heavenly life, a monk converted from secular nobility and a hermit, blessed Gunther, who, enticed by this liberality of the charitable prince, was accustomed often to visit him from the land of the Bohemians (add, with Surius). For as often as he lit up his court with the brightness of his coming, the care of the kingdom being placed under his hand, the substance which it contained being distributed to pilgrims and natives, to widows and orphans, to monasteries and churches, it was in a short time exhausted, that is, as I think, the royal chest destined for alms was emptied. At the nod also of the same servant of God (Gunther) the king devoted to God, beginning the monastery which is called Bél, enriched it with men: where the monk Gerard, coming from Venice, began to lead the contemplative life; not indeed in the monastery, but in the place Bél; in which, after Gerard was promoted thence to the bishopric of Csanád, he began to found the mentioned monastery, as Stilting judged in volume 6 of September in the Commentary on St. Gerard. Inchofer writes that Bl. Gunther presided over this monastery when he was permitted to stay there; but, as Stilting rightly says in volume 1 of September, page 530, not with sufficient foundation, since there is no sufficient trace of this matter anywhere among the ancients. Here is another deed of Gunther, but handed down, so far as I indeed know, only by a more recent writer; which, if it really happened, must have happened in the year 1032 or the following.

[37] Conrad, king of Burgundy, had a son Rudolf, his father's successor in the kingdom of Burgundy; not, however, to Conrad, that he lay waste Burgundy. and three daughters besides Matilda: Bertha (whom Duchesne calls the elder), married to Odo I, count of Champagne, from whom was begotten Odo II, count of Champagne; Gisela, mother of the emperor St. Henry; and finally Gerberga, married to Hermann, duke of Swabia, mother of Gisela, who, after one husband and another had died, was joined in matrimony to Conrad the Salian. Rudolf, king of Burgundy, since he had no children, first declared Henry II, son of his sister Gisela, heir of the kingdom of Burgundy: Therefore the emperor received from king Rudolf (says the Saxon Annalist at the year 1016) the whole primacy of Burgundy, and firm security by hands that the greatest matters should not be done without his counsel; and again at the year 1018: Rudolf, king of the Burgundians, the emperor's maternal uncle, granted his crown and sceptre with his wife and stepsons and all the nobles, and the confirmation of the Oath is repeated. But Henry II having died without children, Rudolf, dying in the year 1032, made over the kingdom of Burgundy, already promised before, to the emperor Conrad the Salian, husband of Gisela, his niece by his sister Gerberga: Rudolf the sluggard, says Hermann the Lame of Canisius, a writer of that age, at that year, kinglet of Burgundy, died, and his diadem and the insignia of the kingdom were brought to the emperor Conrad by Seliger. But Odo, Rudolf's nephew by his sister Bertha, occupied the kingdom of Burgundy. The emperor therefore had to use arms to drive Odo out of Burgundy; which he also did, war having been waged in Burgundy for that cause in the years 1033 and 1034, as Hermann the Lame writes, and Wipo in the Life of Conrad which he inscribed to Henry the third (otherwise II), Conrad's son. Staindel says in his Chronicle, which ends at the year 1508, but producing no witness, that Burgundy was laid waste on this occasion, and indeed at Gunther's request: The emperor, he says, makes for France against Otto, likewise lays waste Burgundy at the request of Gunthar the hermit and of the provincial counts. What cause Conrad had for invading Burgundy with arms is clear from what has already been said. Conrad's cause could indeed have been approved by Gunther, and he could perhaps have been persuaded by him to defend his right by arms; but that the devastation of Burgundy was inflicted at Gunther's request we cannot suspect of a holy Man, and one very zealous, as we shall see a little later, for composing peace among discordant princes.

[38] the monastery of Rinchnach But how great, as was just said, was Gunther's zeal for reconciling the discordant appeared especially in the year 1040: but, that the order of events may be kept, it is first to be related how great was his lowliness of mind toward the abbot of Altaich, of which he gave a notable specimen about the beginning of the same year. That Gunther wished the monastery of Rinchnach which he had founded to be subject to that of Altaich, in which he had been enrolled among the Benedictines, can be gathered sufficiently from what was said above from Arnolf about Tammo, whom he brought according to received custom to the abbot of Altaich, that he might be enrolled among the nurslings of the Benedictine Institute: but that it might remain ratified and fixed for every age, he asked and obtained a diploma of Henry III on that matter; which in part (for it is not necessary to copy it entire) is of this kind, in Gewold, volume 2, page 39: In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. Henry, by the favour of divine clemency king (he was crowned emperor only in the year 1046 on the day of the Lord's nativity), all the sons of the church etc.: In the reign of the magnificent Henry (the second of this name, as he is commonly called), a certain noble Guntherius, rich in earthly goods, of his own accord deserted worldly things, and under the power of Godehard, abbot of Altaich, worthy of God, entered into the monastic way of life; he, having lived laudably in the monastery for some time, by divine instinct desired the secret places of the desert,

having therefore received the blessing from the aforesaid abbot, with the consenting approval of king Henry, he entered the desert of Nortwald, and began to cultivate it as a hermit not idle; the divine grace indeed co-operating, he built a church in the same desert, and obtained that it * be consecrated in honour of St. John the Baptist by the bishop of Passau; and there he substituted brethren observing the Rule of St. Benedict. When, then, the emperor Henry had died, and Conrad had discharged the government of the empire, he received leave from him for that very thing, and also obtained from him a royal charter, which confirmed to him the goods acquired by him there and to be acquired.

[39] subjects to that of Altaich. When Conrad himself too, of blessed memory, our parent, departed from life, the same Guntherius, for the uprightness of his merits, enjoyed our familiarity in friendly fashion, and therefore asked our gentleness that we should hand over the aforesaid church to the title of St. Maurice at Altaich by the authority of our power, which we also did. Whence we will the faithful present and future to know how we, at the request of the aforesaid Gunther and by the intervention of our most faithful Pobbo, patriarch of Aquileia, Dietmar, archbishop of Salzburg, Berenger of Passau, Bruno of Würzburg, Nithard of Liège, Heribert of Eichstätt, have assigned and handed over the church in Nortwald called Rinichnach by Gunther to the monastery of St. Maurice, into the power of abbot Ratmund and his successors, with all appurtenances … so that no one further, without the leave of the abbot of Altaich, has power of making new clearings, fishing or catching wild beasts by any device, on this compact, namely, that neither the aforesaid abbot Ratmund nor any of his successors has power to destroy the regular life there … Given on the 16th before the Kalends of February, in the VIIIth Indiction, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation MXL. And in the XIIth year of the ordination of the Lord Henry the third, but the 1st of his reign. Done at Augsburg happily. Amen. He who is here called Pobbo is by others Poppo, whom the Saxon Annalist mentions at 1037, and again at 1047, in which, having been made supreme Pontiff from patriarch of Aquileia and called Damasus, he died, as he writes, in the same year. Dietmar held the see of Juvavum or Salzburg, as Hund writes, from the year 1027 for 16 years. Of Berenger it has been said above. Bruno of Würzburg died on the 6th before the Kalends of June (1045), in place of whom Adalbero is ordained. The same Bruno sat XI years, 1 month, 14 days, says the Saxon Annalist.

[40] Fisen, in the Ecclesiastical History of the church of Liège, relates that Nithard presided as bishop over the people of Liège from the year 1038 until 1042. in the year 1040: Heribert, as Bruschius writes, was elected bishop of Eichstätt in the year 1011, and died in 1042, on the testimony of Lambert of Hersfeld. Henry was elected king of the Romans in the year, as Wipo writes in the Life of Conrad the Salian, his father, 1028, on Easter day, that is the 14th of April. And Conrad died in the year 1039 in the month of June on the day after Pentecost, on the same testimony: Henry was distinguished with the crown of the empire at Rome only in the year 1046 on the day of the Lord's Nativity; but in the year 1047 according to the Saxon Annalist, who numbers the beginning of the year from the aforesaid day. Finally, Henry, according to the Saxon Annalist, was at Regensburg in the year 1039 on the day of the Lord's Nativity: and in the year 1040, on the 8th day of January, he was already staying at Augsburg, according to another diploma of Henry which Ughelli recites in volume 5 of the enlarged Italia sacra, column 55 and following, so that he could easily have been staying there also on the 17th day of the same month. The chronological characters of the diploma are therefore right, nor does it appear to be doubted that about the beginning of the year 1040 the monastery of Rinchnach was subjected to that of Altaich according to the wishes of Bl. Gunther and by the royal authority of Henry. That was a specimen of the lowly mind in Gunther. I now come to the illustrious deed exhibited in the same year, by which he luminously showed with how great zeal he reconciled dissenting princes, and how great authority he had with them in that matter.

[41] In the year 1039, Casimir, duke of Poland, having died, peace between Henry and his sons, as the Saxon Annalist writes at the said year, being placed in infancy, the duke of Bohemia Bracilaus did not put off the occasion offered of slandering his enemies, nay of avenging the injuries which duke Miseco had once inflicted on the Bohemians, and, the Bohemians having been gathered, enters the land of Poland, bereft of a prince, and like a huge tempest so devastates the villages with slaughter, plunder and burning, breaks into VI fortresses. And having entered Kraków, their metropolis, he overturns it from the top, and turns out the old treasures from the ancient dukes, etc.: Henry, as the same Annalist writes, wished in the following year to avenge the devastation of Poland. Having celebrated, therefore, the feast of Pentecost at Liège, he undertakes an expedition into Bohemia: part of the forces Henry himself gathers at Cham (it is a town of Bavaria near the borders of this and Bohemia, and not far removed from the monastery of Rinchnach) on the feast of the Assumption of the B. Virgin; intending thence to burst through Bavaria into Bohemia. The other part he sent into Bohemia through Meissen under the auspices of Bardo, archbishop of Mainz, and of the margrave Ekkehard. Břetislav opposed himself to Henry, Procopius to Ekkehard. The matter went ill for Henry: Thence, says the Saxon Annalist, the company moving off into the same region, and the margrave Otto of Schweinfurt with the Bavarians bursting through glades and pathless places for the sake of reconnoitring, certain men sent out from the flank, hoping that they would act bravely, intending to storm a certain barricade, went forward inconsiderately; where, surrounded in an ambush laid by archers, count Werner, the king's chief officer and standard-bearer, with some royal attendants, and count Reinhard, Major-domo of the church of Fulda, with the choicest men of the household of St. Boniface, fell, alas, in bloody slaughter, on the 11th before the Kalends of September. On the following day certain men of Otto's legion, which had passed beyond, attacking the same barricade from another side and overwhelmed by the same aforesaid archers, count Gebhard, Wulfran, Thietmar with very many Bavarian soldiers were miserably slain.

[42] and Břetislav he reconciles. But when the report of this matter had been carried to Gunther, who was not far away from here, he came out of his solitude and brought it about with Henry and Břetislav not only that they entered into peace (which, however, was not kept long afterwards); but Břetislav also permitted at his request that those who were left of Henry's army should depart from Bohemia safe and sound: And those of ours, says Hermann the Lame after narrating the slaughter of Henry's army, who had still remained in the province, Gunthar the hermit intervening, were led out unharmed and returned. While these things were being done in the part of Bohemia which faces Bavaria, Ekkehard, enjoying a happier lot, was devastating Bohemia from another side with his men, until at length, says the Saxon Annalist, the venerable man Guntar the monk coming with an embassy of the king and informing them of what had been done and persuading their return, peace having been given and received, they (Ekkehard and Bardo of Mainz) went out as victors. The Bohemian Writers now and then relate these things otherwise, as is wont to happen through party zeal; but Henry's disaster is certain: certain likewise is Gunther's laudable work in reconciling Henry and Břetislav. The Annals of Hildesheim indeed have bound this expedition of Henry into Bohemia to the year 1041: but we must stand rather by the Saxon Annalist, who not only describes it more clearly, but also writes that Ekkehard entered Bohemia on the 9th before the Kalends of September, a Sunday, and devastated it for nine days until Gunther's coming. And in the year 1040, in which the Dominical letter was E, the 9th day before the Kalends of September, that is the 24th of August, was a Sunday; but not in the year 1041.

[43] having gone out from Rinchnach, What he did thereafter until his death, which happened in the year 1045, I have not found among the Writers of that age: it is, however, very like the truth that Gunther, having left the monastery of Rinchnach, hid himself further in the retreats of the Northern forest, on account of the applause and throng of men which his last deeds had again attracted to him, and there spent the remaining five years of his life plainly solitary: certainly no one was with him when in the year 1045 Břetislav, intent on hunting, came upon him, as will be said a little later from Gunther's biographer. Magnoald Ziegelbauer, in the Historical Epitome of the monastery of Břevnov, chapter 10, page 137, after Johann Tanner, relates one thing; but I do not offer myself as its surety, because it seems to have proceeded only from popular tradition. I relate it in Magnoald's words: The monks of Břevnov betook themselves with frequent foot to the most pious cultivator of the desert, to take from him both words of salvation and examples of virtues. Perhaps in the year MXLIV the abbot Arsenius had been taken away by death, when the ascetics of Břevnov were at once seized by the desire of having Gunther as father. That under an abbot of such holiness discipline would flourish entire, to be drawn not toward softness of life but toward austerity. Thence they come into the desert, they ask, they urge, that he should take up and govern the reins of Břevnov. Gunther at first refused with his whole head, but then, as they urged him obstinately, he surrendered and assented to the suppliants. Placed therefore upon a little ass, which the monks had brought, he undertakes the journey. But lo, a prodigy! The ass, while it moves its steps toward Břevnov, impresses and stamps them on the very hard rock no otherwise than on the softest wax, and cleaves so tenaciously with its feet that it was not equal to drawing them out. Astounded by which miracle, all easily understood that it was by no means the divine will that Gunther, a man of that age and of swan-like old age, should take up the fasces of the monastery. He therefore returned into the desert, they to Břevnov. It surely happened wonderfully that Gunther, who, already heavy with old age, had deserted the monastery of Rinchnach for love of solitude, could have been persuaded to migrate to that of Břevnov in order to govern it: but from elsewhere he seems to have been of singular affection toward it; since he wished to be buried there:

[44] However it be, the biographer narrates another prodigy similar to the one here related, he inhabits a solitude, namely that in his age a stone was still accustomed to be seen on which Gunther was wont to take rest from labour, and on which the figure of his body was prodigiously impressed: the traces of the ass appear impressed on a rock, as Tanner writes in the Annotations on the Life of Bl. Gunther, near the castle of Rabí, on a hill beside the old church consecrated to the name of All Saints. And since the town of Hartmanice and the city of Sušice are neighbouring the castle of Rabí, around which, as we saw above from Father Chanovský, Gunther dwelt, and the stone is kept on which the traces of his knees and hands are expressed; it is to be conjectured both that the biographer of Gunther and Fr. Chanovský are speaking of the same rock, and that the rock which retains the traces of the ass is not far distant from the former. But let us hear the rest from Gunther's biographer; since we have now reached the year 1045, in which Gunther died, and we have no guide older than he: from Gunther's biographer, I say, not from Wolfhere or anyone else who knew Gunther familiarly: for I cannot easily induce my mind to believe that a writer who knew him would have wished or been able to let it happen that not a few, and those splendid, deeds of Bl. Gunther, recorded by others likewise contemporary or nearly contemporary in age, should be passed over in silence. And indeed, to judge that it was some more recent writer who put on the name of Wolfhere, or was wrongly called Wolfhere, weight to me

the things add new weight and spur which the biographer himself narrates of Břetislav coming upon Gunther, about to die very soon, beyond opinion and expectation.

[45] in which, by Břetislav And they are (consult below, number 10 and following of the Acts) roughly the following. It happened, he says, that the renowned young warrior, namely duke Bredislaus, when he had gloriously subjugated Poland to himself and had returned victorious with peace to his own, went with his men for the sake of hunting to the border of a certain town which is called Prahen, where one day, as he was wont, he went out to hunt. Prachen was a castle near Horažďovice on the river Otava; whose ruins, as Balbín writes in the Historical Miscellanies of the kingdom of Bohemia, book 3, chapter 3, on the regions or districts of Bohemia, §8, are seen even today: yet from it the district of Prachen, which embraces the city of Sušice, the town of Hartmanice and Horažďovice, and the castle of Rabí, places mentioned a little before, distant from one another by a moderate interval, keeps even today the name given to it. But to whom, reading the praised words of the biographer, does it not occur that his discourse here is about a hunt which Břetislav undertook in the year 1039 or 1040; since in that year, from what was said before, Břetislav crushed the Poles; nor does the biographer here without doubt speak of any other expedition. That hunt, however, happened only in the year, as will be manifest from what follows, 1045; so that it is necessary either to confess that the Biographer speaks less aptly here, or to suspect that the year in which Břetislav conquered the Poles was not well enough ascertained by him; which cannot be said of an author of the same age as Bl. Gunther and familiar with him: and still less does what follows fit a writer of this kind.

[46] found Břetislav, attended by a single companion, pursues a stag that met him: it flees into the woods, while Gunther's cell was not far away, and there stands as if secure from danger: Břetislav, while he stays astonished, hears a voice from heaven, from which he understands that a treasure lies hidden in that place. Coming to himself he casts his eyes about, sees a little stream, green with beautiful grass, a large and mean stone, a little cell built above it, but fragrant with a certain sweet odour: at length he approaches to explore what lay hidden there. And behold, he sees an old man sitting with beautiful white hair and growing white, and shining like an angel of God, and prostrate on his bed or in prayer, and, pervaded with excessive horror, he began to stand still. Whom the Old Man, regarding him with pious countenance, warned not to tremble at such things, but to praise almighty God in all things, and by diverse signs indicated to the wondering duke that he was that Gunther who had received him from the sacred font. It is indeed difficult to believe that Gunther, who in the year 1040 had reconciled peace between him and Henry, and for whose sake he had dismissed the captives to Henry, was so unknown to Břetislav that he had to prove by diverse signs to the wondering Břetislav who he was. That Gunther was found by Břetislav by chance and suspecting nothing of the kind, in the solitude and the woods occupying the borders of Bavaria and Bohemia, I am willing gladly to believe: but I judge, not for an empty or light cause, as I think, that some circumstances here and there of the chance meeting of Břetislav with Gunther, about to die very soon, were devised, and written more ornately than truly, by a writer more recent than Wolfhere or any other intimate of Gunther.

[47] he dies the next day, and is buried at Břevnov It is much more difficult to believe that Gunther was so unknown to Břetislav that he did not even know that Bl. Gunther had embraced the monastic life; which, however, seems to be indicated in the following words: Then the duke at these words fully recovers his spirit and, constancy of mind having been recovered, asks the pious Man how or when he had come to so unusual a solitude, or why he had taken up so hard a life of the monks. After some discourse back and forth, Gunther signified to Břetislav that he would migrate from this life the next day, and wished to be buried in the monastery of Břevnov. Struck by this news, Břetislav summoned Severus, bishop of Prague; and with him the next morning was present with Gunther, who, as he had foretold, duly fortified with the sacred Viaticum, rendered his spirit to the creator in the year 1045, on the seventh day before the Ides of October, about the third hour of the day, that is nine in the morning. Severus must have been Břetislav's companion in the hunt, or have been staying in the neighbourhood; for otherwise Břetislav, having departed from Gunther the day before, could not have returned with Severus to Gunther on the 9th day of October at earliest dawn, as the biographer writes, from Prague, distant sixteen miles from Gunther's cell, as Magnoald says. The body of the dead man, Břetislav and Severus without doubt accompanying it, was carried to Břevnov, as he had asked, and committed to burial.

[48] Him whom, known too late, as indeed our biographer writes, in the church of St. Benedict, Břetislav could not bind to himself living, he strove to bind dead by benefits: since for his sake in the same year he increased the monastery of Břevnov with estates; on which matter there exists a diploma of Břetislav in Magnoald Ziegelbauer, in which he speaks thus: Also for the love and memory of Guntherius the Hermit, who had received me from the sacred font of baptism, burying him in the church of Břevnov, I conferred on the same church my circuit in the province of Prachen, these villages, etc.: It is written as given at Prague in the year of grace MXLV, on the 15th before the Kalends of November. In the same Břetislav mentions the church of Břevnov, sacred to St. Adalbert, as already then built by him: but it was then perhaps not yet completed: certainly Magnoald Ziegelbauer, page 145, relates that Bl. Gunther was buried not in the church of St. Adalbert but in the older church of St. Benedict: his words in the place just cited are these: But the sacred body of St. Gunther was deposited, not in the greater church sacred to St. Adalbert and only afterwards built by the often-mentioned duke Břetislav, but in the other, older though smaller, erected by the founder himself, duke Boleslav the Pious, and consecrated to St. Benedict, and enclosed in a glorious tomb, the abbot Mainhard sitting at the helm of the monastery. The Ms. of the Duke of Altems, which binds his death to the year 1046, adds that he was buried before the altar of St. Stephen the protomartyr; which is also expressly read below in chapter 1 of the Miracles of Bl. Gunther, number 6.

[49] Of how great merit Gunther was with God the very frequent prodigies wont to be done at his tomb declared; where, by many a good part of these we shall publish after his Life from the Ms. of the duke of Altems; which in our apograph is noted as written by more than one hand, and is a sign that these prodigies were committed to writing by diverse persons, namely as they happened in succession of time. Their multitude brought it about that in the thirteenth century, under Martin, abbot of Břevnov, action was taken for obtaining his solemn canonization from Alexander IV, supreme Pontiff; but how it came about that that business was interrupted was said in §1, number 3. Nor did prodigies cease to be done at Břevnov by the merits of Bl. Gunther, until in the fifteenth century, on account of the blasphemies of the Hussites against the Blessed Man, God seemed to have withdrawn the benefits of frequent prodigies from mortals; as Hájek writes in the Chronicle of Bohemia at the year 1045. And of the multitude of those prodigies it is established not only from the codex mentioned a little before; but Ziegelbauer, page 140 and following, also brings forward a diploma of the year 1266 of Přemysl Ottokar, the third of this name, duke of Bohemia, by which he testifies that he gave the village of Curomirtwi to the monastery of Břevnov for reverence of the religious man brother Gunther at Břevnov, for whose merits almighty God works many miracles in diverse necessities.

[50] The same was testified also by Boniface IX, Roman Pontiff, in a Bull of the year 1390 (he had been crowned Pontiff on the 9th day of November of the preceding year), with miracles which, because it also contains indulgences granted by the same Pontiff to those who should visit the church of Břevnov on the day of Gunther's death, and by it the Pontiff tacitly approves Gunther's cult, it has seemed good to report here entire from the praised Ziegelbauer: it has thus: Boniface, bishop, servant of the servants of God. To all the faithful of Christ who shall inspect the present letters, health and Apostolic blessing. The Splendour of the paternal glory, who illuminates the world with his brightness, follows with kindly favour the pious vows of the faithful hoping in his most clement majesty especially then, when their devout humility is helped by the prayers and merits of the Saints. Since, then, as we have learned, in the church of the monastery of Břevnov near Prague, of the Order of St. Benedict, in which many relics of the Saints are venerably laid up, and in which also the body of Gunther of Hesse, of memory to be honoured, professed of the monastery of Altaich of the said Order, of the diocese of Regensburg, rests , our Lord Jesus Christ works many miracles on account of the merits of these Saints, gives sight to the blind, walking to the lame, and cures those held by diverse sicknesses and labouring with kinds of diseases, and to which a multitude of the faithful flocks for the sake of devotion and on account of cures of such sicknesses and infirmities.

[51] he was famous; We, desiring that the said church be frequented with fitting honours, and that the faithful of Christ may flock to it for the sake of devotion the more gladly, the more abundantly they see themselves refreshed there from this by the gift of heavenly grace, trusting in the mercy of almighty God and in the authority of his blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, mercifully relax to all truly penitent and confessed who shall visit the said church yearly on the day of the death of the aforesaid Gunther two years and as many quarantines of the penances enjoined on them. But we will that if any other indulgence, to last in perpetuity or for a certain time, has been granted by Us to those otherwise visiting the said church, or stretching out helping hands to its repair or fabric, or otherwise bestowing pious alms there, besides that which we granted under the date of the 14th before the Kalends of December last past to those otherwise visiting the said church and stretching out helping hands to its repair, these present letters shall be of no strength or moment. Given at Rieti on the 7th before the Ides of July in the first year of our pontificate. Below is read: Jo. de Malesicz. Gunther seems to be called here of Hesse, not because he was born in Hesse (for Wolfhere relates in the Life of St. Godehard that Thuringia was his homeland more clearly than that his words can be twisted into another sense or conveniently expounded of Hesse); but because he came from Hersfeld, a monastery of Hesse, where he had first joined himself to Godehard, together with him to the monastery of Altaich in Bavaria, to receive the habit of the Benedictine Order.

[52] For the rest, not only did miracles cease to be done at the tomb of Bl. Gunther in the time of the Hussites raging in Bohemia, but where his body now is but neither is it sufficiently ascertained hitherto what was afterwards done with his body. In the year 1420 the Hussites consigned the monastery of Břevnov, overturned in all its fortunes, to the flames. Nor was there anything, says Ziegelbauer, page 170, sacred or profane in the whole monastery which was not blasted by the fury of the heretics, scattered and ruined.

The church was sacrilegiously plundered, the remains of the Saints trampled, the sepulchres of the dead violated, the sacristies of the religious broken open, the monuments of antiquity destroyed, the library dedicated to Vulcan, the monks seized, thrown into chains, and burned at Prague in the public square out of hatred of Religion. Nicholas, the abbot who then presided over the monks of Břevnov, as that foul tempest threatened, withdrew from destruction what he could, and betook himself to Broumov, which was the seat of the abbot of Břevnov in the year 1740, in which Ziegelbauer published the History of the monastery of Břevnov. Did Nicholas also carry off the body of Bl. Gunther from there? So indeed some have thought, as the praised historiographer of the monastery of Břevnov says, page 146, especially the monks of the Provostship or priory of Police, among whom there is the tradition that the body of Bl. Gunther was deposited with them. The event of the year 1684 confirmed their tradition in some fashion.

[53] There stood, says Ziegelbauer, in the church of Police an altar sacred to St. Magdalen, is not certain. which, since its form and situation no longer pleased, was destroyed. While the work is in full heat, the workmen press on, the altar is moved from its place — lo, a wooden chest presents itself conspicuous; on opening it, the bones of a heavenly one appear. This finding held all Břevnov in suspense; it also impelled many to believe that they were the sacred relics of Gunther, which the people of Police testified they had received from their Ancestors were placed here. Thomas, abbot at that time, ordered the relics found in the old altar to be put back in the new altar. His successor Othmar willed that they be translated from Police to Břevnov, and put back not in the altar but behind the altar of Bl. Gunther; not to be exposed to the veneration of the faithful as relics of Bl. Gunther before they had been approved as such either by the Roman Pontiff or by the bishop of the place. From which it follows that the relics found in the wooden chest in the year 1684 are not held even by the monks of Břevnov themselves as undoubted relics of Bl. Gunther. The very place in the church of Břevnov where they once lay, or perhaps even now lie, could not hitherto be found in the ruins, as the praised writer again relates, on account of the absence of the monks of Břevnov from the place for almost two hundred years. Meanwhile they are pressing on to restore the monastery of Břevnov to its former splendour: about the year 1761 a sepulchral stone, once dug out of the earth, was found, without a marked place, as Bonaventura Piter signifies in a letter given to us in that year. May God breathe favour on the pious labours of the monks of Břevnov, and, according to their wishes and without doubt those of all Bohemia, uncover the undoubted relics of their Wonder-worker, if perhaps, once snatched from the fury of the heretics, they lie hidden somewhere.

* redundant

* requiescit, rests

* operetur, works

ACTS,

By authors, as appears, partly Wolfhere, a contemporary, partly an anonymous writer less ancient.

From Mabillon, Benedictine Century VI, part I, page 480 and following.

Gunther, conf., of the Order of St. Benedict, at Břevnov in Bohemia. (Bl.)

BHL Number: 3713

Gunther, having left the world, In the reign of the most pious emperor Henry, the second of this name ^a, when blessed Godehard ^b was ruling the monastery of Altaich ^c, there was in the parts of Thuringia ^d a certain noble man, illustrious in dignity and merits, Gunther by name, who, groaning for the faults of his youth, and having considered more diligently the quality of his acts, coming before the face of the Lord in confession, went to Hersfeld ^e to the same blessed Godehard, the abbot newly set over the same church by the emperor himself, worthily, as afterwards appeared, doing penance, and opened to him from the foundations every secret of his heart and will. Whom the abbot, justly abiding in God, received as a penitent with gentle consolation and also with worthy provision, and, the Lord co-operating, converted by his most salutary admonition even to monastic profession. He, distrustful of his own weakness of body and mind for entirely renouncing whatever things are of the world, delegated the whole manifold property of his inheritance, which he had received from his progenitors, by firm delivery to St. Wigbert ^f with the consent of his heirs, having however first covenanted by testament before witnesses that, having become a monk, he himself should possess for the sake of food and clothing the monastery which is called Gelinge ^g, and should provide from it necessaries for the brethren serving Christ there with him: the holy abbot, considering with prudent counsel that such a compact would be of the greatest danger in the way of God's commandments to one so newly converted, and that from it there would arise day by day more loss to the soul than, as he thought, help to the body, meanwhile with provident mind held him back from what he had begun, and brought him with him, still using lay dress, to the monastery of Altaich.

[2] [made a monk at Altaich, and having stayed for some time in the monastery of Göllingen;] There the aforesaid prudent man Gunther, pricked to the heart, asked of the abbot that before profession it might be lawful for him to go to Rome and to seek the intercession of the Apostles of Christ and of other Saints for the deviations of his past life and for the entry upon the new way. He permitting, he went and returned, and at length, laying down his girdle before the altar of St. Maurice, he shaved his head and beard, and, his petition having been made according to custom, he was received, and, having been proved for some time according to rule, obtained the habit of the monastic life from the same pastor ^h. But after the vow of profession, not unmindful of his compact which we have described above, going to abbot Godehard, he asked leave to seek his homeland again and to inhabit the place which he had stipulated according to the condition. To which the pious father Godehard meanwhile consented, not wishing to prohibit him with obstinate contradiction from the effect, though unjust, until, reason dictating, he could gradually soften a mind desiring unlawful things. To him, then, coming to the place called Gelinge, and disposing the necessities of those dwelling there, from the hidden temptations and snares of the tempter, God, as we certainly believe, permitting it after the example of blessed Job, many and various inconveniences befell him; for which, when he, namely, unaccustomed before to poverty and labour, fled very often to the abbot complaining, and anxiously sought his counsel and help for such things, the solicitous father, deeply foreseeing the fluctuation of his mind and vehemently fearing the mutability of heart that would follow, had sometimes softened the sadness of his heart with gentle consolation and sweet-spoken admonition. But sometimes, according to the Apostle, by reproving, entreating, rebuking in season and out of season, chastising his wavering mind, he strove to bring him back to the way of salvation; who nevertheless still profited little.

[3] But when they often wrestled in this altercation, and both were very frequently wearied in this kind of trouble, and having returned to Altaich, as he once again suggested a certain complaint of his anxiety, the man of God, moved by the due zeal of justice, his lung swelling, as they say, answered that he should either serve God devoutly in the promised stability of obedience, or else, entangled again in the snares of Satan, cast off his habit and return to the accustomed vanity of the world. At which word the hearer, astounded, trembled, and, at last late shuddering at the excess of his error, groaned. But the abbot also secretly made known this whole case in order to the pious emperor Henry, and sought him as a helper in correcting such a man. Whom the prince, at once calling him to converse, converted by himself, and began to instruct him in the evangelical or apostolic regular precepts, that no one can serve two masters, nor ought a monk to return to the world, as a dog to its vomit ⁱ. By these and other precautions of this kind at length truly pricked in Christ, the Man mentioned, all the aforesaid compact forgotten from the heart, and every complaint of whatever inconvenience abolished, betook himself to the monastery of Altaich, where then, under the care of the same father — that I may speak in the favour of all — a singular zeal for the divine worship was burning, and there, most humbly subjected to the brethren, and in a short time fully instructed in the strictness of sacred religion by the infusion of the divine dew, he afflicted himself beyond the regular precept, his superiors wondering.

[4] And when he persevered in austerity of life, and incited very many by his example to the way of truth, into Hungary by St. Stephen like a burning lamp set upon a candlestick, his fame, sprinkled with good odour, flowed forth to the ears of blessed Stephen, king of the Hungarians ^k, a kinsman ^l of the venerable Man himself, whose mind it stirred with a great love of affection to see face to face him whom frequent report proclaimed as so advancing from virtue to virtue. Whence it came about that he directed messengers to him, and requested with all zeal that he would not refuse to come to him. But the Man of the Lord, not unmindful of his conversion, answered that those things which the pious king asked were by no means lawful for him. The king, having heard these things, is inflamed with the love of greater charity, and, as before, directed messengers. But he refused to come a second time also. A third time, therefore, he sent after him as the first and second time, and humbly asked that he give assent to his petition. Therefore St. Gunther, at length overcome by the king's prayers, assented to his petition, though unwillingly, and, having received the blessing of the abbot and brethren, came to the king together with the envoys sent. And the king, having seen St. Gunther, rejoiced, and, as he loved him more closely, as just and holy, he busied himself to have greater diligence about him.

[5] is summoned: And it happened, when at the hour of dinner St. Gunther had sat down together at the king's table, the king set before him a roast peacock, and began earnestly to demand that he eat of the meats. But the holy Man, living under the regular way of life and abstaining from foods of this kind, altogether refused, and asserted that he would not be contaminated by unlawful things: to whose will the king no less resisted, and laboured not only by asking but also by commanding that he should eat what was set before him. What could he do? He promised to obey the king's command, but kept his confidence in the divine help. Wherefore it came about that among those dining he applied himself to prayer after his custom, bowed his head on his hands, and, tears being poured out, implored the divine clemency that he might not be polluted by unlawful foods. A wonderful and astounding thing! The Servant of God, his prayer completed, raised his head from his hands; the roasted bird, placed upon the table, restored to its former life, flew away, and the divine grace freed the Man from its use. Seeing which unheard-of miracle, all rendered thanks to God, nor resisted the will of the holy Man any longer ^m.

[6] when then in the monastery of Rinchnach founded by him But the Servant of God, desiring rather to suffer the evils of the world than its praises, to be wearied with labours for God rather than to be extolled with the favours of this life, sought, with the permission of his abbot, the lord Godehard, the retreat of a desert place with some who clung to him from Altach, in a certain Bohemian glade ⁿ, and there built a little cell in honour of St. John the Baptist, and called the place itself by its proper name Rinchnach ^o, in which he lived for up to XXXVII [p] years in the pursuit of holy Religion and in the highest discretion of voluntary poverty with those who remained with him. The food, finally, was various, where there was nothing of drink and delicious foods, and where nothing but water alone was had, and that too was given to guests to sufficiency, but to the brethren by measure. He did not learn letters at all, except only some psalms: and yet he grasped the whole reasoning and understanding of the Gospels, of the Law and the Prophets, and of the histories, from the frequent relation of the brethren and the more eager hearing of the Word of God: so that very often

he would bring forth to astonished hearers the more obscure things of mystical understanding, sometimes smiling, but sometimes admonishing.

[7] by word Which we indeed, who knew him more familiarly, frequently heard [q], but especially when on his highest festivity he was present in the cell which he himself had built in honour of blessed John the Baptist, his special patron, we were present at his discourses, in which in the chapter conference on the same day he admonished his brethren, while he instructed them, from the life and manners, food also, clothing and works of the same father, namely blessed John, to the endurance of poverty pleasing under God. For I say the truth and I do not lie before God, that almost all who were present at that discourse were pricked by the gift of God to a most abundant outpouring of tears. There sat there too the venerable abbot Ratmund with very many brethren of his monastery, and besides many other guests, besides us, whom religion forbade to enter there in canonical habit, whom nevertheless familiarity and especially the abbot's leave placed secretly round about at the windows, the preacher not knowing. For he was, as is said of St. Benedict, whom after the Lord he followed in life and manners, knowingly ignorant and wisely untaught.

[8] These things, then, we have said briefly of the uprightness of manners and the conversion of the noble man Gunther, and by example and how much he pleased the Lord through the satisfaction of penance, which may suffice us for the imitation of a good example. Behold, the camel, the burden of its hump laid down, has passed through the narrow eye of the needle, He leading it to whom all things are possible and nothing difficult, and who is wonderful in his works, most of all in his mercies, deserting no one on account of the enormity of crimes, overlooking all sins on account of penance; in one hour converting the impious, he makes him holy; by whose power the Christ-worshipper Gunther, fighting, crushed the head of the ancient enemy. But of the virtues of this venerable Man, by which he overcame the adversary, or what snares of his he endured, nothing is held ascertained by anyone [r], because he remained for a long time unknown to men: who nevertheless, although he changed his place, did not change his enemy, and it is doubtful to no one that the more he advanced in spiritual things, the fiercer contests he endured. Of how great merit, then, this Man is, is marvelled at through a stone, on which, while he fought for Christ alone in the vast desert, he rested after labour, and the size of his limbs, as of one resting on a soft couch, appears impressed even until now [s]. And what do we say? For as, to strengthen the faith of believers, the mercy of Christ made solid the floods of the sea for the footsteps of the Apostle Peter; so, to declare the merits of his servant Gunther, it spread the hardness of flint into softness for his limb: that from this it may be clear with how great sweetness the merciful Judge rewards in heaven the soul of him whom he mercifully inflamed to follow his precepts.

[9] Let us, then, raise our minds to imitate the examples of the Saints, he had profited, so that, while we praise their deeds, we ourselves may lead a commendable life, according as the Psalmist admonishes, saying: "Seek ye the Lord, and your soul shall live [t]." And again: "Come ye to the Lord, and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be confounded [u]." For then our faces shall not be confounded in the day of judgement, nor shall we hear the terrible sentence, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," if, coming to him with our whole heart, we study to flee wicked things and to avoid the defilements of this world: and, purged of all sins through the labours of penance, we shall hear with the Saints and Elect from the former Judge: "Come, ye Blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world." To which kingdom the Lord himself invites, when he says in the Gospel: "If any man minister to me, let him follow me, and where I am, there also shall my minister be [x]." But because, weighed down by frailty, we are by no means able to strive toward sublime things, let us with the whole intention of our mind ask the suffrages of this holy Father, that He who came to call not the just but sinners, by the prayers of his beloved Confessor, inflaming our breasts with the fire of the Holy Spirit, may call us back from the vale of this misery and the way of pilgrimage to the eternal fatherland. Therefore, over-praising the clemency of God, which led its Servant from labour to rest, lest the reader detain the hearts of the hearers with circumlocutions, let us turn our discourse to those things, and briefly unfold how, to the praise and glory of his name, he deigned to manifest to us sinners the end of this life of his Servant.

[10] in the solitude When almighty God willed that the blessed Man should rest from labour and be rewarded with eternal reward [y], and to show his life to men as an example, that the lamp set upon the candlestick might shine, so as to give light to all who are in the house of God, it happened that the renowned young warrior, namely duke Bredislaus, when he had gloriously subjugated Poland [z], and had returned victorious with peace to his own, went with his men for the sake of hunting to the border of a certain town which is called Prahen [aa], where one day, as he was wont, he went out to hunt. And when all his men ran about hither and thither, and made no progress in anything, suddenly a stag of wonderful size appeared to them, which the duke himself followed with great eagerness. Then the stag, as if feigning flight, came as quickly as possible to a certain place of that forest, and, as if no one were following, began to stand securely. The duke, beholding this, and content with a single small attendant, approaches the stag and diligently examines its form and size: and then, when, fortified with the arms of faith, he hesitated in mind, suddenly from the height of heaven he heard a clear voice sounding to him thus: O Bretislav, do not always seek with your frail desire the things which are high by the counsel of God; but do not be slothful to attend, with the humble, to humble things that will profit you and yours. For in this place lies hidden the treasure of God, to whom * once very lovable, but now and in future times piously desirable to all who seek. For think that it is written: My Father worketh, and I work, because I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. And therefore whatever my servants work in this world, believe it in all things to be not their power but God's.

[11] found by Břetislav, While the duke heard such things in silence, and, as if out of his mind, astounded, having scarcely recovered his breath, he rises from the place where he lay prostrate, and, looking round about, at once in that vast solitude he sees from afar a tiny stream, surrounded with beautiful grass, as it were abounding with certain odours: in which place he found a stone of wonderful size and above it a little cell, built of mean wood, overflowing with a wonderful odour, and, descending alone with his single attendant from the brow of the hill, though fearful, yet signed with the holy cross on his forehead, he quickly enters to learn what lay hidden there. And behold, he sees an Old Man sitting with beautiful white hair and growing white, and shining in countenance like an angel of God, and prostrate on his bed as in prayer, and, pervaded with excessive horror, he began to stand still. Whom the Old Man, regarding him with pious countenance, warned not to tremble at such things, but to praise almighty God in all things, and by diverse signs indicated to the wondering duke that he was that Gunther who had received him from the sacred font [bb]. Then the duke at these words fully recovers his spirit, and, constancy of mind having been recovered, asked the pious Man how or when he had come to so unusual a solitude, or why he had taken up so hard a life of the monks [cc]; and with quite friendly and very tearful address he begs that so noble a Man should no longer lie hidden unknown to men, but he asked very much that he be brought to the land of his dukedom to be better cherished. Which the Man of God altogether held back from, solicitously asking God that he might not go against the will of God in anything. Whence the duke, greatly wondering, both at his pious admonitions and diverse words of consolation, commended himself to the prayers of the holy Man, and promised that for the rest he would give from his own equipment, so that no necessaries should be lacking to him.

[12] All which Gunther kindly receiving from the aforesaid duke, and shortly after both foretold many things to come, and, as if by a certain presage, speaking forth among the other words of his pious address, said: If you have come for the sake of my love, son, do not be contrary to my petition. For the dissolution of my little body is already at hand, and although diverse persons think diverse things about my burial, I, that I may speak in the spirit, testify that the deposition of my little body is to be placed at Břevnov [dd], and what I speak in the spirit, I desire of the Almighty that it may be done. Therefore, dearest son, for the sake of memory fit some solace to the aforesaid place of Břevnov, that the memory both of me in the Lord and of you and all yours may be held hereafter in God, and fit by prudent counsel a fruit worthy of memory for my rest, which will await there the day of judgement to come, to be confirmed afterwards in your times or those of your successors. But above all these things, if the term of my departure or migration pleases you, tomorrow's * third hour will declare, by the end of my frail life, what the divine working thinks concerning my passing. The duke, having heard these things, was troubled in mind, and, rushing into kisses, bathed in most bitter tears, with a great roar proclaimed such things: O dearest Father, why, though I came to you late, do you detest me? O venerable grey hair, whom I, though unworthy, embrace as an angel of God, why do you leave me, your spiritual son, as you say, so soon, like an orphan? For your pure prayers, your frequent fasts, as I hope, should be and have been safe defences for my depravity, so that there might be assiduous suffrages with almighty God for my crimes, of which human frailty is often convicted, and is worn down by the thousand deceits and wiles of the enemy.

[13] Moved by these cries, the pious Gunther said to him weeping and groaning exceedingly: departing from life Cease, son, cease to do such things, and, hoping in the Lord, do not fear, and gladly receive the effect of my petition, truly accomplish it, now, now return to your own, and do not betray my secret, but return tomorrow not late, and you will be able, if the Lord God wills, to be present at my migration. Then the duke, very sad and groaning, but having received the blessing, departed with his attendant, and forbade him under threat to betray such secrets to anyone. On the following day, therefore, duke Bredislaus, having taken with him the venerable bishop Severus [ee], who was united to him by special familiarity [ff], came at the earliest dawn to the little cell of the Man of God, and found him intent on prayer and singing praises to almighty God. And the prayer having been completed, after long conversations of the future life, and the solemnities of the Masses having been performed by bishop Severus, the Man of the Lord, fortifying himself with the reception of the Body and Blood, at the third hour of the day, those who were present singing and weeping, rendered his unstained spirit to God amid the words of prayer.

[14] As the soul withdrew from the prison of the flesh, such fragrance of most sweet odour overflowed from him, he is buried at Břevnov, and is famous for miracles. that it bathed all those standing by there

in nostrils and breasts; and the sweetness of this odour remained steadfast so long, until the body of the Man of God reached the place of burial. After this, all things pertaining to the obsequies having been performed, that most holy body was placed upon untamed horses, and it was carried by them to the place of burial with such great gentleness that it truly shone forth of how great merit in heaven he was, whose body brute animals, their ferocity set aside, venerated on earth. And the servant of Christ, the hermit Gunther, died in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord MXLV [gg], on the seventh day before the Ides of October, and was buried in the monastery of Břevnov [hh], which is distant XX stadia from the city of Prague, where he himself, while he was still living, foretold in the spirit that he was to be buried. In which place through his merits miracles are assiduously done, many benefits are furnished to the sick, by the gift of the grace of Christ, who with God the Father lives and reigns, God, for infinite ages of ages. Amen [ii].

ANNOTATA.

h. In the year 1006.

p. Gunther lived just so many years after setting out from the monastery of Altaich into solitude; the greatest part of which he spent in the monastery of Rinchnach: not, however, all; for he spent some of the last of his life in Bohemia, from what is to be said.

q. Wolfhere said these things, and could truly say them: but not the more recent author, who after this number ceases indeed to use Wolfhere's words, but not to feign his person.

r. He seems, then, not to have known what Arnolf wrote on that matter (see the Prelim. Comment., number 20 and following), who also testifies that more things of this kind were known to him, which he had learned himself either from Gunther or from the relation of others. If our biographer had been either the same as Wolfhere, or, as he professes, had known Gunther more familiarly, would he have said that these things were unascertained both by himself and by all?

s. Those words, although they could fit an author who survived Gunther by some years, nevertheless agree better with an author somewhat more removed in age from Gunther. Further, that rock is said to have lain in Bohemia not far from the town of Sušice in a solitary place, from which, after some years spent there, he departed from this life to the Heavenly ones. See the Prelim. Comment., number 44.

t. Psalm 68, verse 33.

u. Psalm 33, verse 6.

x. John 12, verse 26.

y. The biographer, hastening to the death of Bl. Gunther, does not mention the monastery of Bél founded by Stephen, king of Hungary, at Gunther's counsel; nor Gunther's love and goodwill toward the needy while staying with Stephen; nor the peace reconciled through him between Henry III (otherwise II) and Břetislav, duke of Bohemia; which, however, as they are worthy of relation, so they were not passed over by other writers either, though not familiar with Gunther.

z. Namely in the year 1039: the visit of Břetislav to Gunther, about to die very soon, the description of which the biographer here undertakes, happened about five years later.

aa. It was situated in the Bohemian district which is called Prachen from it, near Horažďovice on the river Otava.

bb. Břetislav testifies the same in the Diploma, concerning which see number 48 of the Prelim. Comment. Further, as Dubravius writes, book 7 of the Bohemian History, Udalric, duke of Bohemia, applied his mind at the very beginning of his principate to matrimony, in the first year of which he begot his son Břetislav of Božena. And Cosmas of Prague, after relating that Prague was snatched from the Poles by Udalric, presently records the matrimony entered into by the same with Božena at the year 1002; Hájek at the year 1007.

cc. It is difficult to believe that Gunther was so unknown to Břetislav; especially since only five years before he had been the mediator of peace between him and Henry III, otherwise II, as was shown at number 42: not undeservedly therefore can we suspect that a more recent writer inserted this and other circumstances into his narration, not from Wolfhere, but perhaps from the tradition of the common people.

dd. Břevnov is a monastery of the Benedictine Order at the foot of the White Mountain, distant about half a milestone from Prague, the chief city of Bohemia, toward the West. See more about it in the Prelim. Comm., number 52, and below, page 1078, letter g.

ee. Of Severus the Saxon Annalist writes thus at the year 1031: In the same year, on the Natal day of the Apostles Peter and Paul, Severus was ordained sixth bishop of the church of Prague by Bardo, archbishop of Mainz. And again at the year 1067: Severus, bishop of Prague, having sufficiently experienced both fortunes, died.

ff. If this is true, the friendship which existed between Břetislav and Severus was not perpetual: for to the words just cited about Severus the same Annalist adds: For at one time he had been chained and imprisoned by duke Bracilaus. And at the year 1042 he writes that Severus came, without Břetislav's knowledge, to the emperor Henry, who, the war having been renewed, had pitched camp near Prague, and remained with him, because he did not trust Břetislav. But the friendship could have been repaired afterwards.

gg. Hermann the Lame agrees in the Chronicle at the same year: In autumn time, he says, Gunthar the hermit passed to Christ and was buried in Prague (that is near Prague in the monastery of Břevnov). He is read in Lambert of Hersfeld to have died in the year 1047; but wrongly.

hh. The Ms. Life of Bl. Gunther, taken from the codex of the duke of Altems, adds these things about his burial: And there were present at his burial very many nobles of Bohemia and of Bavaria together with the illustrious duke Břetislav and the most reverend father and lord Severus, bishop of Prague, and many other clerics and laymen, and they made great lamentation over the little body of the most holy Old Man, commending his soul to the King of the angels with the highest reverence and glorifying the Lord in all his works.

ii. To the Ms. codex from which Mabillon published the Life of Gunther these things are added: The Creator and Saviour of the human race, through the ineffable clemency of his goodness wonderfully glorifying the saints in heaven, is merciful to sinners on earth: and although, the world now growing old, all flesh is corrupted with iniquity, he nevertheless does not suffer the kindled lamp to be hidden,

but sets it, illuminated with heavenly fire, upon a candlestick, that it may give light to all in the house. The lamp I mean is blessed Gunther, who, by leaving his own things and following the precepts of Christ, despised the world, whom miracles done at his sepulchre, or elsewhere through his merits, the divine clemency working, glorify. Indeed, that very frequent prodigies happened through the intercession and merits of Bl. Gunther, the things which are now subjoined teach abundantly.

* The Altems codex: tibi

* The Altems codex: tertia die, on the third day

MIRACLES OF BL. GUNTHER

From the Ms. parchment codex of the library of the duke of Altems.

Gunther, conf., of the Order of St. Benedict, at Břevnov in Bohemia. (Bl.)

BHL Number: 3715, 3717

CHAPTER I.

Miracles of Bl. Gunther down to the times of Martin I, abbot of Břevnov.

By the merits of Bl. Gunther are healed two crippled men, There was in the parts of Pannonia a certain man named Laurence, noble and rich, but crippled in all his limbs. He, having heard the fame of blessed Stephen, king of the Hungarians, how great signs of Miracles were shining forth through him, was accustomed to frequent his sepulchre for the recovery of his health, and assiduously implored with tears the divine mercy through his merits. And he saw the same servant of Christ, when one night he had given his limbs to sleep, standing by him, saying * that he ought to set out into Bohemia, and there at the sepulchre of the blessed man Gunther receive health for certain. He, at once devoutly obeying such a vision as a divine command, sets out into Bohemia, and searches out on every side the sepulchre of the aforesaid blessed father Gunther: at length he is brought by his servants into the cloister of Břevnov, and the sepulchre of the most holy father Gunther is shown to him, as he asked. At length, placed at the sepulchre, he lay prostrate in prayer for a long time, and after the outpouring of many tears and also most pure prayer he was made whole and sound through all the joints of his limbs. Seeing which miracle, all who were then present blessed and glorified God living for ever. And the brethren of the monastery itself, all the bells having been rung, solemnly sang the Psalm "Te Deum laudamus"; and proclaimed the merits of blessed Gunther to the people. And that man who had been made whole placed upon his sepulchre a pall made of noble work which he had brought with him for blessed Gunther, which is reserved even to this day in the church of Břevnov as a testimony of his health. Afterwards the one who had been made whole, commending himself to the prayers of the brethren and kissing the sepulchre of the blessed Man more devoutly, returned with huge joy to the land of his birth ^b.

[2] two, Likewise there was in Bavaria, in the church of Lower Altaich ^c, a certain man crippled in his feet from his birth, Lantfrid by name, so that he could neither look upward nor take sure steps as nature required. He, since he lacked the natural walking of the feet, made his steps as he could with hand-stools, and to him, assiduously intent on prayer, the holy Virgin Mary, Mother of the Lord, appeared in a vision, saying: If you desire to obtain the healing of your body, you will be able to obtain it without delay in the church of Břevnov at the sepulchre of blessed Gunther. She having been seen, the same crippled man, as if awaking from heavy sleep, invokes the divine clemency and that of the blessed Man, and undertakes the duty of the journey enjoined on him, and, much labour having been gone through, he scarcely reached the aforesaid place. And now the day of blessed Dionysius the martyr was at hand, on which also the aforesaid church celebrates with a solemn office the anniversary of the blessed man Gunther ^d. And while the brethren in the choir were devoutly chanting the vigils *, the sick man, led to the sepulchre of the blessed Man, pressed his prayers more attentively that he might deserve to receive health. Whence it happened that he saw as it were one of the brethren with an unknown face, as if coming from the choir, who said to him with gentle speech: Do you not see me coming? Why are you not raised up from the ground? He, thinking that he was being mocked, therefore answered with troubled mind: Can I rise for all whom I see coming out of the choir? But he, coming nearer, his hand stretched out, lifted the sick man from the ground and made him stand on his feet whole and sound. And seizing the stools which he used as feet, he threw them far from him, and at once vanished from his eyes, nor appeared any more afterwards. Seeing which miracle, all who had come together for the feast day, and all the brethren together with the sick man, who was now whole through the merits of the B. Man, the bells having been rung, glorified and blessed almighty God, who everywhere does wonders in his Saints.

[3] a demoniac, a mute and blind boy, At another time also a certain noble of Bohemia, Zazin by name, was possessed by a demon and was atrociously tortured for a long time; he is brought bound to the tomb of the man of God Gunther, but as soon as he is placed upon his tomb with the offerings of his kinsfolk, prayers having been offered first, he is rescued from the demon, and was restored to his former health by the merits of blessed Gunther. Seeing which, all who were then present at this miracle, filled with great joy, the signals of the bells sounding, together blessed and glorified God, living for ages of ages, and, provoked by such a miracle, venerated the blessed man Gunther with greater devotion, and proclaimed this miracle publicly far and wide. There are also other miracles by which the athlete of Christ Gunther was accustomed to succour his people with his wonted grace. For a certain citizen of Prague, Martin by name, when he had a little son blind and mute from birth, having heard the fame of the aforesaid Saint, relying on the hope of the divine clemency, carrying his son in his own hands, came to the monastery of Břevnov ^e, and offering his little son at his tomb to the same holy confessor, as a certain countryman to St. Benedict *, besought him, now reproaching, now also supplicating, that he would deign to cure his only son. Where, as he devoutly persisted in prayer, by the merits of blessed Gunther he deserved to receive his son whole and sound, freed in all things from every infirmity by which he was held. The father, having ascertained the miracle, with huge eagerness offers also the half part of his goods to the monastery of Břevnov for the health of his son, whom he now sees healed with the faith of his eyes. At which deed the whole city of Prague, with those who had then come together to the sepulchre of the blessed Man, praised and blessed Him who lives for ages of ages.

[4] And behold, a certain Bavarian, who was then at Břevnov likewise another blind man, to carry on trade, hastens home; divulges to his neighbours the miracles he had seen; and persuades a certain friend of his to commend to the prayers of St. Gunther his son, whom he had had blind from birth, believing with his whole heart that he could be healed in all things by the prayers and merits of blessed Gunther. When the father heard this, he knocks day and night with prayers at the Saint, known only by report, for the health of his son. And when he persisted in many fasts and prayers, he is divinely taught by a vision that, leaving his blind son at home, he should go quickly into Bohemia and, falling prostrate at the sepulchre of St. Gunther in the abbey of Břevnov, beg help for his son. Rejoicing at such a vision, the man sets out into Bohemia, and goes to the aforesaid abbey, is prostrated at the sepulchre of the holy Man, begging with tears that he might deserve to receive whole, through the merits of the holy Man, his son, whom he had left at home blind and gravely sick. Further, such a prayer completed, when in the night he had given his limbs to sleep, there appeared to him a certain old man of comely face, saying to him: Your petition has been heard, for your son, through your fasts and your prayers, the blessed Man Gunther interceding for you, has already received light and been restored to every kind of health. The aforesaid Bavarian, then, doubtful of the promise, returns home; but who was ever deceived by divine oracles? Certainly no one. And when he was approaching the house, acquaintances and friends run to meet him, saying that the boy had received not only sight but also health of the whole body. And the father doubts and rejoices. And so the doubted joys are heaped up: for what was said by his friends is now seen by the father's eyes. He asks, therefore, on what day, or at what time, the boy had been better, and so it is made known to him that he had been restored to health six days before. The father, therefore, knew that it was that hour in which he had received the divine answer that his son had been healed and enlightened, and then he himself believed and his whole house, and there was great joy in that province in those times.

[5] At a certain time also there was in the parts of Thuringia ^f a certain noble and powerful man, one sick for three years, Peter by name, who, seized with a grave infirmity for the space of three years, wished rather to die than to live, because he was now held despised by all his friends. He, having heard the fame of the blessed man Gunther, that he had freed many from their infirmities by his merits, commended himself to his prayers, where, as his friends persisted with many prayers to God, he deserved to receive his former health. At length, well recovered, he took the road into Bohemia, and came to the monastery of Břevnov, and there prostrated himself before the sepulchre of blessed Gunther the confessor, and poured out prayer with many tears, and raising himself from the ground he kissed the sacred tomb, and, drawing long sighs from the bottom of his heart, bathed with a stream of tears the pall which was placed upon the tomb. And some of our brethren, standing by at this spectacle, busied themselves to search out with all diligence whence he had come or who he was. And he, raising himself a little from prayer and strengthened in mind, gave this answer: I come from the parts of Thuringia to render thanks and praises to God and to my special lord St. Gunther, by whose merits and intercession I have been freed from a long sickness. For through the space of three years, seized with a great languor, I could neither bring my hand to my mouth nor turn to the other side. Whence it happened that, the pain growing heavier, unhoped-for death stood at the doors; behold, suddenly a Man shining with venerable white hair stood by, from whose mouth flowed such speech: Rise quickly, and hasten to go to the parts of Bohemia, and in the monastery of SS. Adalbert and Benedict ^g, before the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, do not be slothful to render due praises to almighty God for your restored health. Having heard this miracle, all the brethren glorified almighty God, who declares far and wide the merits of his Servant.

[6] one with a swelling of the neck, and a woman suffering from gout in the hands, At another time, while through the spaces of the Hours the brethren were devoutly chanting in the choir, a certain man entered the monastery for the sake of prayer, in whose neck was a very grievous disease, and presently going round the altars, he came to the altar of blessed Stephen the Protomartyr, beside which is the sepulchre of the blessed Man, and prayed there. The prayer completed, then, and overcome by weariness, he sat down upon the sepulchre, not understanding that a precious treasure lay hidden within. And his throat, so to speak, was infected with a swelling tumour by the disease. But the blessed Man, not suffering himself to be pressed down by an unworthy weight, as if awaking from heavy sleep, with great impetus and throw cast him to the other side of the wall

he cast him, so that the vice which lay hidden in the neck, leaping out of his mouth, appeared on the ground. Seeing such a miracle, the company of the brethren together, the bells having been rung, praised and blessed God. Likewise, on the day of a certain festivity, as a crowd of the faithful was proceeding to the church of Břevnov, a certain woman named Božena, whose left hand had long been withered, constricted by gout in the hands from the shoulder, entered the monastery for the sake of prayer. She, while she was praying at the sepulchre of the often-mentioned man Gunther, had her hand healed during her prayer before clerics and laymen: many of whom are truthful witnesses even until now. And the woman herself too, in that hour and through all the time of her life, affirmed with faithful testimony that she had been healed by the merits of that Saint, blessing God and rendering thanks to St. Gunther.

[7] another demoniac, It happened also that a certain keeper of the bees of the monastery in which the body of blessed Gunther rests, Ztres by name, when he had stolen honey from the hives, and, often accused of it, would not confess his guilt, at length one night, to conceal the theft which he had committed, cried out, after the custom of the land, against thieves, pretending that they had fled with the honey. There then he was seized by a demon, and when he was sharply tortured for a long time, he was brought to the doors of the monastery, that he might be freed from the demon by the merits of blessed Gunther, and there he was bound to a column for three days. And after three days the demon, crying out, said: Why, Gunther, do you drive me out of my dwelling? and after this voice went out of the man like a very black bird, all who were then present seeing it; and at the same time, the ropes with which the same demoniac had been bound being broken, as if awaking from heavy sleep he went with immense eagerness of heart to the sepulchre of St. Gunther, and there, prostrate, gave himself to prayer with tears, rendering thanks to God and blessed Gunther. At length, rising from prayer in possession of his reason, he confessed before many the fault which he had committed by stealing the honey, and protested publicly that almighty God had freed him through the merits of blessed Gunther from demonic possession, and, kissing the very sepulchre of the blessed Man more devoutly before many, both clerics and laymen, who had then come together in person for this miracle, he gave thanks to God and the blessed Man, promising under oath that, as long as he lived, he would never commit any theft, however small, warning and asking all who then stood at the sepulchre to beware of committing such things for the rest.

[8] The Creator and Saviour of the human race, through the ineffable clemency of his goodness wonderfully glorifying the Saints in heaven, and one subject to the falling sickness. pious and merciful to sinners on earth, although, the world now growing old, all flesh is corrupted with iniquity, does not suffer the kindled lamp to be hidden: but sets it, illuminated with heavenly fire, upon a candlestick, that it may give light to all in the house of God. The lamp I mean is blessed Gunther the confessor, who, by leaving his own things and following the precepts of Christ, despised the world with its pomps, whom miracles at his sepulchre, or elsewhere through his merits, the divine clemency working, continually glorify ^h. And what shall I say? For the faithful of Christ testify by public report that he has been rewarded in heaven for his labours, who offer votive gifts with lights at his sepulchre, having experienced the help of his holiness in diverse necessities and tribulations; which passing over in silence, I narrate a few things for an example to the faithful of Christ, because food too that is set out more sparingly is taken more sweetly. At the same time there was a certain youth, Peregrinus by name, from the city of Prague, received into the Order in the monastery of Břevnov, who among other troubles of infirmities suffered the falling sickness, and was despised by all on account of a fistula which he had in his neck; to whom, remaining privately in prayer, it was said through a vision: If you pray often at the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, you will receive the health of the body and be freed from every disease. Which vision, on account of his simplicity, he did not believe the first and second time. And it happened that one day, falling to the ground after his usual manner, he was tortured atrociously for a long time, and so, gnashing with his teeth and foaming, he was heard three and four times to call upon St. Gunther for help for himself. At length it was said to him in a vision that he should press more devoutly at the sepulchre of the blessed Man for the recovery of health, which, however, he pretended not to believe, but simply commended himself to the prayers of blessed Gunther. And after he had been made whole, he was asked by the brethren why during his infirmity he had often called upon St. Gunther; and he answered them with tears that he had been handed over to a most hideous woman, who with dishevelled hair was dragging him to the abyss, and that St. Gunther had been present at his prayers and by his merits had put that woman to flight into the abyss; and that he had vehemently reproved him for not having believed the vision until the third time. Hearing this, the brethren of the same house, filled with great joy, glorified and blessed God, and venerated the blessed Man with greater devotion. From that hour, then, the aforesaid youth, made whole by the grace of God and the merits of blessed Gunther, did not suffer the falling sickness any more, nor did the fistula appear in his neck thereafter. And so, applying himself more devoutly to prayer day and night at the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, he did not cease to render praises to almighty God for his health and to the blessed Confessor.

[9] A lamp is lit of itself; two lepers, After this, some time having rolled by, one day at the ninth hour the same youth, wishing to pray more secretly, entered the monastery, and went to the sepulchre of the B. Man to pray, and so during prayer looking at a glass lamp which had not yet been lit, he saw it suddenly lit of itself and burning, and was vehemently astonished, but at once, strengthened in mind, he ran to announce to the brethren with whom he lived the miracle which had happened: who, coming at his call, marvelled, because, the lamp itself hanging motionless, the flame went up higher than usual, as if from several lights joined together at once. And then he asked whether the keepers of the church had put out the lamp after Masses, which they asserted under oath had not even been lit. But some of the elders of those brethren, not believing, suspected that it had been lit by the youth himself, on account of which they cast the aforesaid youth out of the monastery after he had been harshly scourged: but he, both amid the stripes and also when cast out, related with faithful testimony before many clerics and laymen the same miracle, and how he had been healed through the merits of blessed Gunther. At the same time too many faithful of Christ, on account of this miracle and very many others which the Lord worked through the merits of the blessed Man, flocked to his sepulchre, commending themselves to his prayers. Meanwhile also two lepers placed outside Prague, stirred by this miracle, and having great confidence in the blessed man Gunther, came to the cloister of Břevnov for the sake of prayer, and, standing in the cemetery by the wall of the church opposite the sepulchre of the Man of God, persisted in assiduous prayers. At length on the third day, when they had returned again to the sepulchre and had lain prostrate in prayer after their custom, cleansed by the merits and prayers of the blessed Man, they came and secretly departed thence, glorifying the Creator of all things for his benefits, and rendering copious thanksgivings with tears to St. Gunther. But did the divine power which wrought salvation in them lie hidden? By no means: for when they were infected with the stain of leprosy, they were known to many men, by whom, when they had now been cleansed, they were asked by what remedy or how they had been healed. And they professed with clear voice that they had been cleansed by the merits of blessed Gunther, and proclaimed this very thing publicly far and wide. For so evident and notable a miracle could no longer be hidden. Which we, strengthened and certified by the relation of honest men and also worthy of credit, and also by the testimony of the lepers themselves, take care to describe to the praise of the name of Jesus Christ and of the blessed man Gunther.

[10] But in modern times, the blessed Pope Innocent the fourth ⁱ presiding in the Apostolic see, a sick man from the infestation of demons and bishop Nicholas ^{k l} in the chair of the church of Prague, a certain servant of Clement ^m, abbot of the same monastery, seized with a grave sickness, saw in a vision two demons standing about his bed, one namely in the form of a married woman with whom the same sick man had committed adultery; and the other in the form of the husband of the same woman: but the one demon, who put forward the form of the woman, flattered him very much by embracing him. And the other, who appeared in the form of the husband, threatened to inflict death on the same sick man with a great staff; he, as he was often accustomed to relate tearfully, although he was much tortured by such a vision, nevertheless humbly implored the help of blessed Gunther that he would deign to free him from this anxiety, and while he so persisted in prayer, behold, a bright cloud appeared over him, from which a certain Old Man in reverend white hair and in monastic habit, carrying a staff in his hand, came forth, at whose presence the aforesaid demons vanished. And the Old Man himself, going to the bed of the sick man, struck him with his crozier, which he carried in his hand, so hard that it seemed to the sick man that the same crozier or staff was broken. And the sick man, feeling great pain from that blow, said: Alas, my Father, now I die. But he said to him: By no means, my son, shall you die; but through this blow you will be freed from this infirmity. And after these words the same Old Man vanished from his eyes. And the sick man, who had now been restored to his former health, declared this miracle with outpouring of tears to all who came to him, and a little after, rising from the bed of sickness, prostrating himself before the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, he rendered thanks to God and to blessed Gunther the confessor, through whose intervention and merits he asserted, bathed in tears, that he had been freed from the infestation of demons and from the danger of death, vowing and promising of his own free will there that every year before the day of the death of the blessed man Gunther, as long as he lived, he would fast two days, which he still strives to fulfil faithfully with devotion of mind and heart. And we, who knew the same servant more familiarly ⁿ, often asked him how or in what way he had been so quickly restored to his former health; we received such an answer, that by the merits and prayers of blessed Gunther, confessor of Christ, he deserved to be freed from the sickness by which he was held, and this he related publicly not only to us, but to all who flocked to him.

[11] In the year of grace one thousand two hundred and forty-eight, on the fourth day before the Nones of September, a noble woman from a grave disease, a certain noble lady, Gertrude by name, wife of a certain powerful man called Bohuslav, of Bohemia, when she was placed in the greatest infirmity, and now her parents and friends, and the better physicians in the kingdom of Bohemia who had care of her, despaired altogether of her life, brother Walther of the Order of Preachers, seeing the great lamentation of the people, counselled

her husband and friends that they should carry her gently as quickly as possible to Břevnov, and, commending her to the supreme physician, the Son of the blessed Virgin, place her before the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, through whose merits the Lord works many miracles almost daily. She, brought at length and placed half-alive before the sepulchre, was at once restored to her former health during the solemnities of the Masses, many standing by, and then she and her friends, an offering having been made, returned with immense joy to their own, glorifying and praising God reigning for ages of ages. In the year of grace one thousand two hundred and fifty-six, on the fifth day before the Nones of July, Andrew, a servant of good repute of the Lord Wolckmar of Trebatuch, during the solemnities of the Masses led to the sepulchre of blessed Gunther his daughter, mute and possessed, biting and striking people indiscriminately, who at once, calmed, fell asleep, and as soon as she awoke, her mouth and tongue were opened, which also could not * in the throat, miserably gathered or contracted by a horrible infirmity; and she began to speak sanely as hitherto, asking that something be given her to eat. And having taken food, near the time of evening she was carried home whole and sound: and, brought back again to the sepulchre on the following day, she appeared whole and with a glad countenance before many, as if she had not lately been hurt by the burden of infirmity.

[12] a demoniac woman, In the year of grace one thousand two hundred and fifty-six, on the 11th day before the Kalends of August, on the feast of St. Mary Magdalen, the lady Barbara, an honest matron of the city of Prague, at evening time, being very thirsty to drink warm water, had it brought to her as quickly as possible, and when she had drunk it on its being brought, she immediately began to rage like a demoniac, and to gnash with her teeth, blaspheming people and impiously striking them. Then her father and mother and kinsfolk, running together to her, since they knew nothing else that they should do for her, kept her bound at home for three days; and since she did not recover, on the fourth day, on the feast of St. James, they led her, resisting in every way, to the church of Břevnov, and, as she approached the gates of the church, she cried out strongly, saying: Let me go away: for I have nothing to do with this church, which is nothing, and not necessary to me. She was nevertheless dragged into the church and placed at the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, and * her father and mother and other kinsfolk most devoutly implored for her the mercy of God, that she might be healed through the merits of the blessed man Gunther, suppliantly beseeching blessed Gunther to do this very thing. But she, day and night, in the church and in the lodging in which she spent the night, wished to strike shamefully, blaspheming all who were present bestowing on her the benefits of friendship. On the third day also, lying before the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, as the hour of evening approached, she saw the Prior walking near her, whom she called to her in a low voice, asking him humbly and devoutly to hear her confession and to communicate her with the Body and Blood of Christ. She, at the question of the Prior how she was, answered that she was better. And the Prior, on the morning of the following day, having heard the confession of the said lady and examined it to the marrow through its circumstances, namely whether that confession proceeded from God or from the instinct of the enemy of the human race, understood that she had been cured: for she, among other secrets of confession, said publicly that she had been restored to her former health and understanding by the grace of God and by the illustrious merits and glorious intercession of St. Gunther, and that the most sacred Body and Blood of Christ ought to turn to her salvation of body and soul. The said Prior, therefore, Mass having been celebrated, refreshed that lady with the Body and Blood of Christ. After which refreshment the said lady did not dare for some days easily to go out of the church, fearing to fall again into the snare of the devil; which having been broken, she proclaimed that she had been freed from the demon through St. Gunther. At length, encouraged by her friends and kinsfolk, she returned home with them, rejoicing and praising God.

[13] In the year of Grace one thousand two hundred and fifty-six, on the fourth day before the Nones of August, a boy deprived of walking, a certain honourable man, Ulric by name, a citizen of Prague, ordered his tender son — bound with the chain of a grave infirmity, his feet so tied together that they could in no way be separated from each other except by stretching the sinews, which would have harmed him more: moreover as it were bloodless and dry in body, as if without flesh, the bones covered only with skin, half-alive and lacking his left eye, of whose life all who were present altogether despaired — to be carried gently by his nurse to the sepulchre of blessed Gunther at Břevnov, together with his dropsical daughter, who could not be filled with food and drink, to whom no one any longer approached on account of the excessive stench, because as soon as she took food and drink she cast it out most foully, not yet digested, and who also could not walk with her feet; but walked miserably on the ground upon her hinder parts, the skin of her body altogether worn away by that miserable gait. And when that boy and that girl had been laid before the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, and at times rolled upon the sepulchre, their mother and kinsfolk invoked the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ for them with prayers and weeping, that they might be restored to their former health through the illustrious merits and intercession of blessed Gunther. And after the celebration of Mass, when they made a stay for the space of one short hour, most devoutly offering their gifts upon the sepulchre after the wonted manner, meanwhile they behold the aforesaid children freed from all * sicknesses, whom, whole and cheerful, praising and glorifying God in the wonderful works of his Saints, they brought back home together with them, filled with joy.

[14] Further, the same honest man Ulric, on the third day before the Kalends and one broken in his limbs, are made sound. of August, in the monastery of Břevnov, before the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, protested and confessed by word of mouth publicly before the people, saying that his son, Hermann by name, well lettered and prudent, now living at Salzburg ^o, fifteen years before, his bodily limbs broken by a fall from a horse, lay continually in bed a whole year and a half, his strength totally exhausted, not moving himself anywhere, but lying only on that side on which he was placed by the hands of others. Whom at length, as if forewarned or impelled by divine inspiration, he had gently brought in a cart by his servants [p] to the tomb of blessed Gunther; but he himself remained at home. And the servants placed their master's son lying on his little bed before the sepulchre, and, the divine Offices having been performed there for him, and offerings having been made in the wonted manner, by the mercy of God, the merits of blessed Gunther acting as medicine, the named young man, his limbs restored * to their former health, rose from his little bed, no one at all helping him, and fell down upon the sepulchre, rendering immense thanks with weeping to almighty God, that through the intercession and illustrious merits of blessed Gunther he had restored him to the benefit of entire health, and, mounting a horse, not the cart in which he had been brought, with immense joy, his father's servants rejoicing with him, returned cheerful to his father and mother at Prague. The day indeed on which he was healed was a Monday, on which every year until now he has fasted in the name of the Vigil of blessed Gunther, and has vowed to fast as long as he shall live, content with one refection of bread and water in the day.

ANNOTATA.

d. The 9th of October.

p. That is, attendants.

* dicentem, saying

* vigilias, the vigils

* Perhaps Gunthero?

* experti, having experienced

* cruciaretur, was tortured

* supply: eat or speak

* read: &

* read: cunctis liberatos, freed from all

* restitutis, restored

CHAPTER II.

Miracles of Bl. Gunther done in the time of Martin I, abbot of Břevnov.

By the help of Bl. Gunther a blind woman sees, Since the illustrious merits of blessed Gunther in the bosom of holy Mother Church, although by diverse

times, had very often shone out clearer than light, it nevertheless happened, the divine Clemency favouring, that in the times of the lord abbot Martin ^a, who at that time, God being the author, was providently governing the already mentioned church of Břevnov in temporal and spiritual things, very many miracles came forth most evidently, more than usual, through the merits of the aforesaid man of God Gunther. For in the year of Grace one thousand two hundred and fifty-eight, on the sixth day before the Ides of June, a certain matron called Beatrice, of the diocese and kingdom of Prague, taking her origin from the village whose name is Hostchorm ^b, since she had only a daughter Bratrumila, but alas! through demerits demanding it, blind from birth; whom she loved most tenderly, as is the custom, and with maternal affection, did not neglect to bring her with her to the threshold of the most blessed Gunther. When therefore at the sepulchre of the often-mentioned Gunther the girl's mother often implored the divine help, asking with tears that her only daughter might be mercifully succoured in the recovery of sight through the merits and prayers of blessed Gunther; a thing astounding, and to be wondered at not a little in our times, is known to have come about by the work of blessed Gunther. For when she frequently persisted in prayer, soon the girl obtained by the merits of blessed Gunther the light of the eyes of which she had been deprived from birth. At this work of God so praiseworthy, nay commendable for ever, through the merits of blessed Gunther, almost a hundred people of both sexes and every age, who had come to the house of Břevnov for the sake of prayer, are known to have been present. Especially both the girl's parents, Waurinecz, the nearest of the mother Beatrice, and a paternal uncle, a priest of the nearest village, who also, sworn in the presence of the bishop ^c, nay under the threat of the divine judgement, publicly protested that the often-mentioned girl was blind from birth, but wonderfully enlightened through blessed Gunther. Let the Lord therefore be praiseworthy for ever, who in the merits of blessed Gunther is always and everywhere wonderful. Witnesses: bishop Nicholas, Lupold, abbot of Kladruby [d], and Zacharias of the Preachers.

[16] In the same year too, though at a different time, on the day before the Kalends of June, a flow of blood, a certain lay sister of the hospital house of the Starred ones ^e, conspicuous for integrity of life, Jutta by name, when she had incurably suffered a flow of blood for almost eight years, at length, the fame of blessed Gunther running abroad, resolved, every contradiction set aside, to visit his threshold. And when she was so pressed by weakness that she was not able to accomplish the proposed work, she went to the master of the hospital house, asking that the help of a vehicle be granted her. Carried in which and led to the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, she soon by a brief prayer deserved to receive her former health. And to test the truth of this matter, since the lord diocesan could not be present in person, he delegated this miracle to be examined more faithfully to certain men worthy of credit of the Order of the Friars Preachers, the Friars Minor, the Crossed Friars. In whose presence the Master of the hospital house, and the Mistress of the same house with Jutta, Buda, Perchta, Cunigunda, and also the whole household of that house, asserted under oath that it was so, as we have set out before.

[17] and gout of the hand is taken away, mutes speak, Likewise another miracle came forth anew, which I do not think should be passed over in silence for the sake of lightness. A certain girl, drawing her origin from noble parents on both sides, when she had had a withered hand for almost half a year through the vice of gout ^f, coming to the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, his help being invoked there, was healed before those present. Likewise a certain woman of the village of the lord Jacob, commonly called Novaves, the daughter of Quassata, had lost the use of speech for half a year and more, who, when she had been brought to the sepulchre of the man of God Gunther by the hands of her father and others, though she was unwilling, and had stayed there for some time, on the day of the Exaltation of the Cross, while her father and neighbours who had brought her invoked God for her with prolonged prayers, during the chant of Vespers she obtained through the merits of the already mentioned man of God Gunther the tunings of her lost tongue and began to speak rightly, proclaiming God wonderful in the merits of blessed Gunther. And all who were present, in astonishment, raised their voices to heaven, praising the Lord and the Saint living for ever. Likewise a miracle similar to this came forth at the sepulchre of the same Man of God. For a certain man, Pozdaca by name, of the village of Zlapanow ^g, since his tongue had cleaved to his palate for three years, could not speak, and had fallen into such weakness of body that he could neither go nor move himself, his friends having very little hope of his life, was brought to the sepulchre of blessed Gunther by his kinsmen, placed on a cart, and, when he had continued there seven days, on the day of the Purification of holy Mary, his friends imploring the mercy of God for him, the weakness of his body likewise deserved to receive health, and his constricted tongue soundness, by the help of blessed Gunther. For which cause all the people who had then come together to the church for devotion gave praise to God. Witnesses of this are the parish priest of the same village, Jacob by name, and very many * all the neighbours.

[18] a dead girl returns to life, the blind In the same year a certain matron, Hoduse by name, of the village of Dubeze [h], deprived of sight for six years, was brought by friends in a cart to the church of Břevnov; she, when together with her friends she had besought the Lord for the receiving of sight, having stayed for some time about the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, deserved on the feast of St. Valentine the martyr, by the patronage of blessed Gunther, to receive the light of her eyes. Seeing which, those who had flocked together to the sepulchre for the sake of devotion extolled the Lord with loud voices. Witnesses of the miracle: the lady of the same village, the parish priest of Lutosnyez ⁱ. Likewise a certain citizen of Prague, Putno by name, resolved ^k to go with his wife with a little daughter labouring with a long and grave sickness to implore the benefit of blessed Gunther, and as they were making the journey and approaching the monastery, the languishing child breathed out her spirit. But the father, having confidence in the Lord and in blessed Gunther, to whose merits he had committed his daughter, coming with swift course to the church with his wife, laid down the extinct little body with great weeping before the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, and when they were bitter in mind and pressed upon the Lord, by the prayers of blessed Gunther and the command of God, when the dead body had lain motionless for some time, it began to move, and after a little, through the intercession of blessed Gunther, she was restored whole and sound to her mother. Seeing which miracle, the church of the faithful cried out praises to the Lord. Which miracle God worked on the day of St. Gertrude. Likewise in the same year a certain virgin, Michala by name, of the village of Zlap ^l, blind from birth, was led by her mother to the church, and, applying herself to prayers together with her mother, when she had been blind thirteen years, in the fourteenth year of her birth, on the 15th day before the Kalends of June, she received sight by the suffrage of blessed Gunther. Witnesses of this: the bishop of Prague, brother Nicholas the Minor, Paul, parish priest of the same village.

[19] In the same year, on the 15th day before the Kalends of September, a certain matron, likewise others Drahomila by name, of Beneslow ^m, hearing the fame of the benefits which the Lord was working through the merits of blessed Gunther upon the sick oppressed by various sicknesses, having an only daughter, but alas! blind from birth, Hodauna by name, passing the eleventh year of her age, came for the sake of devotion to the church of Břevnov with the named daughter, and remained for three days at the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, pouring out prayers before the Lord from the inmost of her heart for the receiving of sight by her daughter. The Lord, seeing the contrition of her heart, as being merciful and pious, was at hand to her prayers: for, as she applied herself to prayer, on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of September, during the chanting of Vespers, her aforenamed daughter saw the light of the world by the work of blessed Gunther. Which done, the mother, exhilarated, brought it to the presence of the abbot and community, [and] they praised with loud voices God and blessed Gunther, by whose prayers this miracle happened. Witnesses of this fact: the lady Marika of Ketworicz, the lord dean of Prague, Woyzlaus and Magnus, Friars Minor of St. Francis, Ulric, knight of the bishop of Prague. The son, Marik by name, of a certain man of good life of the village of Wranau ⁿ, Hostey by name, had been made blind by the will of the Lord, and remained a whole year without sight; wherefore the father, grieving not a little and already almost despairing of his son's health, but instructed by the words of certain friends, went down with his blind son for the sake of praying to the church of Břevnov. Whither when he had come, falling on the ground, he poured out more bitter tears before the Lord for his son's health beside the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, and when he had persisted in prayer with his son for a few days, on the feast of George the martyr his aforesaid son deserved to be freed from blindness of the eyes through the illustrious merits of blessed Gunther. To which so praiseworthy miracle Nicholas, bishop of Prague, bore testimony, and also a very great crowd of neighbours, the priest of Netolice ^o, Budyk [p], the priest of Horek [q], and Zacharias.

[20] see, a mute woman speaks, There is also a miracle similar to this which the Lord deigned to work at the sepulchre of blessed Gunther. For a certain man, Letnyk by name, of Zlanhostuh [r], when he had an only daughter, a virgin, but alas blind for almost twelve years, and was often admonished by friends to bring her to the sepulchre of blessed Gunther to implore the benefit, at length acquiescing in their words, had brought his blind daughter with him. She, when she had stayed a few days and nights at the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, giving herself to prayer, obtained by the help of blessed Gunther, on the feast of Alban [s] the martyr, the light of her eyes which she had once lost. Likewise a certain woman of good conversation of the village of Prybizlay [t], commonly called Blatnice, Bolemila by name, wife of Scoreta, had lost the natural use of speech for half a year, and was so beaten by other troubles of infirmities that she was believed by all her neighbours and kinsfolk to be near rather to death than to life. But when report had come to the ears of the friends of the aforesaid woman of the benefits which the Lord was working through the merits of blessed Gunther upon diverse sick persons coming to his sepulchre, encouraged in the Lord, they placed the sick woman on a cart and, conducting her with haste to the monastery of Břevnov, placed her with the greatest devotion beside the sepulchre of the aforesaid Saint, where, when she had lain for some time taking neither food nor drink, her friends and kinsfolk interceding with the Lord for her, she deserved to be restored to her former health by the merits and aid of blessed Gunther, whose father and mother had been named Conrad and Christina.

[21] and a demoniac woman is freed. Likewise in the year of grace one thousand two hundred and sixty-three, on the Vigil of blessed Andrew the Apostle, a certain woman, Sdysslava by name, of the village of the Lord Borzuta, a noble man, called Gessenyce [u], was brought to the sepulchre of the blessed man Gunther bound with ropes by the hands, because an unclean spirit atrociously vexed her, gnashing horribly with her teeth at those who looked at her. And when she had lain for some hours on the ground at the tomb of the blessed man Gunther with constricted hands, crying out lamentably, and prayer was most devoutly poured out for her with tears to God by her kinsfolk who had brought her; behold, the divine mercy giving its suffrage, through the

merits of the blessed man Gunther she was healed of the vexation of the demon. And soon, on the third day, made sound of reason and discretion, she fell down at the sepulchre of the blessed Man in the form of a cross, giving thanks to God and blessed Gunther, by whose merits and prayers she affirmed she had most certainly been cured. For before she had been brought to the sepulchre of our [x] mentioned father blessed Gunther, her husband, Petrata by name, and Przibisslava, the maternal aunt of the poor little woman herself, testified with truthful assertion that she had been miserably wearied and vexed by the demon for three weeks; indeed the aforesaid woman was cured during the public Mass at the tomb of the man of God blessed Gunther at about the sixth hour of the day, the whole community of Břevnov coming together and being present. Witnesses of this matter are Petrata, her husband, Mycha, her brother-in-law, the aforesaid Przibisslava, her maternal aunt, and very many others of that village of Gessenicze.

[22] Likewise in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand two hundred and sixty-three there happened a great miracle in a certain village, Again a blind man sees, a mute speaks, Cossetyn [y] by name, of a certain knight called Protywoy. For a certain man, Bohuslav by name, had a beloved son, David by name, sixteen years of age, who, seized with a certain grave infirmity, was suddenly made blind and mute, the divine permission bringing it about. And when he had already laboured with a disease of this kind for continuous weeks, his father and mother, grieving gravely on that account, remembering the miracles which they had often heard from the faithful, and had themselves also seen wrought through blessed Gunther, commended their son to the blessed man Gunther, having full confidence that through his merits he could be restored to his former health. When, therefore, the aforesaid young man one night was taking sleep, yet not sleeping fully, he suddenly saw a certain venerable man, sprinkled at the head with beautiful white hair, in monastic habit, coming nearer to him, who with his hand lightly touched his nose, and presently blood flowed abundantly from the nostrils of the youth himself. Awaking, the aforesaid young man at once rose whole: for he received the light of the eyes which he had lost, and the bond of his mouth was unlocked through the merits and prayers of the most blessed man Gunther, and he began to speak rightly, as he had been accustomed to speak before. The vision too which he had seen he narrated in order to his father and mother. And they, hearing, filled with great joy, began to weep, believing all things which were said by him, and great joy was made on that day throughout the whole village. And at once the father and mother of the aforesaid young man, going to the sepulchre of blessed Gunther with their son who had been made whole, giving immense thanks to God and to the blessed man Gunther himself, publicly protesting before the Prior of that monastery and the keeper of the sepulchre, Coyata by name, and also taking an oath upon the holy altar, that, the divine clemency favouring, their son had been restored to his former health through blessed Gunther. Witnesses of this miracle are the father and mother of the aforesaid boy and the whole neighbourhood of the village noted above. And this happened on the night of St. Gertrude *, the glorious virgin.

[23] In the same year, namely one thousand two hundred and sixty-three, there happened a special miracle in a certain village named Zuchomazl [z], a dead child (if such he really was) is restored to life, where a certain man, Mukarz by name, had a son, Domasslaw by name, an infant of one year, by his wife called Wlasttyena; alas! their sins demanding it, a most grievous disease so atrociously oppressed the aforesaid infant in the throat that, touched by excessive pain, he could not take the nourishment of milk from his mother's breasts. And when the said infant had been held for some days by the grave infirmity, the disease growing stronger, he paid the debt of death, entering the way of all flesh; on account of whose death the father and mother of the infant, saddened not a little, weeping and keeping watch *, implored with assiduous prayers the help of blessed Gunther, and suddenly heavenly suffrage was present to the sorrowing. For the boy, lying dead in the cradle, soon began little by little to sigh and to send forth childish moans, and when all who were then present were turned into stupor and ecstasy, vehemently wondering at a miracle of this kind, the father and mother of that infant, turned to joy, humbly gave thanks to almighty God and to the blessed man Gunther, coming in person to the monastery of Břevnov, where the body of that venerable man Gunther, beloved of God, rests, and set out to the Prior and brethren of the same monastery the series of this so illustrious miracle, a sworn security having been given. And he, giving fitting credit to their words as speaking true things, and glorifying almighty God and blessed Gunther, noted down the present miracle, to the praise and glory of almighty God, among the other miracles of blessed Gunther before suitable witnesses. And this miracle was done on the day of St. Petronilla the virgin at the ninth hour of the day, in the times of the Lord Martin [aa], the venerable abbot.

[24] one deprived of walking and of the use of hands and voice is healed, To all the faithful of Christ who shall inspect the present page, V., dean of Prague, and P., archdeacon of Hořovice [bb], health, and to complete the courses of this life with a happy course. Be it known to all who shall inspect this letter, that we, appointed by our lord J. [cc], bishop of Prague, to examine the miracle which the Lord declared at his tomb through the merits of blessed Gunther on the day of blessed Matthias the Apostle [dd], since a certain virgin Duthawa of Buben [ee], when she had lacked walking, the function of the hands, and the organ of the voice for seven days, on the eighth day was restored to health, the father of the same girl, Blasius by name, attesting it, and her mother Helena, and four neighbours of the same village, Matthew, Wenceslas, Criso and Zorzyko, who, sworn before us, brought it forward that it so happened, have not omitted to examine it as best we could. We therefore, who saw and heard, and what was brought forward before us with oath, lest anyone hereafter doubt, protest, strengthening this letter with our seals [ff].

[25] the chains of a certain man are broken of themselves, In the year from the incarnation of the Lord one thousand three hundred [gg] and sixty-one, there reigning at that time the renowned fifth king of the Bohemians, Przensl by name, the venerable father the lord John, twenty-fourth bishop of the holy church of Prague, presiding over the chair of Prague, the reverend man the lord Martin governing the abbey of Břevnov, a new miracle came forth in the aforesaid monastery at the sepulchre of the blessed man Gunther on the 17th day before the Kalends of May, at the time when the community of the same monastery was paying the evening praises to God in the choir: behold, very many pilgrims from the city of Brod [hh], passing the first hour, came to the church of Břevnov, and when they had poured out prayer for some time at the sepulchre of the blessed man Gunther, there was among the penitents themselves a certain man named Henry, who for his sins was girt on his naked body with an iron chain and bound by fastenings so that it could not easily be broken by anyone, which also for some time he bore on his body. And behold, suddenly, the divine grace co-operating and the merits of the blessed man Gunther giving suffrage, the aforesaid chain, as if it had been broken by some artifice, fell to the ground, all who were then present seeing it, and the man who was carrying it, awaking, cried out, and with weeping and sobs, as he could, began to glorify our Lord Jesus Christ, rendering most copious thanksgivings to blessed Gunther. And the people who were then present, seeing such a miracle, glorified with their songs, and the congregation of that monastery, stirred with spiritual joy, the bells having been rung, began to sound the hymn "Te Deum laudamus" with sweet jubilation. At length the brethren of the same cloister received the already mentioned chain before witnesses worthy of credit in the year mentioned, and publicly hung it up at the tomb of the blessed man Gunther as a sign of so great a miracle. At this miracle there were present very many upright men, citizens of the city, one a noble of the lord Smylo of Brod, whose names are subscribed: Richard the notary, Theodoric, smith of the city, Dettric of the street of the tooth, Ulsalt the smith, Marquard Voynric, Otto, Conrad and many others worthy of credit.

[26] When therefore the fame of blessed Gunther, made known by various signs and prodigies, flourished far and wide, and very many from diverse provinces were hastening to his sepulchre with thirsting breast in hope of eternal salvation: a blind man it happened in the same year and under the same princes, on one of the days, namely the 2nd day before the Kalends of April, that many noble and upright men, abiding in the mourning of penance, had come to the monastery of Břevnov for the sake of prayer at the tomb of the blessed man Gunther, and there was among them a certain citizen of the city of Brod [ii], Arnold by name, bereft of the light of his eyes; and when he had applied himself to prayer for a long time at the sepulchre of the blessed man Gunther, the pain of his eyes began to depart, and crying out with mournful voice he said to his companions that by the grace of God and the prayers of blessed Gunther he saw a little. And there were with him about a hundred men, who had all come together to the already mentioned sepulchre for the sake of devotion, and it was established for them more certainly than certain that the same Arnold had lacked the light of his eyes for a long time; whence, moved with vehement wonder, they did not at all care to give credit to his words, and so, going out of the monastery together with him, they take the road toward Prague, and when they had gone a little way from the gate of the monastery, his companions asked him how many towers he saw in the monastery of Břevnov?

[27] And he, who had now been totally freed from blindness, is given sight, answered according as the matter was. And when they had understood by certain experience that he had received light, they returned again to the sepulchre of the mentioned Saint together with him who had been blind, and, the whole congregation of the brethren who were then present having been called together, they protested with public voice that he had received the light of his eyes by the merits and intercession of blessed Gunther; the brethren therefore, having heard such a miracle and ascertained by the faith of their eyes that the thing was true, glorified almighty God, who does wonders in his Saints, and, the bells having been rung, solemnly sang the hymn "Te Deum laudamus" to the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ; the multitude also of the Germans [kk] who had then come with the aforesaid Arnold, turned to joy, studied after their custom to sing a canticle of exultation and gladness to the praise and glory of the Christian name. And this miracle was done in the monastery of Břevnov on the 22nd day of April at the third hour of the day before these witnesses whose names are here subscribed: Herascus, Gyfrid, son of Ynta, Albert Haw, Thomas Eudmann, Hermann, Gotstolc and very many other upright men worthy of credit, and these are all noble citizens of the city of Brod: the whole congregation of the monastery of Břevnov was also present at this miracle.

[28] Likewise in the year of grace one thousand [ll] sixty-three a miracle of this kind was done at the sepulchre of the blessed man Gunther; a boy for while the community of the same monastery was applying itself in the choir to the evening praises on the feast of Michael the archangel, there came a copious multitude of people from diverse provinces to the sepulchre of the blessed man Gunther for the sake of devotion, among whom was a certain man,

Ulric by name, a citizen of the city of the king of Bohemia which is called by its proper name Udivora [mm]. He had brought his son, crippled in both feet, Berthold by name, having firm hope and the greatest confidence that he could be cured more speedily and restored to his former health by the merits and prayers of blessed Gunther. For already for a year and more the same boy had lacked the walking of his feet, and made his steps only upon his knees. And the boy himself was thirteen years old from the day of his birth. When therefore he had been carried in the arms of his mother, Mergarth by name, to the tomb of the blessed man Gunther, and had sat there for some stay, the aforesaid boy, his mother and father applying themselves to prayer with tears and more devoutly offering an oblation for him, behold, in wonderful manner the already mentioned boy, all who were present seeing it, through the merits of the blessed man Gunther rose from the sepulchre and began to walk about the monastery whole and sound, and when the father and mother of the aforesaid boy had seen it, they were filled with great joy, and at once studied to announce it in the choir to the Prior, Woyslaus by name, who was then singing Vespers with the brethren committed to him to the praise and glory of St. Michael.

[29] with walking When, then, the evening synaxis had been entirely completed, the mentioned Prior, having called the brethren to himself, related to them the miracle which had happened in the aforesaid boy; and, a certain interlocutory discussion having been held among themselves, all the old and young went out together to the tomb of the blessed man Gunther, where the father and mother of the boy now cured were applying themselves to prayer, and, calling them to himself before all the multitude which was then present, the aforesaid Prior, as a man discreet in all things and adhering to reason, ordered the aforesaid boy to be presented to him, desiring to be certified of the miracle done. When therefore he had been presented, he set him before the whole community of the brethren, and, a diligent examination having been made first, he held the boy's hands and feet, and found him whole and sound in all the joints of his limbs. At length, a sworn security having been received from the father and mother, he asked and required of them whether it was true that their boy had formerly been lame and now appeared cured.

[30] is gifted, They, anathematizing themselves and swearing by their souls, and producing some of their neighbours in testimony, asserted that most truly they had brought their boy lame to the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, and now had found him cured and restored to his former health through the grace of God and the merits of St. Gunther. To whose words, as of upright men and worthy of credit, the Prior giving credit, with all his congregation, praising and glorifying the Creator of heaven and earth, began "Te Deum laudamus" with sweet jubilation and sang it solemnly to the end. And the people of both sexes who had then come together, all being stirred by their songs, studied to pay manifold thanksgivings to the Lord God. And this miracle was done during vespers on the vigil of St. Michael at the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, in the presence of the Lord Martin, venerable abbot of the monastery of Břevnov, and of Woysloy the Prior. There were present also at that time at this miracle more than two hundred people, Germans and Bohemians, who had flocked together from diverse parts for the sake of devotion to the solemnity of St. Wenceslas the martyr [nn], who is known to be the patron of the Bohemians, and this is testified by citizens of the city where the boy's father has his residence, namely Frederick, Godfrey, Henry, Ulric and very many other people worthy of credit.

[31] When therefore the fame of the blessed man Gunther was being spread through diverse places by many notable miracles, and very many oppressed by various sicknesses, and a demoniac is freed. and some also possessed by demons, were hastening to his sepulchre for the sake of cure, and were effectively obtaining the remedies of health by the merits of blessed Gunther, behold, a certain man, John by name, of the village of the lord bishop called Okouncz [oo], possessed by a demon, is brought by his kinsfolk with bound hands to the tomb of blessed Gunther, and there, praying for him and offering an oblation, they commended him to blessed Gunther. And when he had stayed for some days bound to a statue before the doors of the church, and prayer was made daily for him to God by his kinsfolk, within six days he was cured of that by which he had now been wearied for five weeks. And after, having been cured through blessed Gunther, he had again his former sense and discretion, at once, the bonds with which he had been constricted being loosed, he ran to the sepulchre of blessed Gunther, and, falling straightway on the ground, gave thanks to God and to blessed Gunther, by whose merits he asserted he had been cured, binding himself by the bond of an oath. The same John was therefore cured on the day of St. Severinus the bishop, at the third hour of the day, in the year of grace one thousand two hundred and sixty-three, in the time of Martin, abbot of the monastery of Břevnov, and this is testified by the father and mother of that John, Zoth by name, and his wife, Mazice by name, and very many other men worthy of credit.

ANNOTATA.

p. Perhaps it should be read: Priest of Budyk, or perhaps rather Budecz: for there is a parish of this latter name in the deanery of Říp.

q. Mention is made of the church of Horek in Balbín, volume X of the Erections, page 211, from two Instruments, of which one is of the year 1388, the other of the year 1418.

r. I have found nothing about that place.

s. Alban the martyr is inscribed in the Calendar of Prague of the year 1578 at the 21st day of June: on that day is venerated Alban, martyr of Mainz, concerning whom treatment was made in our Work at the same day, volume 4 of June, page 86.

t. I do not know whether this word has been rightly written in our apograph: akin to it in name is the parish of Przibieslaw in the deanery of Brod, as also the place Przibilawicz in the deanery of Čáslav and of Kolín; but here it seems to be Przibilavia, a town of Bohemia, distant 15 miles from Prague, and situated in the district of Čáslav, as Balbín writes in the Miscellanies, book 2, chapter 8, §4. See also the codex of the archiepiscopal Library whose title is Ecclesiastical Tithes of the year 1384, in the same at the beginning of the other part of the Miscellanies, pages 16 and 17. From that codex has been drawn what I have said about most of the places of Bohemia mentioned here and to be mentioned afterwards.

u. In the deanery of Rakovník there is a parish Jecznicz, otherwise called Jessenicz: but there is also another parish Jessenicz in the deanery of the Vltava. Likewise Jessenik in that of Hawran.

x. Hence it seems possible to gather that the writer of these Miracles was a monk of Břevnov.

y. Perhaps it is Kossitycz, a parish of the deanery of Rzeczice.

z. I have not found it.

aa. See what was said of him here at letter a.

bb. Among the 10 archdeaconries of the diocese of Prague, that of Hořovice is ninth in order in the codex mentioned here at letter t.

cc. This was John, the third of this name, bishop of Prague after the death of Nicholas, who died in the year 1258, until the year 1278.

dd. February 24.

ee. Among the churches of the deanery of Prague is numbered the Church in Buben.

ff. In our apograph the following things are added here in the margin: Up to here is ancient writing, and perhaps not more recent than the last miracle. In the second hand, of which I made mention at letter a in the Annotations to chapter 1 of the Miracles, is written the following observation on the Life of Bl. Gunther: It is to be noted that blessed Gunther entered the desert in the year of the Lord MVIII. In the following year St. Henry delivered the wood to the cell in Rinchnach (see what was said on that matter at number 22 of the Prelim. Comm.) with the other boundaries and districts. Likewise in the year MXIX he procured that the church in Rinchnach be dedicated by Gregory (rather Berenger, from the number of the Preliminary Commentary just praised), bishop of Passau, within the Kalends of September. Likewise it is to be noted that at the petition of Gunther himself St. Henry the king (rather Henry, son of Conrad the Salian) delivered it to the title of St. Maurice in Altaich in the year of the Lord MXL. And because all these things are found written, it is a conjecture that the same Gunther after these things entered the farther desert toward Bohemia, and there, the remaining five years which he afterwards survived, showed to the Lord to the end a strenuous and devout service. Then it recites the following from the Deeds of Henry III: A certain father in those parts, a venerable hermit, Gunther by name, a Thuringian by birth, who, formerly converted from a quite rich secular soldier to spiritual warfare and the monastic life, for some time in the monastery of Altaich, but afterwards in the solitude of the Bohemian forest, devoting himself to fasts and prayers, seeking his food by the labour of his hands, the shrubs having been rooted out, building cells and oratories, and gathering whomever he could by his example or exhortation to contempt of the world and the divine service, and sweating at many holy acts, had lived very many years solitary, who had often studied much in converting the erring and pacifying the discordant. He indeed … pitying the tribulation of the soldiers, made himself mediator between our army and the duke, and that he might cause them all to be led out of the provinces unharmed with peace, those wishing to kill them as most hostile enemies, by pious address, petition,

and counsel he persuaded. But what follows is likewise noted in our apograph as written by a third, more recent hand.

gg. Przemysl, the II of this name, but the fifth king of Bohemia, John III, bishop of Prague, and Martin, abbot of Břevnov, in whose time the prodigy which is narrated here happened, lived together in the thirteenth century; for the year 1361, therefore, 1261 is to be substituted, or perhaps 1263.

hh. There are two towns of this name in Bohemia; of which one, situated in the district of Kouřim, is called Bohemian Brod; the other, in that of Čáslav, German Brod.

ii. See what was said just before at letter hh.

kk. Are the citizens of German Brod signified here, who came together with Arnold to Břevnov to venerate Bl. Gunther?

ll. Supply two hundred, from what was said here at letter gg.

mm. Balbín, Miscellanies, Decade 1, book 3, §3, reviews the royal towns and cities of the kingdom of Bohemia; but no Udivora is mentioned there.

nn. Wenceslas, martyr and duke of Bohemia, is noted in the proper Offices of the church of Prague of the year 1679 at the 28th day of September, the day before the Dedication of the church of St. Michael on mount Gargano. St. Wenceslas has been treated at length in our Work, volume 8 of September, from page 770.

oo. Oken is noted in the deanery of Kamenice. Is it the same, or another place?

* Perhaps tamen?

* Perhaps proximus?

* Perhaps demum?

* Gertrudis

* Perhaps ejulantes, wailing?

* Perhaps paenitens?

* See volume 1 of October, page 303, in the Annotations at letter f.