ON BB. NIDGARIUS AND ADALBERO, BISHOPS OF AUGSBURG,
In the year DCCCCIX.
SYLLOGE.
Nidgarius, bp., conf., at Augsburg. (Bl.)
Adalbero, bp., conf., at Augsburg. (Bl.)
BY J. B.
§ I. The sacred cult of both Blesseds, the time of their see, Adalbero's family, his headship of Ellwangen, and the education of Louis, son of the emperor Arnulf, committed to him.
What Henschen long ago observed of Adalbero, bishop of Augsburg, at the 12th day of June among the Passed-over, Sacred cult by the monks namely that it is not known that a sacred cult was paid to him either in his cathedral church or in the monastery of Ellwangen over which he presided as abbot, holds also in the case of Nidgarius, abbot of Ottobeuren and likewise bishop of Augsburg. The sacred cult of each does not seem to have spread beyond the monastery of St. Ulrich at Augsburg: I have therefore held it enough to ascribe to each the title of Blessed, and I made it a matter of conscience not to name them Saints, following the Benedictine writers; with which title indeed they are honoured in Bernhard Hertfelder in the Basilica of SS. Ulrich and Afra, Stengel in Augusta Vindelicorum, Corbinian Khamm, Hierarchia Augustana, part 1, class 2, section 3, Wion, book 2 of the Lignum vitae, page 285, Ménard in the Martyrology, and Bucelin in the Benedictine Menology. It will suffice to have cited the last: he has thus at the 15th day of April: At Augsburg, of St. Nidgarius, bishop and confessor; and at the 12th day of June thus: At Augsburg, the deposition of St. Albero, bishop and confessor. The same day of death of Nidgarius is indeed marked by Sigismund in the Chronicle of Augsburg from his sepulchral inscription to be given below; but concerning the death of Adalbero the Necrology of Lorsch in Schannat, part 1 of the Vindemiae litterariae, has thus: On the 4th before the Kalends (of May), of Adalbert, bishop and abbot; he gave Gernsheim entire. Stengel writes in his German lucubration on Augsburg, book 2, chapter XI, that he died on the following day, that is the 29th of April. Henschen wished Adalbero and Nidgarius to be put off to this day; and not altogether ineptly; for in the year 1619 a notable translation of them was held at Augsburg on the second Sunday of October, otherwise consecrated with a public canonical Office to the cult of the Saints resting here (in the church of St. Ulrich), which at that time was the ninth day of the same month of October, as says Corbinian Khamm, professed of St. Ulrich's and theologian, part 1 of the Hierarchia Augustana, page 87, where he treats of St. Wicterp. That that feast was celebrated at St. Ulrich's on the second Sunday of October I believe on Corbinian's assertion: but that Sunday did not fall on the 9th day of October in that year, not even according to the old Calendar, unless it be begun from the Vespers of the day before.
[2] There make for the cult of Nidgarius and Adalbero the various honours publicly shown at various times to their relics to increase the devotion and veneration of the faithful toward them. of St. Ulrich at Augsburg The mortal remains of both received a tomb in the church of St. Afra, now of St. Ulrich, or of SS. Afra and Ulrich, as did also the bodies of some other prelates of the city of Augsburg, and lay there long, until at length, the eleventh century having advanced to its sixty-fourth year, when Embrico, bishop of Augsburg, had ordered the old church of St. Afra to be pulled down in order to build a new one, they were discovered together with the bodies of St. Wicterp, entered in our Work at the 18th day of April, and of St. Simpert, who died, as Corbinian Khamm writes, page 101, on the 13th day of October. Concerning this finding the author of the Chronicle of Augsburg in Freher, volume 1, page 348, writes in general thus: MLXIV. The church of St. Ulrich and St. Afra is begun from the foundations. Many bodies of Saints are found: the Augsburg prelates whom I mentioned Khamm reckons up by name in his Wicterp, and says their bodies were honourably buried under a certain vault of the Southern part, where shortly (from very old Chronicles) they began to shine with diverse miracles as an evident sign of their holiness. He presently dispatches another finding in these words: About the year MCCCCLVIII, on the occasion of building a new church, under the aforesaid vault, namely on the right side of the church or the right apse toward the monastery, near the altar of the B. Virgin Mary, there were found again 4 bodies of the Saints Adalbero, Wicterp, Simpert, Nidgarius, each placed in order in its own crypt. The first place was occupied by the body of St. Adalbero, the second by that of St. Wicterp, the third by that of St. Simpert, and the fourth by the body of St. Nidgarius: each, however, was again put back into its former crypt, no change intervening except in the adorning of the remains. In Stengel's Augusta Vindelicorum, page 63, the year 1485 is erroneously, as I think, marked for 1458.
[3] He narrates thus a third, made in the year 1480: In the year MCCCCLXXVII, when the church of St. Ulrich, raised entirely new from the foundations over eight continuous years, had been completed only the year before, to Bl. Nidgarius and Adalbero on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul it is overturned by the fury of the winds, the parish priest and his coadjutor with three of the people being crushed. Thereafter it is again restored in the year MCCCCLXXX, and on the occasion of this restoration, in the upper part of the apse already mentioned, the bones of St. Adalbero are found, and, enclosed in a painted wooden little chest, are carried to the sacristy of the peristyle. And they are also placed becomingly beside the body of St. Digna and the relics of seven other Saints of Augsburg. Sigismund, in the Chronicle of Augsburg written three years later, that is in the year 1483, adds in chapter 9 that in the sarcophagus of Nidgarius there was found this epitaph traced in very ancient characters: Of most blessed memory here rests Nidgarius, bishop; all who read, pray for him, that the merciful God may have mercy on him, amen. That Blessed one departed from this light at the time of the 17th before the Kalends of May. To Marcus Welser it seems to have been traced when Nidgarius had not yet begun to be venerated among the heavenly ones; and not badly: for the appellation Blessed here seems to be worth the same as of pious memory. Corbinian Khamm proceeds to the fourth thus: In the year MCCCCLXXXIX, the church requiring a firmer wall, the diggers of the foundations by chance came upon a sarcophagus only two feet long and a palm and a half wide, containing the bones of St. Wicterp, which, dug up on the feast of St. Scholastica, were carried together with the body of St. Nidgarius to the said sacristy of the peristyle and placed beside the relics of St. Adalbero.
[4] paid. There remained in that place, as the same writer goes on to narrate, the relics of SS. Nidgarius, Adalbero and the other Saints until the year 1619, in which John, abbot of St. Ulrich's, had them translated with solemn pomp from the hidden and old sacristy into a new sacristy founded by him and a reliquary altar built in it, on the second Sunday of October, or, as indeed he says, on the ninth day of this month: in what manner this was done both Corbinian and Stengel in his Augusta Vindelicorum, where he treats of Bl. Adalbero, describe more widely, whom whoever wishes may consult: and whoever wishes to know the altar itself will be able to inspect its picture exhibited by Hertfelder after page 62. Again another translation of the Saints of Augsburg, and that more solemn than the former, which Corbinian describes at page 108 and following, again exhibiting also a picture of the altar, was made on the second Sunday of October; of which he has thus at page 89: In the year MDCLXXXXVIII the present abbot Wilibald, in order to give greater light to the monuments of the Saints of Augsburg, to encourage those languishing in mind or body to frequent recourse, and to incite the minds of the faithful, through the sacred treasure more ornately exposed, to heap up spiritual riches, substituted for the elegant reliquary altar placed by abbot John in the year MDCI another more elegant one, also in the manner of a reliquary, built a new chapel, instituted a pious and sumptuous translation of relics with a solemnity of eight days, and also honoured the bones of St. Wicterp and of three bishops of Augsburg (Tozzo, given in our Work at the 16th day of January, Nidgarius and Adalbero), with the body of St. Digna the martyr and of other Martyrs of Augsburg, adorned with silk, gold, silver and gems, by a sacred procession to the aforesaid chapel with ingenious piety, to be described in class 2, section 4, number 8 and following; to which he adds that on the altar of the mentioned chapel, consecrated in the year 1705 on the 5th day of August in honour of the Holy Cross, St. Digna and the Saints resting here, the relics of Nidgarius and Adalbero were exposed for public veneration in his age: and at page 115 he has these things specially of St. Nidgarius: He is exposed for veneration in this age on the altar depicted in class 1, section 9, number 37. Where, with apparent traces impressed on the sacred bones of the knees by the assiduous prayers offered to God on bent knees, and clad in precious episcopal vestments elegantly embroidered with Attalic and Phrygian needle, he is visited and venerated. For the rest, the heads of both Bl. Nidgarius and Bl. Adalbero, placed on becoming bases and adorned with splendid mitres, are kept separately among the sacred treasures of the abbey of St. Ulrich, as is to be seen in Bernhard Hertfelder, formerly Prior of the same place, pages 63 and 64. It can be concluded from what has been said hitherto that both Nidgarius and Adalbero always enjoyed indeed the fame of holiness among the Vindelici, and a sacred cult from at least the eleventh century. I now proceed to their deeds.
[5] To Bl. Nidgarius Stengel, abbot of Anhausen, Rerum Augustan. It is not clear enough what Bl. Nidgarius did Vindelic., part 2, chapter XI, wove an elogium, but embracing almost only those things which are common to most holy Bishops. Omitting these, therefore, I shall record here in a few words only those things which are proper to him. Nidgarius (also called Nitgarius, Nigarius and Neodegarius) was first a nursling, then abbot, of the monastery of Ottobeuren of the Order of St. Benedict on the river Günz, situated both in the diocese of Augsburg and on the borders of the bishopric of Constance — the third, if credit is to be given to the Catalogue of the prelates of Ottobeuren which Franz Petrus, regular canon of Wettenhausen, published in the Suevia Ecclesiastica, page 831 and following; but having scarcely obtained that abbey he was called in the same year to the chair of Augsburg. He is believed to have been present at the Council of Worms in the year 868; not so much from certain documents as from the uncertain opinion, as will presently be seen, that Bl. Nidgarius governed the church of Augsburg at that time. He had at heart the restoration of the monastery of Füssen or Faucense, situated in the diocese of Augsburg, which had been burned by fire at that time, and there raised from the foundations the church of St. Magnus, though he did not complete it; on which matter the interpolator of the Life of St. Magnus (see volume 2 of September, page 757) speaks thus: Nittarius first began to build the church of blessed Magnus from the foundations; and the other prelates (of Augsburg) following him likewise built as they could; yet the hall of the basilica was not brought to the completion of the work until, the Lord assenting, Lanto obtained that holy see from the most glorious king Louis, son of Louis (the Pious), the most illustrious emperor, by his grant. St. Nidgarius went to the see of Augsburg in the year 864, and left it by dying in the year 869, on the 15th day of April, as indeed Corbinian Khamm, Stengel, Marcus Welser in the Saints of Augsburg, Hertfelder and Bruschius write; but Sigismund differs widely in the ecclesiastical Chronicle of Augsburg in Pistorius, page 599, writing this: He ruled the church at Augsburg in the year of Christ eight hundred and forty-seven: Still more widely does a Charter, reported by Karl Meichelbeck among the monuments of Freising, number 470, given on the 2nd day before the Kalends of September in the VIIIIth year of the most glorious emperor Louis (the Pious), in the Ist Indiction (perhaps XVth?), of Christ 822, by which Hitto, bishop of Freising, is said to have claimed the church in Chenperc, which Hanto, bishop of Augsburg, had formerly acquired for his church, and which Nidker, Hanto's successor, then possessed.
[6] But on the contrary Mabillon, volume 3 of the Annals, page 152, mentions the Synodical letter of the Fathers of the council of Worms of the year 868, or when Bl. Nidgarius sat: in which there appears Lintgarius, bishop of Augustusburg; by which name Nidgarius seems to be understood; for is any Lintgarius known to have occupied the see of Augsburg? But if Nidgarius presided over the church of Augsburg in the year 868, how is Lanto (most probably bishop of Augsburg, and later than Nidgarius) mentioned among the fathers of the council of Mainz celebrated under Rabanus in the year 847, in Labbe, volume 8 of the Councils, column 39? Did Nidgarius rule the church of Augsburg in the year 822, Lanto in the year 847, Lintgarius or rather Witgarius in the year 868? It seems indeed better to rest on these cited monuments than on the catalogues of the prelates of Augsburg, which neither lack their blemishes nor agree on the order and number of the bishops. I pass over Stengel, Bucelin, Bruschius and others, from whose disagreements it appears to the eye, says Corbinian Khamm in Walther and Adelger, that things far distant deceive the eye, and things remote by a long time deceive the pen: and that to determine exactly the number of the bishops of Augsburg (add also the times in which each sat) is to lose oil and labour.
[7] Bl. Adalbero sat from the year 887 to 909; No less do the Writers disagree when they define the time in which Bl. Adalbero acted as prelate of the church of Augsburg. Some, on the testimony of Corbinian Khamm, fix the beginning of his episcopate in the year 887, others in 897, others in 902; and its end in the year 909, or 917, or 922, or finally 883: in so great a discrepancy of opinions I think that Regino, a contemporary writer, and Hermann the Lame, who carried his Chronicle down to the 54th year of the eleventh century, are chiefly to be followed in this matter, and that the beginning of Bl. Adalbero's episcopate is to be fixed in the year 887, in which he succeeded Witgar, not Lanto, however much the Catalogues just praised protest; at which year Regino writes thus: In the same year bishop Witgar of the city of Augsburg died, and Adalbero, a man of noble family and of great talent and prudence, obtained his chair, succeeded him in the episcopate. And at the year 909 Hermann the Lame writes thus: Adalbero, the venerable bishop of Augsburg, died. And Hepidannus, monk of St. Gall, who lived in the same century as Hermann, differs little from him, writing thus at the year 910: Adelbert the bishop (a little before he had said of Augsburg) died. The author of the Life of St. Ulrich, bishop of Augsburg and nephew of Bl. Adalbero, who wrote in the same century in which both lived, numbers 50 years from the death of St. Ulrich, which happened in the year 973, back to his entry upon the episcopate: and to Hiltin, St. Ulrich's predecessor and Bl. Adalbero's immediate successor, he assigns 15 years of episcopate, though not complete; and if you subtract 64 years from the year 973, you will reach the year 909, in which Adalbero ceased to be among the living. Consult the Life of St. Ulrich in volume 2 of July, where you will find at pages 121 and 99 what has just been said.
[8] but his Life lies hidden or has perished. The Deeds of Bl. Adalbero must be gathered here and there, since we lack his Life: that some Life of him existed, however, Sigismund teaches in the Chronicle of Augsburg, chapter IX: But the History of his (Adalbero's) Life, he says, the illustrious man Udalschalk wrote to bishop Walther, and his liberality, and how he was famous for miracles in the church of St. Afra. Walther held the see of Augsburg from the year 1134 to about the year 1150; whence is clear the age of Udalschalk, first a monk of St. Afra's and then also, from the year 1126 to the year 1150, abbot, concerning whom Sigismund has more in part 2 of the Chronicle of Augsburg, chapters 1 and 2. The Life of Bl. Adalbero written by Udalschalk is mentioned by Stengel in his Augusta Vindelicorum written in German, chapter XI, by Corbinian Khamm, Hierarchia Augustana, part 2, page 240, and by Bucelin in the Benedictine Menology at the 12th day of June, who joins the monk Ermenric to Udalschalk: His Life, he says, was described by Ermenric the monk and Udalschalk the abbot; which, however, I have not yet deserved to see; which is perhaps not wonderful: for since I find that it was nowhere either published in print or seen by more recent writers, it becomes very probable that it lies hidden somewhere in darkness, or has perished; perhaps not without great loss to the History of Augsburg, to which, most probably, it would bring some light if it were itself brought to light.
[9] Regino, a contemporary writer, praises Adalbero for the splendour of his birth, By birth for the greatness of his talent, and for his prudence. Corbinian Khamm says he was born at Kyburg, of the counts of Wittislingen, Dillingen and Kyburg: the latter county is situated on the left of the river Töss in the Zürich district of Switzerland; and Dillingen (from which Wittislingen is little distant) in Swabia on the Danube between Ulm and Donauwörth. The pedigree of the counts of Kyburg from an old Ms. codex of the Library of St. Ulrich Welser subjoined to the Life of St. Ulrich first published and illustrated by him, in which count Hartmann, father of count Hupald, leads the column; Hupald is there said to have been born about the year 865, to have begotten in 890 St. Ulrich, bishop of Augsburg, and to have died in 908. Stengel, Bucelin, Hertfelder, Bruschius, Crusius and Corbinian Khamm also say that Adalbero was born of this family: but there is not entire agreement between Bruschius and Khamm; of whom the former, speaking of the monastery of Neresheim in the Chronology of the monasteries of Germany, makes Adalbero the brother of Hupald, and the latter the brother of Hartmann, that is of the grandfather of St. Ulrich. Neither brings forward the foundation of his opinion: Henninges, volume 4, part 2 of the Theatrum Genealogicum, page 295, says that Hupald under Henry the Fowler [led] an army against the Obotrites and Vandals (of Mecklenburg,
who were also called Vandals) in the year 935 (rather 931): and if it were so, I would easily believe with Khamm that Bl. Adalbero, who died in the year 909, was Hupald's paternal uncle. But St. Ulrich, when he returned from Rome to his homeland after the death of Bl. Adalbero, found his mother a widow, as his Life expressly has it at number 6, volume 2 of July, page 99: wherefore it is necessary that Hupald departed from among the living at about the same time as Bl. Adalbero; which, however, does not prevent Bl. Adalbero from having been his paternal uncle; since Hupald, according to the ancient codex of the monastery of St. Ulrich, was born in the year 865, and so was 43 years of age; while Adalbero, whom it was enough for others to name only a blood-relation of St. Ulrich, could have numbered many more.
[10] Bl. Adalbero joined to the nobility of his family virtue and holiness of life from his early age; and illustrious for his virtues and indeed, through zeal for virtue, setting aside the honours of the world, he followed the institutes of St. Benedict in the monastery of Ellwangen, situated on the Jagst, a river of Franconia, and made such progress in them that he was chosen not only abbot of that place, but also bishop of Augsburg, tutor of Louis, king of Germany, son of the emperor Arnulf, and abbot of Lorsch. He presided over the monastery of Ellwangen from the year 882 to the year 909 in the opinion of Stengel in the Mantissa to the Commentary on the affairs of Augsburg: but Corbinian Khamm thinks far otherwise; and indeed this author defines the time in which he ruled the abbey of Ellwangen as a space of 17 years, namely from the year 905 to 922, in the Auctarium of part 1 of the Hierarchia Augustana, on the progress of the church of Ellwangen, chapter 3, page 19, and chapter 6, page 142, from the Catalogue of the abbots of Ellwangen: but in part I of the Hierarchia, page 120, he had written thus: Taken up as tutor of the emperor Louis III, shortly afterwards, Hatto, abbot of the monastery of Ellwangen, having been taken up to the archiepiscopal see of Mainz, he was substituted for him in the abbey. Thence, compelled to put his hand to greater helms, and ordered by the emperor Arnulf to take up the episcopal fasces of Augsburg … held in great esteem, he was also given the abbey of Lorsch DISPENSATIVELY (as the Chronicle of Lorsch speaks, as he being already bishop of Augsburg and abbot of Ellwangen). Hatto was consecrated archbishop of Mainz in the year 891, on the testimony of Regino: Arnulf was blessed with Louis in the year 893 according to the Annals of Fulda in Freher, volume 1, page 51. And so I do not grasp how Bl. Adalbero could have instructed Louis, born in the year 893, before Hatto was raised to the see of Mainz, that is before the year 891. It follows moreover from Corbinian's words that Bl. Adalbero acted as Louis's preceptor before he was advanced to the bishopric of Augsburg; whereas this happened already from the year 887, on the testimony of Regino.
[11] he was made abbot of Ellwangen, Helwich, Antiquities of Lorsch, section 2, chapter 12, says that Bl. Adalbero was made abbot of Lorsch from monk of Ellwangen in the year 892, Arnulf being already then emperor; and then, the said monastery having been recalled to its former discipline, that he returned to the monastery of Ellwangen in the year 898, and was at length promoted to the fillets of Augsburg. He therefore contradicts Regino, not only when he defers the beginning of Bl. Adalbero's episcopate to at the least the year 898; but also when he affirms that Arnulf was adorned with the imperial dignity already from the year 892. Hear Regino: In the year of the Lord's Incarnation, he says, DCCCLXXXXVI, Arnulf, having entered the city, was received with great honour by Formosus, prelate of the apostolic see, and, crowned before the confession of St. Peter, is created emperor. He contradicts also, to pass over many other things, the Diploma of Pope Stephen, who succeeded Formosus, mentioned by Labbe, part 1 of the Chronologia technica, page 257, which is read there as given in the XIVth Indiction, and so in the year 896, on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of September, the lord most pious Augustus Arnulf, crowned by God, great emperor, reigning in his first year. He contradicts the Synod of Tribur, celebrated in the year 895, the 8th of Arnulf (not yet emperor, but king), in the 13th Indiction, in the month of May, to which Adalpero, bishop of Augsburg, is read to have subscribed. Whether Stengel wrote rightly or otherwise that Adalbero presided over the monastery of Ellwangen from the year 882 to 909, I would not dare rashly to pronounce, both because other writers disagree with him here, and because I have not ascertained on what monuments and reasons he relied in writing it: but meanwhile, until some more light shines on this matter from somewhere, I proceed to the other things which are read to have been done by Bl. Adalbero.
[12] and was deemed worthy to be the governor of Louis, son of the emperor Arnulf, The Annalist of Fulda, in Bouquet, volume 8 of the Writers of French Affairs, page 54, narrates that a son Louis was born to king Arnulf at Altötting in Bavaria in the year 893, who they write was washed in the sacred waters by Bl. Adalbero; to which matter the praised Annalist gives credit at the said year in the following words: In which (the royal court of Otting) not long afterwards a son was born to him, whom Hado, archbishop of Mainz, and Adalpero, bishop of the Vindelici, anointing him at the sacred font of baptism, called Louis by the name of his grandfather. Louis, whom Bl. Adalbero baptized, Hatto raised from the sacred font: hence, as Serarius writes in his Hatto, Arnulf called Hatto his co-father in public Diplomas. And in Hund, volume 1 of the Metropolis Salisburgensis, page 469, there exists a Diploma of Louis by which he receives the church of Säben under his protection, as he had been asked by bishop Meginbert, through the intervention, says Louis, of bishops beloved by us, namely Adalbero our spiritual father and master, and of Salomon, etc. Whence it is also clear that Louis was not only washed in the sacred waters by Adalbero, but that the upbringing and instruction of the royal prince were also committed to him after the death of Arnulf, which Louis wished to be publicly testified elsewhere too. Thus in volume 1 of the Diplomas of Lorsch, published in the year 1766 in the press of the monastery of Tegernsee, page 105, there exists a Diploma of Louis at the beginning of which he mentions Bl. Adalbero not without signal praise thus: In the name etc. Louis, by the favour of divine providence king. Be it made manifest to the college of all the Orthodox of the present time and of the future how the most reverend worshipper of God, namely the honourable prelate of Augsburg by name Adalbero, our very faithful nourisher, etc. This diploma was given on the 4th day before the Kalends of May, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCCC, in the IIIrd Indiction, in the first year of the reign of the Lord king Louis.
[13] Brunner, On the Virtue and Fortune of the Bavarians, book 7, chapter 6, governor. attributes the office which we attribute to Adalbero to Waldo, bishop of Freising, writing thus: The due rites having been paid according to custom (to the emperor Arnulf), the nobles of Germany in the very secular year nine hundred celebrate a diet at Forchheim, and salute as king Arnulf's son Louis, still seven years old; the highest men were set about his boyhood: the guardianship was committed to Hatto of Mainz and Otto, duke of the Saxons: Theodomar, archbishop of Salzburg, wrote letters in the king's name: Luitpold, set over the Eastern frontier of Bavaria, received the supreme command of military affairs: Waldo, prelate of Freising, was given as master to cultivate the royal disposition. Thus Brunner, no mention being made of Bl. Adalbero. But what is the cause of this silence? I am deceived if it is not to be traced from the Diploma of Louis of which mention is made in Hund, just praised, page 298. It is noted as given in the same year as the Diploma of Louis cited in the number above, 900, in the IVth Indiction, the first of Louis's reign, on the 14th before the Kalends of February, and Hund, relating its argument, uses these words: He (Louis) says that Richar, bishop of the people of Passau, through certain of his nobles, and Adalbero, Prelate, and his most zealous nourisher Waltho, bishop of Freising, and also Luitpold, the illustrious count, his beloved kinsman, disclosed, etc.: where the interjection of a comma, omitted after those words, his most zealous nourisher, appears to me to have given Brunner occasion to apply those words, and his most zealous nourisher, to Waltho, bishop of Freising, which nevertheless, according to the Diploma praised in the number above, should have been applied to Bl. Adalbero. By the first of these Diplomas Louis benefits Sigolf, a cenobite of Lorsch; by the second he handed over Anisum, a city of Upper Austria (Enns), to the monastery of St. Florian, Adalbero labouring not a little toward it. That monastery, formerly of the Benedictines, after various vicissitudes became a provostship of regular canons of St. Augustine, and is situated about midway on the road between Linz and Steyr.
§ II. The administration of the monastery of Lorsch entrusted to Bl. Adalbero, his favour with Arnulf and Louis, his liberality toward the monks of St. Gall, his death and miracles.
Bl. Adalbero is set over Lorsch, Gerhard, abbot of the monastery of Lorsch in Franconia — which in that age was Benedictine, but was afterwards Augustinian — having been taken from this life about the year 892, regular discipline had collapsed there. The matter having been ascertained, Arnulf, in order to bring a remedy to this evil, took away from the monks of Lorsch the right and faculty of electing an abbot, and took upon himself the care of appointing there an abbot who should fear God, and love the divine precepts, and restore the former discipline, and laid this burden on Bl. Adalbero. He vigorously discharged the province laid on him; but as soon as he saw the first vigour of discipline restored by his work, he bade farewell to the honour and advantage which could come to him from it, and had such authority and favour with the emperor that he restored to the monks of Lorsch the licence of electing an abbot at their choice, if anyone among them were found fit for that office, as is to be seen in volume 1 of the Diplomas of Lorsch, page 98 and following, in the precept of the emperor on that matter exhibited there. It is read there to have been given on the 3rd day before the Kalends of February, in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 896, in the XVth Indiction, in the Xth year of the lord Arnolf, and the IIIrd of his empire. But these chronological notes, cohering ill with one another, are not without a blemish: for the XVth Indiction designates the year 897, and the Xth year of Arnulf's reign and the IIIrd of his empire the year 898, in which that Diploma seems to have been given. Yet that Diploma seems to have obtained its full effect later: for in the volume just praised, page 106, there occurs a Charter of Hatto given in the year 902, in which he calls himself prelate of the church of Mainz and abbot of Lorsch, and the Chronographer of Lorsch, in Freher, volume 1, page 68 and following, writes that Liuther was invested with the abbey of Lorsch by Conrad, king of Germany. And how splendidly Arnulf thought of Bl. Adalbero the following words of the Diploma given at his request in favour of the monks of Lorsch betray: But we, says Arnulf, worn by frequent blows of words of this kind, by the counsel of all our faithful delegated the same monastery to be governed to Adalbero, our venerable and most beloved bishop, whom we know and recognize to be ready for every good. After this he too, setting aside every secular honour and advantage which he could obtain from it, preferring to lay up treasure in heaven, besought our clemency that, lest anyone might be able to snatch away that place by the fraud or snares of the malicious, we should enrich it with its former honour, and grant them licence to elect abbots from among themselves according to their choice. To whose pious and fatherly admonitions we gladly gave assent.
[15] to which, though he had bidden it farewell, But although Adalbero put off the burden of the abbey of Lorsch, he did not put off his fatherly affection toward that place: as is clear from the following instrument, which, although somewhat prolix, it pleases me to transfer here entire from volume 1 of the Diplomas of Lorsch, page 100 and following, as an excellent monument of his piety. To all who have the grace of the Orthodox faith in Christ I desire it to be known how I, Adalbero, the most devoted servant of the servants of Christ and the most humble prelate of the church of Augsburg, led by the love of divine reward and of true charity, have not ceased to deal with the stability of the excellent monastery which is called Lorsch, after I received from God the care of governing the venerable congregation of the same monastery, that I might restore the same congregation for perpetual times in the former degree of the imperial privilege by royal and august authority, and that after the laying down of my life I might fit some of my own goods, which I acquired by August precept, the glorious emperor Arnulf delivering them, to the use of the same holy congregation. All which things too, and in all things, God helping, I have accomplished. For I deliver, for the commemoration and increase of my reward and of my lord himself, who granted those goods to me, whatever of property I am seen to have, by the confirmation of an imperial precept, in the place which is called Gernsheim in the Rhine district, to the aforesaid monastery of Lorsch in the district of the Rheingau in the county of Geberhard, beside the little river which is called the Weschnitz, where we clearly believe the body of the most blessed martyr Nazarius rests, and where in present time the venerable abbot Liuther (the supreme authority, however, being with Hatto, archbishop of Mainz) is seen to preside by regular discipline, with all things justly and lawfully pertaining thereto, in the little villages and places lying round on every side, courts, buildings, slaves of both sexes, fields, lands, meadows, woods, plains, pastures, waters or watercourses, cultivated and uncultivated places, movable and immovable goods, ways and pathless places, fisheries, mills, outgoings and incomings, things sought and unsought, passing over nothing outside.
[16] But everything whatsoever that can be said or named, of his goodwill toward it, I deliver the whole to St. Nazarius, as I said above, and transfer it, as I proposed in the reasoning above, and with most ready will, with the hand of my advocate Heriger, I confirm it for ever, supported by stipulation: on this condition, namely, that the same aforesaid goods which I deliver, and those which in return I am seen to receive by a precarial charter of agreement and for the sake of familiarity and fraternity — that is, the little church situated within the monastery itself, in which I have laid up relics of the holy Mother of God Mary, and of St. Afra, the most blessed martyr of Christ, and of St. Magnus, the excellent confessor of Christ, with the little dwellings and other necessaries, gardens and meadows, with two servile prebends and one monastic prebend for myself. Moreover the villa of Weinheim and Birkenau, and Gunnenbach, and Lieberesbach, and Liuthereshusen, with the other places and little villages belonging thereto: Scarra and Biblis, with all things justly and lawfully belonging and pertaining to all the places noted before, with churches, courts, buildings, slaves of both sexes, lands, fields, meadows, vineyards, plains, woods, pastures, waters or watercourses, cultivated and uncultivated places, movable and immovable goods, fisheries, mills, ways and pathless places, outgoings and incomings, things sought and unsought, passing over nothing outside, but everything whatsoever that can be said and named in the aforesaid places, I receive the whole from the abbot of the aforenamed monastery and from the brethren, with the hands of their advocates Adalwin and Bennilin, and dispose to have it in such wise that, as long as by God's grant I shall live in this mortal life, it may be lawful for me, without any trouble of anyone contradicting, to hold, order and enjoy for my own use both sets of goods, those which I gave and those which I received by precarial grant, with power and securely and quietly.
[17] and at the same time of his virtues But if anyone, which I do not at all believe and least of all desire, shall break this agreement with me, let it be lawful for me to retain to myself, or to deliver to whomever I wish, my own goods which I acquired by imperial precept. But after the laying down of my temporal life, if my agreement shall have remained for me thus firm and unbroken, as is noted above, let all the goods which I delivered, or which in return I received by the precarial grant of mutual agreement, return with all integrity to the already often-mentioned monastery into its right and perpetual dominion, on this tenor, however, that out of these goods, which I acquired by the precept of an imperial muniment and most devoutly delivered to St. N., the rulers of the same sacred place, with all the brethren, should in the year of my deposition celebrate the anniversary day with full charity in food and drink, and should study to perform faithfully my commemoration in their sacred prayers in the church, that is, on the 7th before the Ides of August at the Mass of St. Afra the martyr, and on the 18th before the Kalends of September at that of the Assumption of St. Mary the virgin, and on the 8th before the Ides of September at that of the solemnity of St. Magnus, confessor of Christ, and on the very day of my anniversary. Moreover also, one year intervening, that is in the second year, fur garments, and thereafter again, one year intervening, capes, should be most devoutly presented to all the brethren serving God there, every occasion of excuse set aside, out of the aforesaid place which is called Gernsheim, for my commemoration, as long as the present world shall endure from hour to hour, and from night to night, and from day to day, and from year to year. And the little church which in the same agreement I received within the said place for the sake of familiarity, let it be worthily provided with roofing and lights from the same place written above which I delivered.
[18] left a notable monument. This charter of delivery of this agreement I ordered to be made as a perpetual muniment, bishops and many counts and innumerable men knowing and seeing it, so that no person may ever presume to infringe or violate it, but that it may remain confirmed in eternal stability. And if anyone shall attempt to break into it, or shall endeavour to withdraw from these brethren anything of those places which I delivered to St. N., as by the writing above I agreed with them, or shall give it in benefice to anyone, let him be presented before the tribunal of the tremendous examination, terribly accused, to render account to almighty God, judge of the living and the dead: and moreover let it be lawful for the prelate of the church of Augsburg to receive and possess the aforenamed court of Gernsheim, with all things justly and lawfully pertaining, for the house of St. Mary the virgin. Counselled and ordained publicly in the city of Worms, the archbishops Hatho (of Mainz) and Ratbod (of Trier) and bishop Tiethelah (of Worms) being present, and moreover the counts Conrad, Walaho, Gebehard, Rupert, Liutfrid, Burkard, Dragebod. Rudhard, procurator of the royal house, seeing it, and innumerable men hearing it: with abbot Liuther, and with the consent of all the brethren dwelling at Lorsch. On the 13th before the Kalends of June. Amen. Whoever weighs this Diploma will seem, I think, to see in it a prelate, noble indeed by birth, humble in mind, full of charity, loving and solicitous for his own, grateful toward those whom he had felt beneficent to him, zealous for the cult of the Saints, tenacious of the just and equitable, and not undiligently providing for his salvation for the world to come.
[19] Not Germany only but Italy too was witness of his goodwill. he accompanied the emp. Arnulf into Italy, For when Arnulf had been summoned by Pope Formosus in the year 895 to protect him from the assaults of his adversaries, and had reached Ticinum, Ribsinda, abbess of the monastery of St. Mary Theodota of the Benedictine Order, asked and obtained from the king the confirmation of the privileges of her monastery, Bl. Adalbero furthering her requests. There exists a Diploma of Arnulf on that matter in Muratori, volume 3 of the Italian Antiquities of the middle age, page 52, given at Pavia on the Kalends of December in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 895, in the XIIIth Indiction, the eighth of king Arnulf. I have praised this Diploma of Arnulf the more gladly because it is established from it that Bl. Adalbero, after the Synod of Tribur was finished, went off into Italy together with Arnulf in the year 895, and was present at his coronation performed by Pope Formosus about the beginning of the following year, which I have not hitherto read elsewhere. Arnulf there not only names Adalbero bishop of the holy church of Augsburg, but also says that he confirms the privileges of Ribsinda's monastery for the love of God and of Mary the Mother of God, and also at the venerable petition of his beloved and most faithful Adalpero. The Indiction XIII in that Diploma, however, must be corrected, since in the year 895 on the Kalends of December the Indiction running was not XIII but XIV; unless you would have it, with Muratori, that Arnulf here used the Pontifical or Roman Indiction, which takes its beginning from the Kalends of January.
[20] That he was ready also to help with what aid he could those pressed by calamity, and rendered his son Louis to the monks of St. Florian, the cenobites of St. Florian experienced, as is clear from the Diploma of Louis, king of Germany, of which I made mention at number 13, and which is reported summarily in Hund, volume 1 of the Metropolis Salisburgensis, page 298. It is read there to have been given, as was said above, on the 14th before the Kalends of February in the year 900, in the IVth Indiction, the Ist of his reign: but the IVth Indiction designates not the year 900 but 901; earlier than which it does not seem it could have been given: for, as is read in the Diploma, Louis granted the town of Anisum to the monastery of St. Florian on account of damages inflicted by the Pagans, that is the Hungarians, and indeed after Louis's faithful men had unanimously built that city, as it is called there, for the protection of the fatherland against the snares of the same persecutors of the Christian name, newly on the bank of the river Enns, on the property of the already said martyr (Florian) and partly on the land of the prefecture, etc. And this happened after count Liutpold, together with Richar, bishop of Passau, having pursued beyond the Danube and attacked the Hungarians returning from Italy, who had laid waste Bavaria far and wide, conquered them in a happy battle, in the year, as the second continuation of the Annals of Fulda in volume 8 of the Writers of French Affairs, page 60, teaches us, nine hundred: for after the victory of Liutpold just mentioned is related, it goes on there thus: Having met in the same place after the victory given them from heaven … they returned to their companions whence they had come, and very quickly, for that very time, for the protection of their kingdom, they set up against them a very strong city with a wall on the shore of the river Enns. That Diploma therefore, since it was given in the month of January, belongs only to the year 901, in which the fourth Indiction was running, and the first year of Louis, not from the death of his father Arnulf, who died in the year 899 on the third day before the Kalends of December according to Regino; but from when, in the year 900, as the same Regino writes, Louis was elected king of Germany; if, however, that election took place after the 14th before the Kalends of February.
[21] and to others beneficent, In the same Hund, where he treats of the bishops of Regensburg, page 249, as also in Pez, volume 1 of the Anecdota, part 3, page 39, there exists another Diploma of the same Louis, given in the year 903, in the VIth Indiction, the IVth of his reign, on the 16th before the Kalends of March, by which to Tuto, bishop of Regensburg, the villa of Teorinhova
he gives into the right and ownership of St. Emmeram; which donation is read there to have been made by the consent and counsel of the venerable bishops and Pontiffs Adalbero and Erchinbald (of Eichstätt) and of the nobles Liutbald and Cumbald. Bl. Adalbero also deserved excellently of the church of Freising in the year 906. St. Corbinian, bishop of Freising, had obtained for his people and household the faculty of electing a bishop from among themselves, which had afterwards been confirmed by royal letters: but while Waldo held that see, the devouring flame consumed not only the episcopal buildings but also the aforesaid letters: Waldo therefore pressed king Louis that the liberty long since granted to his church should be renewed, and he obtained his wish, but not without the intervention of Bl. Adalbero. Meichelbeck published that Diploma in the History of Freising, volume 1, page 152, and says, page 21, that it exists entirely unharmed even today in the Chartulary of the most reverend and most illustrious college. Concerning the church of Säben or Brixen received under Louis's protection in the year 909 through the agency of Bl. Adalbero see number 12. More Diplomas of this kind, as I scarcely doubt, exist or existed: but I think that those adduced hitherto suffice for anyone easily to conjecture in how great honour and veneration he was with Arnulf, Louis, and the bishops and nobles of Germany, and that it may be plain that the anonymous author of the Life of St. Ulrich not undeservedly said of him that they recognized him as filled at that time with much wisdom, endowed above the rest with the art of music, and disposing almost all the helms of the kingdom with the king (Louis of Germany).
[22] and toward the monks of St. Gall But above all he was munificent toward the monks of St. Gall; and not undeservedly was he celebrated by the monks of St. Gall in rivalry for his liberality. In Goldast, volume 1, part 1, Hepidannus speaks thus: DCCCCVIII … Adalbero, bishop of Augsburg, came with great equipage and many gifts to the monastery of St. Gall. They are enumerated in the Histories written by the brethren of the monastery of St. Gall, in Goldast, volume 2, page 141 and following. The words in which this is done, because they serve not a little to commend the glory of Bl. Adalbero and his piety toward the Saints, I have not thought should be neglected here or plainly passed over. They run thus, then: In the year from the Lord's Incarnation DCCCCVIII, Louis, son of the emperor Arnulf, reigning, in the XIth year of his reign, in the XIth Indiction, on the Ides of October, on Saturday, on the vigil of St. Gall the confessor, there came the most noble pontiff of Augusta Vindelica of blessed memory, Adalbero, having joined to himself the most gentle prelate of the church of Säben, Meginbert, into the monastery of St. Gall, desiring to be present at his festivity. And when he had spent the very night of the venerable solemnity in the monastery, in the morning, entering the basilica, he went to the tomb of the holy Confessor. Then, having summoned the brethren to himself, he himself being joined to the right side of the altar, he placed upon the altar a golden cross set with gems, and an onyx chalice elegantly furnished with gold and gems, with a golden paten likewise jewelled. A little pall too, and a chasuble of a precious kind, and also an alb with girdle and stole and maniple, all these worked with gold, he applied to the same altar.
[23] And he also conferred a great quantity of wax on the holy building. he was most liberal. He also gave over to the place a bell of wonderful size and excellent sonority. And thence, going to the coffer of St. Othmar, he spread over its altar a quite precious pall. After this he enters the church of St. Peter, and bestows there a little pall of great value. The rest of what follows declares a munificence and goodwill poured out even on the individual monks, which can be read there. Adalbero had been moved by the holiness of the monastery already perceived before, as is to be gathered from Ekkehard the Younger in Goldast, volume 1, page 14, where Adalbero is narrated to have said many and very splendid things about the holiness of that place and of its inhabitants. Further, these were not ungrateful for such great munificence. For thus the author of the Histories just praised goes on: For the grace of whose inestimable benefit the whole soldiery of the holy purpose together, with one assent, decreed that both they themselves and their successors should exhibit to the Man of happy memory, namely the lord bishop Adalbero, the same sum of prayer as to any abbot of this monastery, whether living in the world or departing from the world at God's call. For the pontiff Megimbert too it was decreed to promise the prayer of one proper brother, so that, as the commemoration is performed for any of us, so it should be fulfilled for him also in every kind of prayer. And that no oblivion might destroy this constitution, it was pleasing that it be inserted in the book of our Rule, so that, while this codex is more frequently seen and read, the memory of the blessed Prelate may be held more strictly. For the rest, there is an error here in Goldast; for the vigil of St. Gall in that year did not fall at once on the Ides of September and on a Saturday, but on the Nones of the same month, which it may suffice to have noted in passing. Likewise concerning the arm of St. Magnus conferred by Bl. Adalbero on the monastery of St. Gall between the year 887 and 889, see in volume 2 of September the Commentary prefixed to the Acts of St. Magnus, abbot, number 103, page 720, where moreover at page 733, number 167 and following, you will find that certain goods, once given to the monastery of St. Gall by Salomon, the third of this name, bishop of Constance, were confirmed to it through the work of Bl. Adalbero by Arnulf in the year 898.
[24] In the same year, as Staindel writes in the Chronicle (consult volume 1 of the Writers of Bavarian Affairs, page 455), [he was not present at the consecration of the church of St. Emmeram in the year 898.] Bl. Adalbero was present at the consecration of the monastery of St. Emmeram, performed by Pope Formosus on the 9th day before the Kalends of October. This is also asserted (the year and month in which that consecration took place being, however, omitted) in a Diploma of Louis, king of Germany, which is noted as given in the year 903. As regards the year 898, it is certain that Pope Formosus departed from among the living before that year, and hence it is likewise certain that he did not then consecrate the church of St. Emmeram. That Formosus was ever at Regensburg during the whole time in which he occupied the pontifical See, there exists no indication among the ancients. That Arnulf was invited by him to Rome again and again, partly at the year 890 (which nevertheless was done in the year immediately following) and partly at the year 895, the continuator of the Annals of Fulda, volume 8 of the Writers of French Affairs, page 56, teaches, but through letters and messengers or legates. Again the king was earnestly invited by Formosus the Apostolic to come to Rome, through letters and messengers, he says at the latter year. It remains, therefore, that Formosus was at Regensburg in the year 890 (or rather in the year 891, in which he was elected Pontiff). But neither does it seem to have happened then: for since he had been elected Pontiff against the struggle of the Sergian faction, and Sergius had gone off into Tuscany to implore help from marquis Adalbert, he would have exposed himself to the danger of losing his See if, leaving Rome, he had gone off into Germany so soon. Finally, what was the occasion or cause for consecrating the monastery of St. Emmeram? The continuator of the Annals of Fulda indeed teaches that the city of Regensburg was burned in the year 891: but he adds: Except the house of St. Emmeram the martyr and the church of St. Cassian situated in the middle of the city, which were divinely defended from the fire.
[25] [After his death, which St. Ulrich heard of at Rome from Marinus, afterwards Pope,] But among the benefits which he conferred on his church of Augsburg, not to be numbered in the last place is the education of St. Ulrich, bishop of Augsburg after him and Hiltin: Who (Hupald and Thetpirga, his parents) then, seized by a wise counsel, subjected him (Ulrich) to the lordship of Adalbero, prelate of the church of Augsburg, says the anonymous author of the Life of St. Ulrich in Welser, page 521; on whose testimony also St. Ulrich, when he was Adalbero's chamberlain, having set out for Rome, heard there from Pope Marinus of his death, and that he himself would one day be bishop of Augsburg, but in turbulent times. Bl. Adalbero died, from what has been said, in the year 909, when Sergius III was sitting at Rome, whose uprightness of life was not such that he should be believed to have had the gift of prophecy. Pope Marinus, the first of this name, had then ceased to be among the living for many years: and Marinus II obtained the Roman Pontificate only in the year 943. How then could St. Ulrich in the year 909 learn of the death of Bl. Adalbero from Pope Marinus? Welser not ineptly judges that the author of the Life of St. Ulrich here used anticipation, so that the sense is that St. Ulrich learned these things from Marinus when not yet Pontiff, but afterwards raised to that dignity. Certainly Oldoini, in his notes to Ciaconius, relates that Marinus, afterwards Pope, was enrolled in the number of the Cardinals of the H. R. C. by Stephen VI, who is said to have died in the year 900. For the rest, this interpretation of Welser is the more approved by me from this also, that the same author used a similar manner of speaking elsewhere too: for thus he has in Welser, page 525: And when he (Adalbero the younger, Ulrich's nephew by his sister), taught and educated by him (a certain monk Benedict) in all advances of good knowledge and discipline, had come to manly strength, at once taken out of the school, he was presented by his uncle the bishop (Ulrich) to the emperor and commended into the hands of his mercy, and applied himself to the royal service so zealously and becomingly, until his ministry in ecclesiastical and secular things had well pleased the emperor. St. Ulrich certainly brought Adalbero the younger from the school into Otto's court before the year 941, in which Corbinian Khamm, Hierarchia Augustana, part 1, page 573, writes that Adalbero the younger received the abbey of Ottobeuren in commendam from Otto. And yet Otto was crowned emperor at Rome only in the year 962. As therefore the author writes that Adalbero was commended by Ulrich to the emperor Otto when he was not yet emperor, so also he must be judged to have handed down in writing that Ulrich was at Rome with Marinus when not yet Pontiff.
[26] The same author adds to these that Bl. Adalbero, already taken from among the living, he appeared to some, and is said to have been famous for miracles. offered himself more than once to be seen by a certain Rambert, foretold some things to him, and stood by St. Ulrich as he was engaged in the sacred ministries, which it may suffice to have indicated here in passing. He is read to have been famous for miracles after his death in the Catalogue of the bishops of Augsburg and abbots of St. Afra in Johann Georg Eckhart, Corpus historicum medii aevi, volume 2, column 2241 and following. The Catalogue ends with Manegold, elected abbot of St. Afra in the year 1179. Here are the words of the Catalogue about Bl. Adalbero, though mutilated: Adalbero, the seventeenth after Dionysius the martyr, presided, endowed with all holiness. Whose precious death in the sight of the Lord St. Marinus, Pope, perceived at Rome; and so he made it known to St. Ulrich, who was there at that time. He is buried at St. Afra's, at whose sepulchre many benefits are furnished to the sick. Of him among other things is read… In that and in such a place you abound; confer it in my monastery on those serving God and me. On the same night, meeting another matron, Chora recounts her thirst in like manner, as has been set out:
and thus obtains the vineyards of the matron, in whose fruitfulness she herself abounded. When morning came, the matrons relate to one another what they had seen, and promptly hand over to the monastery the whole sum, which was very great, assigning it. But the words which follow the lacuna seem to pertain to St. Ulrich: for the title is lacking both to Hiltin and to St. Ulrich; and what is narrated a little after in the same place about the soldier insolent toward the cenobites of St. Afra, punished with a horrible death, certainly pertains to St. Ulrich.