Simpert

ON ST. SIMPERT, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, AT AUGSBURG,

ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THE 9TH CENTURY.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Simpert, bishop, confessor, at Augsburg. (S.)

BY J. B.

§ I. The writers of his Life and various monuments illustrating the affairs of St. Simpert: his birth: his piety in the Order of St. Benedict which he embraced.

The deeds of St. Simpert, bishop of Augusta Vindelicorum in Swabia, have been commended to the memory of posterity by writers numerous indeed, The Life and Miracles in the 13th century, but very far removed from the Saint's age, such as Gonon On the Lives of the Fathers of the West, Bernhard Hertfelder On the Basilica of SS. Ulrich and Afra, Carl Stengel in the Augsburg Chronicle written in German, as also in Latin in a separate little Work printed at Augsburg in the year 1616; Mabillon in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, century IV, part 2, page 553 and the two following; Rader in tome 3 of Bavaria Sancta; Corbinian Khamm in the Augsburg Hierarchy, part 1, chapter 6, class 2, section 1, page 99 and following. Somewhat older than these is Sigismund, in Pistorius, part 1, chapter 9 of the Augsburg Chronicle, which he dedicated in the year 1483 to Johann von Giltlingen, abbot of SS. Ulrich and Afra. Adilbert, Prior of the same monastery, wrote the Life of St. Simpert, by whom he had been granted a notable benefit, in fulfillment of a vow, about the fifth century after his death. The age of Adilbert, earlier than whom no one at least professedly wrote a Life of St. Simpert, which Papebroch, tome 7 of May, page 548, rightly tied, although by conjecture, to the 13th century, is openly drawn out from what Corbinian Khamm narrates about Hildebrand, abbot of SS. Ulrich and Afra, in part 3 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, chapter 1, section 20, page 55: for he says that Hildebrand, elected abbot in the year 1230 and taken from among the living in the year 1243, held fixed and ratified the testament of Adilbert the Prior, who had written the Lives of SS. Ulrich, Afra and Simpert, and so it is necessary that Adilbert died his day while Hildebrand was governing the monastery of St. Ulrich.

[2] by Adilbert, a monk of St. Ulrich's, Moreover Adilbert candidly confesses that the things which he found written about St. Simpert are very few, namely, as it appears, those which are contained about him in the Life of St. Magnus, which he praises at the end of chapter 2: but that the rest, such as pertain to his genealogy and boyhood, he drew from the report of others and from ancient tradition propagated down to his own age. This lucubration of Adilbert on St. Simpert, transcribed from a Manuscript codex of the monastery of St. Ulrich with the original phrasing preserved, Pez brought into the third part of tome 2 of the Newest Treasury of Anecdota from page 355, to which he also added other monuments suitable for illustrating the deeds done by St. Simpert; which we too have taken care to reprint below, having collated them with copies likewise preserved with us and received from Fr. Alexander Wiltheim of Luxembourg, since we neither have better than these nor is there hope that we shall obtain them from elsewhere. There is likewise preserved in our archives a shorter History of the Life, Finding and first Translation of St. Simpert, which seems to have been composed from the lucubration of Adilbert, or certainly not older than it, and contains many fables about the ancestors of St. Simpert, which it would be of no help to relate, much less to confute: the same is our judgment of the Excerpts from a certain genealogical tree, mixing true things with false, whose author perhaps is Matthäus Marschall von Pappenheim, canon of the cathedral of Augsburg, who, Corbinian Khamm writes in part 3 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, chapter 1, section 31, page 102, in the year 1494 distinguished and delineated by explanation the genealogy both of St. Ulrich and of St. Simpert.

[3] But, that the discourse may return to Adilbert and the other monuments of St. Simpert printed by Pez, as author, he wrote not only the Life of St. Simpert, but also narrates certain Miracles that followed the first finding and translation of his body, which took place in the year 1064, few out of many, and, as he testifies in the Preface, from the report of others, especially since, as he says in the same place at num. 3, it had now long been the case that on account of their frequency none were noted, none published, none written. Hence it came about that in chapter 5, treating of the Miracles which took place about the time of the first translation, that is, the year 1064, he says only in general that sight was restored to the blind, hearing to the deaf, walking to the lame, and that demons were expelled from human bodies by the merits of St. Simpert: but thence he proceeds to two miracles which he ties to the year 1180, and which he could learn either from the monuments of his monastery or from its older members. Then in chapter 6, having first related two miracles, he relates a third in this manner: "At about the same time we heard that a certain man vexed by a demon was freed at his memorial; but how this happened, or whence the same man was, we do not know, because at that time I was scarcely twelve years old, nor did I take care to inquire about these things." Whence it is permissible to gather that the two former miracles were wrought not very long after the year 1180, but the rest, which he narrates afterwards, when he had already reached a more adult age; but what he relates in chapter 7 about a boy carried off by a wolf and brought back without any injury to the same place from which he had been snatched seems to have been very celebrated; since from that St. Simpert began to be painted together with the image of a wolf bringing back a boy in its mouth. Finally in chapter 8 he relates those things by which the history is confirmed of the most sacred Hosts, sacrilegiously carried away by a woman into her house in the year 1194, and five years later changed from white into a blood-red color, and honorably brought back by Udalschalk, bishop of Augsburg, into the church of the Holy Cross of the canons regular of St. Augustine.

[4] To this lucubration of Adilbert, Prior of St. Afra, Pez subjoins the rule statutes of his monastery of Murbach and other things illustrating the affairs of St. Simpert, by St. Simpert, bishop of Augsburg, namely those which, framed in a certain synod of Francia in the time of Charlemagne, St. Simpert on returning from it proposed to his Murbach monks to be observed, and which Dom Walther von Wiltsperg, abbot of Murbach, together with the chapter, communicated to the monks of St. Afra at Augsburg, legitimately and duly transcribed from a parchment charter, in the year 1500, on the Kalends of May. The same can be read in Hartzheim, tome 1 of the Councils of Germany, pages 378 and following. They supply few things which pertain to the historical matter; wherefore we shall think it enough if we draw from them a few of the things which will serve to know the character of St. Simpert, and say some things in their place about the epoch of the synod celebrated.

[5] These rule statutes are followed in Pez by the Book of the Miracles of St. Simpert wrought from the year 1465 to 1471, monuments, whose author indeed is an anonymous monk of St. Ulrich's, whom Pez would gladly have believed to have been Sigismund Meisterlin, of the Augsburg Chronicle, of whom at num. 1, because the reckoning of time, the style of writing, and the zeal and piety for domestic affairs which he betrayed fit Sigismund excellently; but it somewhat delays Pez that Sigismund testifies in the Augsburg Chronicle, chapter 9, that he wrote two little books on the Miracles of St. Simpert; whereas the Book of Miracles of which there is question here is divided into three distinctions or parts. But those words of Sigismund do not seem to have been bound to delay Pez; since with those words he only begins a discourse about the Miracles wrought by the merits of St. Simpert in the year 1467, when Melchior Stanham, abbot of St. Ulrich, to whom the Book of Miracles which we are treating at present is dedicated, was undertaking the new building of the church of St. Ulrich; and further Sigismund says in the same chapter a little before that he had handed down some few things also, as it appears, about other Miracles of St. Simpert which had taken place at the tomb of St. Simpert about the time at which the monastery of St. Ulrich began to be reformed; and the reform of the monastery of St. Ulrich was begun under Johann von Hohenstein, the predecessor of Melchior, through Heinrich and Johann of Carniola, full brothers, summoned to Augsburg from the monastery of Melk, as Corbinian Khamm witnesses, part 3 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, page 71. Sigismund himself, after he had said in chapter 9, part 1 of the Augsburg Chronicle, that he had published the miracles of St. Simpert in two little books while the new temple was being built, presently adds: "These things, set down here and there, we have here put together into one," and in fact in part 2 of the same Chronicle, chapter 7, where he treats of the laying of the first stone of the new church, he mentions briefly certain miracles then wrought; so that nothing therefore stands in the way of his having explained the miracles wrought at the tomb of St. Simpert in another book also, divided into three distinctions or parts. But whoever finally it was who committed to writing the Miracles of St. Simpert wrought from the year 1465 to 1471, he is indeed such that credit can safely be given to his sayings; since he drew his material from the authentic writings of the monastery of St. Ulrich, and relates those things which took place in his own age, as he professes in the Prologue. Moreover, from this little Work of the anonymous author it may be observed that it was the custom in the monastery of St. Ulrich that not only did the Priors of the place for the most part take care at that time to have the recent miracles of St. Simpert, taken down from those to whom they had happened, committed to writing, but also on feast days to have them openly set forth to the hearers from the pulpit of preaching: whence it is necessary that the veneration and cult of St. Simpert were then greatly increased and widely propagated; of which the anonymous author affirms the one in the Prologue and the other in the Epilogue of his little Work.

[6] described by contemporary authors, Presently in Pez follows the lucubration of another anonymous author, likewise a member of the monastery of St. Ulrich, in which the Miracles of St. Simpert from the year 1488 to 1495 are narrated: and since he says that he did this at the urging both of Sigismund, of whom a little before, and of Conrad the Prior, elected abbot of St. Ulrich in the year 1496, he also sufficiently reveals that he committed to writing the new miracles of St. Simpert which he narrates, those which had happened within his own memory, and from the same writings of his monastery from which the anonymous author just mentioned had drawn his: wherefore to this anonymous author too

equal credit is to be given; but this anonymous author is not one, as seemed to Pez in the Introductory Dissertation to tome 2 of the Anecdota, page LXII, but twofold, of whom the former seems to reveal that he undertook to narrate the Miracles of St. Simpert from the year 1488 to 1493, the other those which were wrought in the years 1494 and 1495. I think so because the former of these, being about to describe a miracle which was wrought in the year 1493, first speaks thus: "Finally, now at the end of the Miracles to be written, I will not omit a miracle plainly worthy of note"; and, this last miracle having been narrated, these words are presently subjoined: "Here end the Miracles with whose praise he shines," etc. Nor is there reason why anyone should say that the same anonymous author who had described the things wrought through St. Simpert from the year 1488 to the year 1493 then added to the former those which were wrought in the year 1494 and the following: for the discrepancy of the two styles is too great; the former plainly rude, the other much more tolerable. But whether the same or a different anonymous author ought to be acknowledged here matters little; since he too who wrote the miracles of the two later years testifies that he received the miracle which took place in the year 1495 from the mouth of those to whom it happened.

[7] Among the monuments illustrating the affairs of St. Simpert, Pez places in the fifth place the Acts of the second Finding of St. Simpert, to be reprinted here. which took place in the year not 1489, as the codex of St. Ulrich's erroneously marks, but 1491, on the day sacred to St. Andrew the Apostle, that is, the XXXth of November; when, namely, the pledges of St. Simpert, discovered the day before, were translated from the old tomb into the sacristy of the church of St. Ulrich while a new sarcophagus was being made for them. In the sixth place the Acts of the second Translation, in the year 1492, on the XXIIIrd day of April, when the bones of St. Simpert were brought into the new sarcophagus with very notable pomp. I have said the Acts of the second Translation: although the anonymous author himself who describes it calls the one which took place in the year 1491 the second, toward the beginning of the Prologue: for since it is not likely that he was either forgetful of the first translation or took no account of it, he seems to me to have wished so to speak of the second Finding that he considered the translation both of the year 1491 and of the year immediately following as one and the same, begun indeed in the year 1491, when the bones of St. Simpert were deposited for a while in the sacristy while the new sarcophagus was being made, but completed in the year 1492, when, enclosed in the new sarcophagus, they were brought back into a more august tomb. Finally the Edict of Frederick, bishop of Augsburg, in which the solemn rite shown to the relics of St. Simpert in the year 1492 is exactly described, closes the series of Monuments illustrating the affairs of St. Simpert, which, both because they do very much for the glory of St. Simpert and because they were written by contemporary authors and contain undoubted monuments of the no common cult paid to their Patron by the monks of St. Ulrich and the other faithful, we have judged should be committed again to print, except, as we have said, the rule statutes of St. Simpert.

[8] It is the constant practice of Adilbert, Prior of St. Ulrich at Augsburg, The Saint, whose name is variously written; also called Adalbero in some places, that, whenever he names this holy Bishop of Augsburg in his Life, written by him only in the thirteenth century, as has been said above, he calls him only Simpert: yet Corbinian Khamm, part 1 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, chapter 6, class 2, section I, advises that he is called by some Zymbrectus, by others Ximbertus, by others Symbertus; and he contends that the name of this holy Bishop must be written in this last way, unless one wishes to sin against orthography, because it was contracted and derived partly from that of his father, who was Ambertus, partly from that of his mother, who was called Symphoriana, the first syllable being taken from the maternal name and the rest from the paternal; but this is a conjecture, and not, as it appears, sufficiently founded: for it is plainly uncertain, as may be seen a little below, whether his father was Ambertus and his mother Symphoriana: and then, even if this be granted, it does not follow that the name Symbertus was forged from these, since the name Symbertus was customarily given to men in that age, and perhaps even long before, as is shown by Symbertus, bishop of Regensburg, mentioned in du Chesne, tome 2, page 17, col. 1, who is called Simpertus in the Life of Charlemagne written by an uncertain author, in the same place, page 53, letter c; but in Hansiz, tome 1 of the Councils of Germany, page 130, col. 2, he is called Sinpreth. What of the fact that the Saint himself calls himself Sandbertus in an Encyclical Epistle edited by Mabillon in tome 4 of the Anecdota, page 323? In which way too his name is read written in Lünig, tome 5 of the Ecclesiastical Spicilegium of Germany, page 957, in a diploma of Adimar; to which, however, he himself, subscribing, names himself Simbertus; nor is he called otherwise than in this latter way in another instrument of donation of Udalric, related in the same place; but also in a diploma of Charlemagne, given by Stengel in the Notes on the Life of St. Simpert, edited by him in Latin, he is called Simpertus: whence it matters little whether you say Sindbertus, or Simbertus, or finally Simpertus, or, if it pleases, even Sympertus or Symbertus; we shall write Simpertus throughout, with Adilbert as guide; yet we shall not take it ill if anyone prefers to write Sympertus: but let these things said about the name of St. Simpert suffice.

[9] from the royal stock of the kings of the Franks Of what parents he was born Adilbert professes that he found nowhere handed down in writing; but he says that tradition holds that he was begotten of the blood of the kings of the Franks, as being the nephew of Charles by his sister. If it pleases to listen to more recent writers, the name of his father was Ambertus, of his mother Symphoriana; some say that Ambertus was duke of Mosellan Austrasia, others of the Ardennes, others of Lorraine by prolepsis, since that name was not yet in use in the age of Charlemagne. Again others say that the grandfather of St. Simpert was Jopeterius; but Lazius, in book 3 On the Migration of Peoples, writes that Ampertius was born of Henry, duke of Austrasia, who probably had as son Adelric, second duke of the Ardennes, and as daughter Rorynna, married to Nothard, duke of Swabia; but all these things, since they are supported by no solid foundation, are at the least to be held as doubtful. Mabillon, in part 2 of the Fourth Benedictine Century, page 553, does not altogether shrink from the opinion which lays down that the father of St. Simpert was Ambertus and his mother Symphoriana; but he says that the latter is wanting among the daughters of king Pippin: and indeed the daughters of king Pippin, Rothais, Adelais and Gisla, are commonly known; but of these the first two died as young girls, the third was an abbess; known likewise are Itisberga and Bertha: but the former, if she was born of Pippin, cultivated perpetual chastity; while the latter is held among fables: some add to these Imeza and Ada, about whom consult Gamans's Commentary on the Life of Blessed Godfrey of Cappenberg, inserted in tome 1 of January at the thirteenth day of the same month, § VI. Yet hitherto no Symphoriana appears among so many sisters of Charlemagne.

[10] Yet it seems certain that, besides Rothais, Adelais and Gisla, Pippin, the father of Charlemagne, it is said, not very solidly, to have been born; had another daughter, who entered into marriage and was the mother of at least one son: for the author of the Life of St. Maximinus, bishop of Trier, who seems to have written in the 8th century, as also Lupus of Ferrières, who afterwards wrote the Life of the same St. Maximinus in a more elegant style, when the 9th century had advanced only to its thirty-ninth year, as he himself openly declares in chapter 15, in Baluze, page 290, that is, in the twenty-fifth year from the death of Charlemagne, write that the boy Gumbert, or, as Lupus says, Cunibert, a grandson of king Pippin by a daughter (see tome 7 of May of our Work, page 26, col. 2), was freed from the vexation of a demon at the tomb of Maximinus: but since neither expresses the name of Pippin's daughter, and her son is called Gumbert or Cunibert, not Simpert, nothing certainly can be drawn out from this for Symphoriana, daughter of king Pippin and mother of St. Simpert; nay rather, taking account of the age both of Charlemagne and of St. Simpert, there is something which seems rather to persuade the opposite. St. Simpert, as indeed the more probable opinion holds from what is to be said below, departed from among the living about the year 808, after he had ruled the church of Augsburg, as they commonly say indeed, for thirty years; therefore, making a reckoning backwards from the year 809, he will have begun to act as bishop about the year 779; let us further suppose that he numbered only thirty-two years when he was raised to the mitre of Augsburg; thus, counting back again 32 years, we shall come down to the year of his birth, about 747 of Christ, the same namely in which Charlemagne, the maternal uncle of St. Simpert, began to be among the living; which thing, although it does not altogether overthrow the credit of the tradition that St. Simpert was born of Symphoriana, daughter of Pippin, king of the Franks, yet weakens it in some measure, until more certain testimonies are brought forward for it; and it would be plainly overturned if the anonymous writer of the Life of St. Simpert, a copy of which Wiltheim sent from Luxembourg to Henschen in the year 1652, had truly written about Symphoriana that she bore Simpert only in the forty-seventh year of her age; in which manner she would have been born about the year 700, when Pippin, her father, who died in the year 768 in the 54th year of his age, was not yet numbered among the living: but in this matter no credit is to be given to the fabler.

[11] What sometimes happens in the births of the Saints, [nor more certain; a vision offered to his mother before he was born; the day of his birth,] that certain previous indications presage their birth and future holiness, the same author hands down to have taken place also in the birth of St. Simpert; namely that Symphoriana seemed to herself in sleep, not a few years before she bore a child in her womb, and especially on the recurring 2nd day of April, which was afterwards the birthday of St. Simpert, to bring forth a boy of outstanding form, clothed in most splendid garments, and surrounded by a dense crowd of men and women; which, although Corbinian Khamm adopted it in part 1 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, page 101, we may nevertheless not undeservedly fear that this too, like many other things, was invented by that anonymous writer out of zeal rather for adorning the subject he was treating than for telling the truth. But as for what he writes about his birthday, namely the 2nd of April, as I have nothing by which I may confirm it, so neither by which I may refute it; but to one inquiring into the year of his birth nothing occurs anywhere on which to fix a foot. It could be determined here in some fashion, at least from probable conjecture, if the year in which he departed from this life were established from somewhere: but here there is a wonderful discrepancy of the writers among themselves; the anonymous author just praised says that St. Simpert died about the year 766; others 798, others 828, others 833, as Stengel witnesses in the Notes on the Life of St. Simpert; none indeed of the aforesaid years pleases Stengel: to him

however he did not dare to take it upon himself to enter on a new reckoning of years "in such confusion," he says, "and disagreement of authors." Others again, as Corbinian Khamm witnesses, would have St. Simpert die in the year 818, others in 827, others in 832.

[12] who nevertheless, from the year of his death, This we can assert: they hand down that Charlemagne St. Simpert in the year 814, the year of Charles's death, or later than this, lived: this is established from the Chronicle of Hildesheim in du Chesne, tome 3 of the Frankish Writers, page 509, where the following is read: "Moreover there arose no small disturbance in the monastery of St. Boniface" (that is, of Fulda), "and twelve Brethren of that very household went together with Ratgar" (the third abbot of the place) "to the judgment of the emperor Charles. Yet that commotion did not thus subside. But afterwards Riculf, archbishop of Mainz, and Beontiarius, bishop of the city of the Vangiones, and Hatto, bishop of Augsburg" (the successor of St. Simpert in that see) "and Wolgar, bishop of the church of Würzburg, with the other faithful, came together as it were to that assembly at the emperor's command, and healed that commotion in the monastery of St. Boniface," namely in the 44th year of Charles, 812 of Christ. Already in the year of Christ 812, therefore, Hatto or Hanto had succeeded St. Simpert, most probably already dead, in the see of Augsburg; nay rather already from the year 808: for in the Historical Roll of Benediktbeuern, in tome 7 of the Monumenta Boica, published at Munich in the year 1766, but written about the middle of the 11th century, page 6, Elyland the abbot is said to have been substituted, on the death of Waldram the abbot, by the election of bishop Sintpert and of the Brethren of the Congregation of St. Benedict, who, not long, as appears, after taking up the government of his monastery, compelled by the injury of three brothers, Reger, Milo and Aribo, who were invading the goods of the monastery, appealed to the patronage of the emperor Charlemagne; he sent duke Kys and bishop Hanto (of Augsburg, as is expressly added in the Chronicle of Benediktbeuern, in the same place, page 23) to decide the dispute; these met at Egolving, and restrained the unjust aggressors by imposing the due fine.

[13] and by the duration of his episcopate, is determined in some fashion, "These men having thus been overcome," the author of the cited Roll continues, "the places dedicated to divine worship were at rest in the time of Elyland the abbot. After this also many noble men gave their estates, Elyland being abbot, to the places mentioned above for their own commemoration. Of these Merigoz the deacon gave to the altar of St. Benedict, situated in the district of Housi, whatever property he had in the township which is called Machtolving," namely in the year 808, as is read in the instrument of the donation made by Merigoz, in the same place, page 82. From these things I infer two: first, that Hanto ruled the see of Augsburg already from the year 808, and that Simpert did not prolong his life beyond this year; second, that Simpert, since he consented to the election of Elyland, and Elyland seems to have called his aggressors to the emperor's judgment as soon as he was made abbot, departing from among the living in this very year 808 or the one immediately preceding, left the see of Augsburg to be occupied by Hauto, his next successor: further, let 30 years be taken from 808, the number of years that Udalric writes St. Simpert presided over the church of Augsburg, and the year 778 will come out, about which he began to exercise the office of bishop. Let us suppose, finally, that he then numbered the thirty-fourth year of his life; the year of his birth will have been about 744, but determined in some fashion, as I was saying above, only from probable conjecture.

[14] Moreover Udalric had nothing to say specifically of St. Simpert's youth; and some other things are added about St. Simpert. but only infers, from the miracles with which he shone after his death, that he led a plainly angelic life, showed himself a temple to the Holy Spirit by chastisement of the body, and immolated himself to God as a living victim by the continual offering of the sacred altar; of his entry into the Order of St. Benedict and of his abbatial dignity in it he is deeply silent. But far fuller here is the anonymous author of Murbach (I call him of Murbach because he calls St. Simpert "our fourth Abbot," from the register, as I think, of his monastery), from whose Manuscript, sent, as I said above, by Wiltheim from Luxembourg to Henschen also, I exhibit here these words about the youth of St. Simpert: "Who about the year of the Lord eight hundred, Pope Leo the Third and Charlemagne presiding" (nay, long before, as follows partly from what has been said, partly from what is to be said afterwards), "nourished from boyhood in the place of the Hermits of St. Leodegar at Murbach under the rule of St. Benedict, truly led an angelic life among men, and, although born of royal blood, held no less the summit of humility. He remained to the best of his power in the sacred Order of St. Benedict. He obeyed the precepts of his superiors (which were not against God), strove to have true charity toward all, was obliging to all with much cheerfulness, guarding against all vices according to the little capacity of his strength; he panted after each of the virtues (so to speak), in which, persevering vigorously night and day, he continually feared almighty God with a filial love. He diligently immolated himself in the passion of the Lord Jesus Christ, frequently poured forth tearful sobs for the state of the Church, knowing that the whole world is set in wickedness, and thinking it worth while that the Saviour should be entreated for it; not forgetful of the souls of the living and dead faithful of Christ, and, to use a brief compendium, he pleased all, because his life was irreprehensible by anyone." You have an ample Notice of Murbach, situated in Upper Alsace on the river of the same name, in tome 1 of October, § XX of the Preliminary Commentary on the Life of SS. Leodegar and Gerinus; here I add only, from Grandidier, book 3 of the History of Strasbourg, page 259, that this celebrated monastery of the Benedictine Order has now been changed into a chapter of noble Canons by a Bull of Clement XIII, of the 2nd of August of the year 1764; who inhabit the little town of Alsace called Gebweiler and neighboring to Murbach, whither the Murbach monks had previously withdrawn.

§ II. Made abbot of Murbach from monk, he diligently promotes the temporal and spiritual affairs of that monastery.

In vain Le Cointe expunges from the number of the abbots of Murbach Since St. Simpert had been of this character from his youth, and had adorned the royal race in which he had been born, as they say, it was natural that, advanced to manly age, he should be given the mitre of Murbach whenever it should fall vacant, which the anonymous author just praised and other writers commonly hand down was in fact done; but Le Cointe denies it in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 779, num. 40, led chiefly by the silence, on the one hand, of the Catalogue of the Abbots of Murbach adduced by Bucelin in the second part of the Monasteriology of the German empire, in which, after the Murbach abbots Baldobert, Hasibert, Amicus, with no mention made of Simpert, there presently follows Guntram, who was abbot of Murbach in the year 814; and on the other, of the Annals of Lorsch, which indeed hand down that Haribert succeeded Baldebert, who died in the year 762, and Amicho succeeded the latter in the year 774; after whom they list no abbot of Murbach, although they extend to the year 790; for this reason namely, as Le Cointe indeed judges, that in this latter year Amicho was among the living. But in this way Romanus too would have to be expunged from the series of the Abbots of Murbach, who preceded Baldobert, and in a charter of Eberhard, given in the eighth year of Theoderic, king of the Franks, in tome 5 of the Ecclesiastical Spicilegium of Germany, page 950, is called abbot of Murbach. What further will Le Cointe say of the charter of Adimar, given in the XXIst year of king Charles, which in the same place, page 957, has this beginning: "To the worthy mirror of Christ, Sindbert, of the monastery of Murbach"; and this end: "In the name of God I, Simbert, bishop and abbot, have caused this precarial grant to be made." What of the charter of Udalric in the same place, in which it is read of the monastery of Murbach: "Where the man of venerable life Simpert, bishop, is seen to preside as abbot." This charter is dated in the 22nd year of king Charles, 789 of Christ; I pass over two others, one dated in the year 790, the other in 792, as Grandidier notes on page 174 from Schöpflin's Alsatia Diplomatica, in which St. Simpert is called bishop and abbot of Murbach. I pass over finally the Encyclical Epistle of Sindpert, as also his Indiculus to a bishop, adduced by Mabillon cited above, in which he names himself "Bishop and Abbot of the monastery of Murbach"; from which it becomes abundantly plain that Simpert is to be numbered among the abbots of Murbach.

[16] St. Simpert, who was also bishop of Augsburg: But someone will ask, is Simpert, abbot of Murbach, the same as Simpert, bishop of Augsburg? For thus Mabillon notes on the two Monuments just cited: "But because in these epistles Sindbert is called at once BISHOP and ABBOT, one may doubt whether he is the same as that bishop of Augusta Vindelicorum. For although the times agree, yet in many monasteries there were then abbots who were also bishops without title, as we shall demonstrate elsewhere by many examples. In the very ancient Necrology of St. Ulrich at Augsburg there is noted 'On the third day before the Ides of October, Sintpert, bishop,' without the title of Abbot or of Saint." This doubt is met in more than one way; for first it was not rare at that time that men were chosen from the monastery of Murbach to rule neighboring bishoprics: thus Baldebert was elected to Basel, Geroch to Aureatum or Eichstätt; whence it becomes not unlike that Simpert too was summoned thence to rule Augusta Vindelicorum as bishop. Then, that the Simpert inscribed in the very ancient Necrology of St. Ulrich is no other than he who restored the church formerly called St. Afra's, but afterwards also St. Ulrich's, and wished it to be the keeper of his body; furthermore it is no wonder that the title of Saint was not added to Simpert there; for although he was held for a holy Man, yet the ancients did not always think it a matter of religion not to omit this title, especially before he began to shine with very frequent miracles, and to be venerated as a Saint by the indult of Pope Nicholas V, toward the middle of the 15th century, and before Henry II, abbot of SS. Ulrich and Afra, toward the end of the 12th century, ordered the deposition (printed depositionis atem) of St. Simpert, bishop of Augsburg, to be celebrated: thus in the Historical Roll of the monastery of Benediktbeuern, written in the 11th century, he is called only a holy Man, who in the Chronicle of the same place, written about the middle of the 12th century, is called St. Sintbert.

[17] Then, if the Simpert commemorated in the cited Necrology made abbot were not the bishop of Augsburg, but either Simpert the abbot of Murbach, or Simpert the bishop of Regensburg, or anyone else, it would be necessary that he not only lived at the same time and bore the same title, but also, which is less likely, departed from this life on the same day: for I do not see that anyone doubts that Simpert, bishop of Augsburg, died on the third day before the Ides of October. Furthermore, if Simpert, abbot of Murbach, had been a bishop without title, and without a certain diocese to rule, but the mere name of bishop had been given either to his own dignity or to that of the monastery of Murbach over which he presided, such an episcopal dignity would not have prevented him from fully satisfying the office of abbot; nor would he have been entangled in so many external affairs

that he could not at least sometimes visit the estates of his monastery, not without its detriment: yet Simpert ascribes this very thing, at least in part, to the cares of his episcopate, by which he was distracted, in the Rule Statutes which he made known to the monks of Murbach, where he speaks thus: "Tenth" (it is decreed) "that the abbots should not frequently go round the estates, except for the cause of necessity, nor commit them to the brethren to be guarded; where would that the rarity of our visitation may not do harm. For the circuit of frequent visiting among the estates is never made by us, for this reason, that another hindrance of our occupation wearies us, since amid the cares of the episcopate and the ordinances of the Palace no leisure is available to us for providing for our possessions." Lastly, Carl Stengel, in the Notes on the Life of St. Simpert, exhibits the Privilege granted by Charlemagne in favor of the monastery of Murbach, to be transcribed entire below at num. 21; from which it becomes manifest that Simpert the Abbot of Murbach and Simpert the bishop of Augsburg were the same: for thus Charles speaks there of the monastery of Murbach: "Where the venerable man Simpert, abbot of the same and bishop of Augsburg, is known to serve with a very great crowd of monks." Although it must be confessed, from what is to be said below, that this diploma is in some part faulty.

[18] of Murbach about the year 789, The anonymous author praised above writes that Simpert was adorned with the abbatial mitre before the episcopal one; with the abbatial indeed, while Pippin, the father of Charles, was still alive; but with that of Augsburg while Leo III was governing the church, who was raised to the Pontifical chair in the year 795 and held it until the year 816. Pippin died in the year 768: but in the year 772 Haribert, and in the year 774 Amicho, presided as abbot over the monastery of Murbach, as is ascertained from the Charters of Charles in tome [ ] of the Ecclesiastical Spicilegium of Germany, page 955 and following; and since Simpert succeeded them, he could not have been abbot of Murbach while Pippin, who died in the year 768, was still surviving among the living: the author of the Catalogue of the Abbots of Murbach, in the same tome of the Spicilegium just cited, page 940, writes that he succeeded Amicho or Emicho in the year 789, moved probably by the diploma of Charles of which we were treating at the end of the immediately preceding number, which names Simpert abbot of Murbach, and is read to have been given in the 22nd year of Charles, which begins in the year of Christ 789 in the month of October; from which epoch Grandidier, praised above, does not much dissent, writing on page 258 that St. Simpert began the abbatial office about the year 787. Further, what that anonymous author likewise says seems erroneous, that Simpert continued in that office until the Pontificate of Leo III: since Grandidier on page 258 cites from Schöpflin's Alsatia Diplomatica two Charters, one of the year 792, the other of 794, in which this is to be read: "Where" (in the monastery of Murbach) "the lord king Charles our shepherd is seen to preside": likewise three others, of the years 795, 796, 805, on page 174, in which Geroh is called bishop and abbot of Murbach; so that, Simpert renouncing the abbatial office on account of the multitude of affairs, of which we saw him complaining in the preceding number, Charles first administered the monastery of Murbach, and then committed it to Geroh to be administered. From what has been said so far, therefore, St. Simpert will have been born about the year 744, as indeed it seems permissible to conjecture: made bishop of Augsburg about the year 778, abbot of Murbach from about the year 789 to the year 792, and finally dead about the year 809. Now let us see what he did when he was abbot and what when he was bishop.

[19] of his monastery The anonymous writer of the Life of St. Simpert, describing in a few words the things which the holy Prelate did for the sake of his monastery of Murbach, according to his custom mixes false things with true: "Whence, his merits increasing," he says, "by the favor of the emperor Charles himself, his nephew" (he ought to have said maternal uncle), "as well as of Pippin, king of Francia, his grandfather, and father of Charles" (Pippin died before Simpert was made abbot), "who founded that place" (count Eberhard founded it under Theoderic, called Cala), "and with the consent of all the brethren he is divinely placed over it as abbot, and with God's help presided over and profited the monastery and its inhabitants, and furnished a good example to all, and ruled the monastery of Murbach for very many years" (about four years, from what has been said above). "Finally, by the favor of the supreme Pontiff Leo III" (he only began to sit in the year 795) "and of the emperors" (at the time when he was abbot there was no emperor, much less several), "he raised that place to the greatest liberty, as we have seen with our eyes the donations and privileges there." So he, presently proceeding to the election of St. Simpert as bishop of Augsburg; but we have already said above that this was done before he was elected abbot of Murbach: yet he spoke truly in saying that Simpert increased the temporal estate of Murbach.

[20] For there exists, in tome 5 of the Ecclesiastical Spicilegium of Germany, page 957, in temporal matters a Charter by which Adimar, together with his wife Starechild, cedes certain goods, some conditions being added, to the monastery of Murbach, subscribed by St. Simpert, and dated on Wednesday, the Ides of July, in the XXIst year of the reign of our lord king Charles, 789 of Christ, in which the letter D marked the Lord's day, and so the Ides of July fell on a Wednesday. There exists likewise a Charter by which Udalric gives to the monastery of Murbach what he possessed in Matenheim, with this dating of the donation: "Done publicly at the monastery of Murbach, in the XXIInd year of the reign of our lord Charles, king of the Franks and of the Lombards or Romans. I have noted it under the third day before the Ides of November. Sign of Udalric," etc. It was therefore drawn up in the same year 789, in which from the month of October the 22nd year of Charles, king of Francia, had begun to run. Grandidier besides indicates on page 258 two donations made to the monastery of Murbach, Simpert being abbot, in the years 790 and 791.

[21] St. Simpert likewise brought it about that the Privileges which the monastery of Murbach the advancement had hitherto enjoyed should be confirmed by the authority of Charles; the diploma of Charles by which he did this, in Stengel in the Notes on the Life of St. Simpert written by himself in Latin, is of this kind: "Charles, by the ordaining of divine Providence, emperor Augustus. The venerable Man Simpert, abbot of the same and bishop of Augsburg, who is known to serve with a very great troop of monks, has wholly and faithfully brought to us the benefit granted by the authority of our predecessors to the honorable Baldebert, abbot of the monastery which is called Vivarium Peregrinorum, which is situated in the duchy of Alsace, built upon the river Murbach, of the Order of St. Benedict, in honor of St. Leodegar and of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, or of St. Mary the Virgin: so that, as in the time of our predecessors the men belonging to that house of God had been free and obedient, the same Simpert, abbot and bishop, requested that we would deign to confirm it by our Augustal authority.

[22] "To whose prayers it has pleased us, for the love of God and the veneration of the holy place, to assent, he diligently promotes. and to have this precept of our munificence made for the sake of its firmness. By which we order and command that no one whatever of the judicial power, or the envoys going about, presume to disquiet the aforesaid free men, or to raise a false charge, or to do any opposition. But let it be permitted to them, according to their custom, to serve that monastery as best they can and to be obedient in all things. And that you may believe this our command to be the more certain, we have ordered it to be sealed below with our ring. Done at Aachen in the royal palace, in the XXIInd year of our reign." I think that this diploma was really given by Charles, although, as I shall presently say, it is not genuine in every part, for this reason, that Louis the Pious, in the third year of his empire, likewise confirming the privileges of the monastery of Murbach, not only praises the diplomas of Pippin and Charles, but also uses the very words of the Caroline diploma, when he says, in Lünig, tome 5 of the Spicilegium already cited several times, page 958: "We order that, as is contained in the same precept" (of Pippin and Charles), "no one whatever of the judicial power," etc., up to these words: "Done at Aachen," etc. I confess, however, that the beginning of the diploma is corrupted: for Charles used neither the title of emperor Augustus from the 22nd year of his reign, nor this formula, "by the ordaining of divine Providence," which Louis the Pious was the first to use (as Mabillon teaches, On Diplomatics, book 2, chapter 3, page 72). Stengel thought that the year of Charles's reign, 22, should be corrected: but why should we correct this, when we see not obscurely that not the end but the beginning of the diploma is corrupted, whose authority in the rest seems to be consistent with itself?

[23] To a certain synod, These things, of those which the industry of St. Simpert accomplished for the temporal benefit and advancement of his monastery, are most probably few out of many, the knowledge of which both the length and the vicissitude of times have grudged to posterity. That he was no less vigorous in promoting the spiritual estate is persuaded not only by the whole manner of his life, ordered holily and blamelessly even from his tender years, but is attested also specially by that paternal solicitude with which he inculcated by word and writing on the community of his Murbach monks the synodal statutes, framed while he was abbot and bishop, which were devised for perfecting more and more the conduct of monks. But what was that synod, and where and when was it celebrated? For as regards the statutes themselves, they can be read both in Pez and in Hartzheim in the places cited at num. 4. Neither the place nor the year in which that synod was held is read expressed either in the Statutes themselves or in the title prefixed to them; and the title runs thus: "Rule decrees of a holy synod celebrated in Francia by order of Charlemagne, patrician and king of the Romans: made known for remembrance by word and writing to the present brethren of the monastery of Murbach through Simpert, abbot of the same place and bishop of Augsburg *, who was personally present at the synod." This title seems more recent than the Statutes to which it is prefixed, and indeed not a little; both because in it Charles is adorned with the surname of Great, which custom prevailed only after his death, and because it seems to have been added to the Statutes at a time when the place of the synod celebrated was either unknown or doubtful, which otherwise, as it indeed appears, would by no means have been wrapped in silence.

[24] into whose time inquiry is made. But the Statutes which Simpert, on returning from the synod, proposed to his Murbach monks to be observed, and in part also interpreted, comprise seven and twenty chapters; each of which, often expressed even in the same words, is read in the Acts of the synod of Aachen celebrated in the year 817 under the emperor Louis the Pious; whence someone might think that the Statutes of Simpert were framed at Aachen in this year; but, besides the fact that the Acts of this synod of Aachen comprise eighty chapters, and are often listed arranged in an order other than that in which they are listed by Simpert (thus, for example, the chapters which Simpert calls the twenty-sixth and seventh are here 14 and 16), there stands against this opinion both the fact that the synod at which Simpert was present is said in the title prefixed to the Statutes to have been held in the time of king Charles; and above all the fact that we have given it, as it appears to us, solidly proved above that Simpert did not prolong his life to the year 817. It is necessary therefore, to some synod this

older, that those Statutes be referred. There are those who think that they were framed in the synod of Aachen celebrated in the year 802; and indeed in an old codex of Metz, which exhibits the capitularies of Charles Augustus arranged by the years of his empire, a synod is mentioned held in the second year of his empire, but without a place; another likewise celebrated at Aachen in the third year, as may be seen in Labbe, tome 7 of the Councils, col. 1174; there follows in Labbe a capitulary of the bishops at col. 1178, after whose chapter XIX Labbe says at col. 1180 that this is noted in a Palatine Manuscript of the Vatican Library: "This was given at Aachen in the third year of the empire of the lord Charles Augustus, when there was a great synod there." And that in one or the other of these synods there was also treatment of restoring the rule of St. Benedict is clear from the very ancient Lambecian Annals, in which, in Kollar, tome 1 of the Analecta Vindobonensia, col. 580 and following, the following is read: "In the year DCCCII. In that year the lord caesar Charles stayed at the palace of Aachen, quiet with the Franks without an enemy… And in the month of October he assembled a universal synod … Likewise in that synod he assembled all the abbots and monks who were present there, and they held a meeting among themselves and read the rule of St. Benedict… and Charles ordered that whatever had been done in the monasteries or by the monks contrary to the rule of St. Benedict, this very thing they should cause to be emended according to the same rule of St. Benedict." Add further that in the very text of the statutes St. Simpert says: "These and other things similar to these, which do not come to mind, we have ascertained in the conversations of the aforesaid monks, for the example of whom he decreed" (beyond doubt Charles) "by imperial censure that the monasteries throughout his whole kingdom should be formed." If by imperial censure, then after the year 800, you will say, in which he was first saluted as emperor.

[25] I too would indeed gladly yield to this opinion, unless other things from elsewhere stood in the way: it matters, but even when Charles was not yet emperor there was treatment of restoring the Rule of St. Benedict; and the title prefixed to the Statutes, when it says that the synod in which they were decreed was celebrated by order of Charles, patrician and king of the Romans, sufficiently hints that this was done when Charles was not yet emperor. Moreover from the very text of the Statutes it is clear that St. Simpert, at the very time at which, returning from the synod, he read and explained these Statutes to his Murbach monks, was abbot of Murbach, which is abundantly plain even from the words related at num. 17. Yet he had renounced the abbatial office already from the year 792, as was said at num. 18, and thereafter both Charles himself and Geroh discharged it. Nor is there reason why the imperial censure by which these things are said to have been fortified by St. Simpert should move anyone: for Mabillon teaches, On Diplomatics, book 2, chapters 4 and 26, that the name of empire was ascribed to the kingdoms of the Franks and of other kings, although they were not emperors. Consult also, if you please, tome VII of the Collection of Ancient Writers prepared by Martène and Durand, col. 5 and following, where you will find both that Pippin was called emperor, and a capitulary of Charles, not yet emperor, transcribed from a codex of the 9th century, in which Charles is nevertheless adorned with the name of emperor.

[26] and he applies himself tirelessly to the spiritual advancement of his monks. Monks were likewise treated of in the synod celebrated at Aachen in the year 789, as is clear from the 26 chapters framed separately concerning them, in Hartzheim, Councils of Germany, tome 1, 285. What if, then, these Statutes were first framed at that time, which, being increased from time to time, at last in the year 817 under Louis the Pious grew to as many as eighty? But in whatever year these Statutes were framed, if you consider both these and those which Simpert added to them by interpreting, you would see a prelate equal to the monks both in manner of living and in food, so far as his bodily infirmity allowed, not indeed neglectful of temporal affairs, but solicitous above all for the progress of his monks in virtue and letters, and most zealous for promoting regular discipline: whence he did not think it enough to inculcate on his monks with every effort the Statutes of the synod at which he had been present; but he also wished to visit in person various monasteries of the Benedictine institute; to inspect diligently their manners and customs, and, if he perhaps noticed anything in them worthy of singular praise and imitation, he carried it back to his own monks laid up in his inmost bosom. Nor content with this, he decreed to send chosen monks of his own in every direction through the monasteries of Eastern Francia, who might at the same time be an example to the hosts to whom they turned aside, and, in turn instructed by their manners, might on their return bring to Murbach too the most abundant fruits which they were to gather elsewhere. St. Simpert may indeed have done more things splendidly at the time when he discharged the office of abbot of Murbach, but such as the envy of the times has withdrawn from the knowledge of posterity: wherefore I turn the discourse to those things which he did splendidly when he was bishop of Augusta Vindelicorum.

* Read episcopum Augustensem "bishop of Augsburg".

§ III. The deeds of St. Simpert in the episcopate.

[The deeds of Simpert, bishop of Regensburg, are distinguished from the Deeds of St. Simpert] But, lest the deeds of Simpert, bishop of Augsburg, be confused with those which belong to Simpert, bishop of Regensburg, a contemporary of the Augsburg one, it may help to exhibit these briefly and separately. The latter succeeded Sigiric in the see of Regensburg, according to an uncertain poet who lived in the 9th century, edited by Mabillon in tome 4 of the Analecta, page 525 and following; whence you may emend Hund, who makes Simpert the successor of Gariboald. He was present at the synod celebrated at Dingolfing in Bavaria in the year 772, in whose surviving Acts he is called Simpreth. In the year 781 Charles received 12 hostages from Tassilo, duke of Bavaria, as a pledge of the faith given, at Quierzy, from the hand of Simbert the bishop, according to the monk of Angoulême in the Life of Charles in du Chesne, tome 2 of the Writers of the History of the Franks, page 73. The same in the year 778 dedicated the church of Kremsmünster, and completed the basilica of St. Emmeram in the year 783, from Marcus Welser, On Bavarian Affairs, book 5, at the aforesaid years, and died, according to the same author, in the year immediately following; but according to the Annals of the Franks in du Chesne, in the tome cited, page 37, from the edition of Canisius, in the year 791. Of him Hund says in the Bishops of Regensburg: "Through this Sympert too Charlemagne sent into Bavaria the constitutions which he had decreed at Aachen, an assembly having been held"; which Stengel, in the Notes on his Life, thought should rather be said of St. Simpert of Augsburg, whose diocese, from what is to be said below, comprised part of Bavaria; and perhaps not wrongly: yet he is mistaken when he writes that Charlemagne never obtained possession of Bavaria while Simpert, bishop of Regensburg, was alive, whom he believed to have died in the year 784, not knowing that this Simpert survived among the living until the year 791. Hatto held the church of Freising from the year 784 to 810, and was therefore a contemporary of both Simperts: further, mention is made of such a Simpert, a bishop coeval with Hatto, in Meichelbeck in an Instrument of the Church of Freising drawn up under Hitto, num. 439; but of Regensburg, or of Augsburg?

[28] Adilbert, as he had nothing at all to record of St. Simpert's deeds at Murbach, [in the episcopate of Augsburg; Adilbert's account of these from the Life of St. Magnus] so he had very few things which the latter did in the episcopate of Augsburg: he writes that the church of St. Afra, at that time situated outside the walls of the city of Augsburg, and afterwards called also St. Ulrich's, was above all restored by him, and at the same time hints that the condition of the sacred places throughout Swabia and Bavaria was then wretched, Utilo, duke of Bavaria, and Godfrid, duke of Alemannia or Swabia, contending with each other after the death of king Pippin; and that in these commotions of wars the church of St. Afra was burned by flames; "all which things," he says, "anyone wishing to know more fully can read in the Life of St. Magnus." The Life of St. Magnus which Adilbert cites you have inserted in the second tome of the month of September of our Work, where at page 755 and following these things are read on the matter of which there is discourse here: "Then, after the death of the glorious king Pippin, his sons quarrelling, Utilo was raised up in the duchy of the Bavarians, and Gothesrit in the government of the Alamanni. And thus, a great sedition and strife having arisen between the Bavarians and the Alamanni, laying waste and plundering or despoiling all things which stood in the marches of the two regions" (the river Lech at that time served as boundary to the Bavarians and the Swabians), "Theodore was by no means able," etc., in whose name namely that Life of St. Magnus was falsely put forward.

[29] And then these things on the following page: "Therefore, king Charles having been consolidated and confirmed in the province of Gaul, said restoring and rebuilding the churches which had been desolated by evil invaders, his lord subjugated all Germany to his empire, the princes possessing Germany having been killed. And when he had heard of the things unjustly done to blessed Othmar and of his being brought to the end of death, as well as of the monastery of Kempten, nay and of the city of Augsburg, namely of the monastery of St. Afra and the cell of St. Magnus almost destroyed and desolated, pricked in heart, he began to rebuild those churches again and to exalt them. And he appointed Sintpert bishop in that city, and gave, according to the royal custom, through a precept of confirmation, to the aforesaid places all the things which had been handed over there by his predecessor Pippin; and moreover he added very many. The episcopate having been undertaken, therefore, Sintpert set out for Augusta Vindelica, and ruled that church for almost thirty years, building the basilica of St. Afra, and restoring the monastery of St. Magnus. And he united the parish in both parts of the river Lech, by the authority of the lord Charles, now made emperor, in both kingdoms at once, the Lord favoring." This Life is said to have been first written by Theodore the monk, the companion of the labors of St. Magnus, and then emended by Ermenric, who in the 9th century was abbot of Ellwangen in the diocese of Augsburg: yet you hear neither of them speaking here; but an interpolator of the Life of St. Magnus, if any was written by Theodore, so inept (although known already from the 11th century, as our Suyskens shows in the Commentary prefixed to the Acts of St. Magnus, § I) that Mabillon detected so many faults in it that he says he was compelled to omit them, in the Second Benedictine Century, page 505, and pronounces it destitute of all authority, page 507. We are going to examine here those things which bear on our matter.

[30] are discussed, From the time when the kings of the Franks began to grow sluggish with idleness, and the Mayors of the royal palace to manage everything at their discretion and to fight among themselves, the desire of shaking off the yoke of the Frankish empire seized the Armorican Britons and the Aquitanians in Gaul, the Alamanni with the Swabians, who had grown together as it were into one nation, the Boii, the Saxons and the Frisians, the dukes of which nations thought it a disgrace to obey not so much the kings as the prefects of the palace. Hence in the ancient Annals of the Franks you see very frequent wars waged between the Franks and the aforesaid nations: but what this pseudo-Theodore says here about king Pippin, about his sons quarrelling among themselves, about Godfrey of the Swabians or Alamanni, and Utilo of the Boii,

dukes, in the first place, can in truth be understood neither of Pippin, the father of Charles Martel, nor of Pippin, the son of Martel and at last king of Francia. For the former Pippin indeed had, besides Charles Martel, the sons Drogo and Grimoald; but these he himself survived: Charles therefore had no brother at least with whom he might contend for dominion; and Godfrey, duke of Alemannia, a contemporary of this Pippin, departed from among the living in the year 709 according to the Annals of Lorsch, extending from the year 707 to 790, in du Chesne, tome 2, page 3. Pippin died in the year 714; but Utilo was given as prince to the Boii about 15 years after the death of this Pippin.

[31] and from the truth Nor further can they be understood of king Pippin. Charles Martel died in the year 741, leaving Austrasia to Carloman, Neustria to Pippin; but these were for the most part in harmony with each other and at times, joining forces, subdued the enemies of the Franks: yet they had a brother, Grippo by name, who, excluded from the kingdom, set new schemes on foot: he presently shut himself up within the walls of Laon; but, compelled to surrender by his brothers Carloman and Pippin, he was consigned to custody at Neufchâteau in the Ardennes; then too Hiltrude, against the will of her brothers Carloman and Pippin, fleeing into Bavaria, joined herself in marriage to Odilo. Then too the Bavarians, Alamanni and Saxons revolted from the Franks. In the year 742 Carloman advanced as far as the Lech to reduce to order the Alamanni, rebelling under duke Theodebald: in the year immediately following, together with Pippin, he defeated Odilo on the border of Bavaria and Alemannia, to whom Theodebald, duke of the Alamanni, had joined himself as ally. Pippin in the year 745 compelled Theodebald to flight and recovered Alemannia; but again in the following year Carloman, in what was his last expedition, found it necessary to attack with arms the Alamanni, again setting new schemes on foot. It may help to observe here that hitherto no Godfrey, duke of Alemannia and Swabia, appears, with whom Odilo waged war, which however pseudo-Theodore asserts; nay, that the Swabians were allies and helpers in war to Odilo, who, just as they, was striving to assert himself into liberty, against the Franks as common enemies.

[32] Grippo, restored to liberty in the year 747, shortly after stirs up the Saxons against Pippin, are shown to stray. now prince of all Francia; but, the race of the Saxons having been reduced to order by Pippin, he suddenly occupies Bavaria (Odilo being absent, or dead?), to whom Lantfrid, duke of the Alamanni, joins himself as ally in the year 749: hence a new expedition of Pippin into Bavaria, which being completed in the year 749, Grippo flees into Aquitaine, and Tassilo, the son of Odilo, is proclaimed prince of Bavaria, Odilo, as some hold, being already dead; but if, as others would have it, he was alive up to the year 765, he applied himself from the year 749 to founding monasteries, not to waging wars. Thus from what has been said so far we have that Lantfrid succeeded Theodebald, duke of Alemannia, who joined himself to Grippo in the year 749; but no Godfrey, under whom Swabia was laid waste and the church of St. Afra burned, as wars blazed up between him and Odilo. Finally, Pippin having been snatched from among the living in the year 763, his sons Charles and Carloman divided the empire of the Franks, of whom the latter perpetually cultivated peace with his brother Charles, and died in the year 771, the empire of the Franks being left to Charles alone: neither therefore can it be understood of king Pippin, who died in the year 768, with the truth of the history of these times safe, nor consequently can the epoch of the church of St. Afra, burned near the walls of Augusta Vindelicorum, be established from pseudo-Theodore, who turns everything upside down.

[33] Stengel, in the Notes on the Life of St. Simpert, ascribed the devastation of Swabia The more probable epoch of the burning of the temple of St. Afra, and the disaster of the church of St. Afra to the Huns, summoned by Tassilo into an alliance of war against Charles. Nearly the same seemed good to Gasser in the Annals of Augsburg, writing that in the year 787 Tassilo, having confederated the Huns with himself, not only ravaged Swabia, but the suburbs of Augusta Vindelicorum were given to the flames, and the shrine of St. Afra outside the walls was reduced utterly to ashes in that impious war; which, although I do not find it asserted in the ancient Annals of the Franks, yet from the circumstances of the times and of the things then done becomes to me very likely. For it is established from the aforesaid Annals that Tassilo in the year 787 sent envoys to Rome, where Charles was then staying, to ask Pope Adrian to be willing to be the mediator of peace between Charles and Tassilo: but Tassilo, about the same time, seems to have raged with fire and sword through Swabia, over which some Godfrey, faithful to Charles, then presided, at the instigation of his wife Liutperga, an implacable enemy of the Frankish name, and the church of St. Afra seems to have perished in the same disaster. Similar burnings happen when the tumults of wars are seething, even against the will of the leaders: wherefore I do not see that it is necessary that this crime be ascribed to the ferocity of the Huns; especially since they seem to have been in Swabia neither in the year 787 nor in the following. For when in the year 787 Charles compelled Tassilo, surrounded as it were by an encircling net, to surrender, he found him altogether unprepared and still destitute of the help of the Huns. Shortly after, indeed, the Huns or Avars, who bordered on it to the East, brought themselves into Bavaria; but, repulsed early and successfully by the Boii and the Franks, they were prevented from spreading through Swabia. And that Tassilo summoned the Huns into Bavaria after his surrender Einhard expressly hands down in the Annals at the year 788 in this manner: "They objected to him" (Tassilo) "that, after he had given his son as hostage to the king" (in the year 787) "… he stirred up the race of the Huns to undertake war against the Franks. Which the outcome of the things done in the same year proved to have been true."

[34] restored by St. Simpert, It becomes likely, therefore, from what has been said, what the author of the Appendix to the Life of St. Magnus, abbot of Füssen, writes about the church of St. Afra being burned when the dukes of the Boii and the Swabians were contending with each other in arms; if, however, Tassilo the son be substituted for Odilo, duke of Bavaria: it becomes likely likewise that the monastery of Füssen was involved in the same disaster as the church of St. Afra: for it is situated in the diocese of Augsburg, where the river Lech pours itself from the Julian Alps into Swabia, on the very border of Swabia and Bavaria. The same author hands down, no one, so far as I know, contradicting, that both the temple of St. Afra and the monastery of Füssen were restored by the care and help of St. Simpert, after Tassilo had been deposed and the commotions of wars had ceased; yet he is to be emended again in this, that he writes that St. Simpert came to the chair of Augsburg not before the year 788, in which, Tassilo having been removed, Charles subjected Bavaria to himself, which cannot be reconciled with Simpert's government of thirty years and with the time of his death indicated above. Likewise he consecrated the cathedral temple of Augusta Vindelicorum, restored by him, in the year 807, on the day before the feast of St. Michael, in honor of the Virgin Mother of God; so Corbinian Khamm in Simpert: Gasser went before him in the Augsburg Chronicle with these words at the year 803: "He first, by consecrating the principal temple in this city, a custom which under Paul I, Roman Pope, scarcely half a century before, had grown up by no means the least superstition, first dedicated it to the great Mother Mary the Virgin on the eve of St. Michael the archangel." But the man must be pardoned, either not knowing or pretending not to know that in the Catholic Church sacred buildings, from the most remote centuries of the Christian religion, although not always with the same rite, were customarily consecrated not so much to the saints, who are only our intercessors with God, as indeed to God himself and to his worship, as the supreme and only Deity. The charge of superstition was already formerly laid against Christians for the same cause; but St. Augustine already formerly washed it away thus, in book 22 of the City of God, chapter 10: "But we build for the Martyrs not temples, as to gods, but memorials, as to dead men whose spirits live with God: nor do we erect altars there on which to sacrifice to the Martyrs, but we immolate the sacrifice to the one God, theirs and ours." But let us follow the deeds of St. Simpert.

[35] as also of the institution Adilbert, after citing pseudo-Theodore, having first said a few things about the slenderness of the resources of the episcopate of Augsburg as it then was, proceeds thus: "He united the parish" (the episcopate) "on both sides of the Lemannic river, which is called the Lech, by which that church was then first enlarged, by the authority of the lord Pope Leo III, and also with the consent and confirmation of the lord Charles, now made emperor, God assenting, in both duchies, namely of the Norici and the Alemanni." Charles was raised to the dignity of emperor in the year 800, the fifth of Leo; and consequently it is necessary that this took place between the year 800 and the year of Simpert's death: but what Adilbert says in general about the accession of part of Bavaria to the diocese of Augsburg, more recent writers set forth more minutely, when they write that Simpert was bishop not only of Augsburg but also of Neuburg: and Neuburg (of which there is discourse here) is a town of Bavaria, situated on the Danube, about seven miles distant from Augusta Vindelicorum: and it is certain that an episcopal see existed in that place in the 8th century, from the Acts of the synod celebrated in the year 772 at Dingolfing in Bavaria, in which, among the bishops and abbots who entered into a pact concerning a certain number of prayers to be poured forth for one another by the survivors, in the first place among the bishops Manno, bishop of the city of Nuvenpurg, is listed: but other things come to be weighed here which are not so clear.

[36] Corbinian Khamm, in part 1 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, page 68, treating of Manno, of Neuburg who in the 7th century was fourth in order bishop of Augsburg, says: "For the rest, I have investigated with unremitting labor the origin of the episcopate of Neuburg; but with vain effort." Then, citing the Manuscript Annals of his monastery, but not very ancient ones, in which it is contended that the episcopate of Neuburg was never in fact different from that of Augsburg, but only in name, because the prelates of Augsburg in those turbulent times, leaving Augsburg, fixed their see at Neuburg, he transfers Manno, bishop of Augsburg, whom he had first ascribed to the 7th century, to the times of the synod of Dingolfing, in which he was called "of Neuburg" only for this reason, that he had fixed his dwelling there. These things are new, and produce a new confusion in the Catalogues of the Bishops of Augsburg, which are more than sufficiently entangled from elsewhere. But as regards the origin of the episcopate of Neuburg, I say this first, that it did not exist a little before the year 738, in which St. Boniface instituted three bishoprics in Bavaria, those of Salzburg, Freising and Regensburg. I gather this from the letter of Gregory III to St. Boniface, in which the Pontiff, praising him on account of this deed, says among other things: "Therefore, since you have indicated that you went to the race of the Bavarians and found them living outside ecclesiastical order, since they had no bishops in the province except one, named Vivilo" (of Passau), "whom we ordained a little before." There was therefore at that time no bishop in Bavaria besides the one of Passau, and consequently not one of Neuburg either. Boniface afterwards instituted in the same Bavaria the bishopric of Eichstätt, over which he placed St. Willibald. What if, then, about the same time an episcopal see was established at Neuburg on the other bank of the Danube?

[37] Certainly this is not foreign to the custom of that age, in which several bishoprics were instituted in Germany, the bishopric, and in fact it is read to have been done under Pope Zachary, who ruled the Church from the year 741 to 752, in some old Manuscript, I know not which, of which in Lazius, On the Migration of Peoples, book 7, On the Boii, page 232, these are the words: "This Zachary, at the request of king Charles" (read Carloman; for in the same year 740, when Charles was dying, Zachary had not yet been proclaimed Pontiff), "ordained two bishops, Wicco to the New city" (Neuburg) "and Rozilo to Augsburg. Then the lord king Pippin ordered Boniface, bishop of Mainz, to whom the second" (nay the III) "Gregory had committed his stead throughout Gaul and Germany, and Bilibald" (bishop of Eichstätt), "together with the other wise men, by the precept of the lord Apostolic, to set in order ecclesiastical affairs throughout the whole kingdom. Accordingly blessed Boniface the bishop came on the same journey into Bavaria, and, sitting in the New city, set in order from there the episcopal sees through all Bavaria, and on account of his deserts deposed Wicco the bishop, and with the consent and precept of the lord king Pippin and of duke Odilo ordained Mammo there, and, he having died, Hildegart was ordained bishop there." If the age as well as the credibility of this Manuscript were established, there could be no doubt about the distinctness of the bishoprics of Augsburg and Neuburg; since it says that at the same time Wicco was placed as bishop over the one and Rozilo over the other: but as its age is perhaps not sufficiently ancient, so neither is its credibility sufficiently firm. For I should think that a bishop of Augsburg who was called Rozilo, at least under this name, will be found nowhere else: and as regards Wicco, it perhaps believed him to be the same as Wigo, mentioned in the letter of Gregory III to the bishops of Bavaria and Alemannia in Othlo; but others believe the latter rather to have been of Augsburg, because they suppose that at that time there presided over the see of Augsburg one who was called Wicterp; and that the word Wigo or Wicco is contracted from Wicterp, as Ezo from Ehrenfrid, Cuno from Chunrad, Lanzo from Lantfrid, etc.; but the discourse will return to Wicterp below.

[38] whom also That Manno, who is mentioned here in the second place among the bishops of Neuburg, held the see of Neuburg is undoubted from the synod of Dingolfing praised above; but I would not dare to say as much of Hildegard, whom the author of the praised Manuscript subjoins to Manno; since I have found no trace of him anywhere else, nor did the author of the Manuscript use such accuracy that he did not confuse persons and times even in this very text which we are treating: thus he says that Pope Zachary, at the request of Charles (Martel), bestowed the episcopal dignity on Wicco and Rozilo, whereas Charles died in the year 741 in the month of October, and Zachary began to preside over the Roman See in the same year indeed, but when it had already advanced to the month of December. Again the author of the Manuscript says that Boniface, staying at Neuburg, by order of Pippin set in order the episcopal sees through all Bavaria and, Wicco having been removed from the see of Neuburg, substituted Manno: yet already from the time of Gregory III and while Charles was still surviving, as is clear from the letter of Gregory to Boniface on this matter, he had instituted three bishoprics in Bavaria, those of Freising, Regensburg and Salzburg, and Boniface had confirmed the fourth, that is, the one of Passau: the Pontifical letter by which this institution of bishoprics is approved exists in Othlo in the Life of St. Boniface, and was written in the XXIIIrd year of the empire of Leo, in the VIIIth Indiction, and consequently no later than the year 740; how then does he write that this was done by order of Pippin? Certainly these things do not seem able to be rightly reconciled, unless Gregory be substituted for Zachary and Charles the father for Pippin, whom the author of the Manuscript mentions at the beginning of the text transcribed here.

[39] But however these things may be, Adilbert seems indeed to have said truly to have administered that that part of Bavaria which the river Lech separates from Swabia was committed to the episcopal care of St. Simpert: for hence he seems to be called bishop of Neuburg in the diploma of Leo III by which in the year 798 he raised Arno, bishop of Salzburg, to the archiepiscopal dignity: Hund recites it, On the Metropolis of Salzburg, page 4, from the Salzburg copies, in which the address of the diploma is couched in these words: "To our most beloved Alim of the church of Säben, who now of Brixen: or Atto of the church of Freising, and at the same time of the church of Regensburg, as well as Walther of the church of Passau, and Symbert of the church of Neuburg, bishops of the province of the Bavarians, Leo, servant of the servants of God." The depravation of this address is indeed manifest; for long afterwards, under Albuin, as the cited Hund writes on page 442, the see of Säben was transferred to Brixen, and consequently Leo could not say of Alim "who now of Brixen." It is likewise manifest that Atto did not preside at once over Freising and Regensburg; for in the year 798 Adalwin presided at Regensburg: as therefore the former words, "who now of Brixen," belong to an inept interpolator, so these too, "and at the same time," where "Adalwin" ought to have been written, seem to be ascribed to the unskilfulness of the copyist: for Hund did not see the autograph diploma of Leo, as is noted in the margin. That Leo does not speak of Simpert, bishop of Regensburg, is ascertained from the year of the latter's death, 791 of Christ, as we saw above at num. 27: it remains therefore, since no other Simpert is known to have been a bishop in Germany while Leo III was Pontiff, that he must be thought to speak of St. Simpert of Augsburg, whom he called bishop of Neuburg, not of Augsburg, not because he was not of Augsburg when Leo issued this diploma, but because he was directing it not to the bishops of Alemannia but to those of Bavaria only, among whom he judged St. Simpert was to be numbered on the ground that he administered part of Bavaria. Further, I do not think that Leo, who beyond doubt expressed in his diploma the see of Simpert as also of the rest, made mention of the see of Augsburg, both for the reason already given and because otherwise the interpolator of the diploma, as he called Atto of Freising and at the same time of Regensburg, though wrongly, so would seem likely to have called Simpert of Augsburg and at the same time of Neuburg.

[40] The other testimony to the administration by St. Simpert of that part of Bavaria St. Simpert, which lies on the right bank of the river Lech is sought from the Historical Roll of the monastery of Benediktbeuern, situated in the same part of Bavaria between the Libusa (Loisach) and the Isar in the Tetrarchy of Munich, in tome 7 of the Monumenta Boica, published at Munich in the year 1766: you will gather the age of the author from the fact that toward the end of the Roll he says: "After this" (after the former liberty of the monastery had been recovered by the abbot Gotahelm) "no one of mortal men dared to covet that monastery." The abbot Gothelm having been snatched from among the living in the year 1062, as Meichelbeck writes, Megingoz succeeded, but after two years and some months of abbatial rule he was injuriously removed from his rank by Ellenhard, Ratmund being intruded into his place; and since the author of the Manuscript Roll was ignorant of this disaster of the Monastery of Benediktbeuern, he will have departed from among the living a little after the year 1062, or certainly finished his Work. Let us now see what he brings to our matter. Thus he writes in the tome of the Monumenta Boica cited above, page 6: "For XXXIX years he" (Walaram, second abbot of Benediktbeuern) "ruled this place and the places mentioned above, and on the day of the Vigil of the deposition of St. Scholastica the virgin, the sister of St. Benedict, he departed from this light, that is, on the Vth before the Ides of February, and was laid by the bishop of Augsburg, the holy man Sintbert, next to his brother blessed Lantfrid on the very day of the deposition of St. Scholastica." And he not only buried Waldram, but by his authority and consent, which is an undoubted argument of episcopal power and right, a successor was given to him. For thus the author of the Roll proceeds: "And by the election of bishop Sintpert and of the brethren of the Congregation of St. Benedict the venerable man Elyland the abbot was ordained in his place, that is, on the IVth before the Ides of February"; from which indeed what Adilbert said about the administration by St. Simpert of part of Bavaria is confirmed.

[41] was not however the first But was the diocese of Augsburg then for the first time, as Adilbert likewise asserts, enlarged by that part of Bavaria which is situated beyond the Lech? The reason for doubting is sought from the same author of the Roll of Benediktbeuern, who on page 2 says of Wicterp, bishop of Augsburg, first indeed, that it was done chiefly by his counsel that St. Boniface was approached and asked to dedicate the church of the monastery of Benediktbeuern; which Meichelbeck in the Chronicle of Benediktbeuern hands down was done in the year 742, but its editor Hardenfeld in the year 740. Then the same author of the said Roll mentions a church at the place Staphalastagna (or at the lake Staffelsee) in the district of Housi, or in the district of the counts of Andechs, founded with the consent of duke Tassilo (rather Odilo; for when that church was founded Tassilo had not yet been born, or certainly was still an infant) and of Wicterp, bishop of the city of Augsburg. Finally he says that Lantfrid, the first abbot of Benediktbeuern, after twenty-five years of rule, was committed to burial by the same Wicterp; all which things, and then above all that which is mentioned in the second place, show that Wicterp too acted as bishop beyond the Lech.

[42] among the bishops of Augsburg There will perhaps be someone who says: St. Magnus, abbot of Füssen or Fauces, from what was said in tome 2 of September in the Commentary prefixed to his Life, § IV, more probably died about the middle of the seventh century: but Wicterp, bishop of Augsburg, was a contemporary of Magnus according to the writer or interpolator of the Life of the said abbot, by whose testimony St. Magnus, having left Kempten, setting out for Fauces, found Wicterp, bishop of Augsburg, at Epfach and had him as a kind host: furthermore the Life of St. Magnus which he wrote was already from the 11th century held as ancient, as Suyskens observes in §1 of the Commentary just praised: wherefore, as in antiquity, so also in authority the writer of the Life of St. Magnus ought to be judged superior to the author of the Roll of Benediktbeuern, who wrote when the 11th century was well advanced. I confess indeed that he is superior to the author of the Roll in age, but not in accuracy of writing. What Mabillon judged of his authority has already been said above; and I much fear that that interpolator or pseudo-Theodore, with his usual unskilfulness, confused Wicco, or (which, as I said above after Meichelbeck and Eckhart, amounts to the same) Wicterp, likewise bishop of Augsburg in the 7th century, with the Wicterp who ruled the same church in the 8th century. What of the fact that he fights with himself, when on the one hand he writes things from which it follows that St. Magnus died in the 7th century (see the praised Commentary of Suyskens, §4); and on the other makes the same man a contemporary of king Pippin, the brother of Carloman; and in this way not only does not oppose the author of the Roll of Benediktbeuern, but hands down the same as he about the age of Wicterp, bishop of Augsburg. And he does so in chapter 6, num. 54, writing thus: "The aforesaid bishop Wichterp set out to the glorious king Pippin" (the brother of Carloman, as he expressly adds a little after), "who at that time Germany and the whole

Gaul was ruling," etc. These things having been weighed, therefore, in my judgment at least, there is no reason why pseudo-Theodore, though somewhat older in age, should seem to be preferred in this matter to the author of the Roll of Benediktbeuern, who relates domestic things from domestic monuments.

[43] But Meichelbeck is held by another scruple, and fears seems to have acted as bishop beyond the Lech; that the writer of the Roll of Benediktbeuern may have stumbled here: Wicterp the bishop may perhaps indeed have been present at the dedication of the church of Benediktbeuern, but the one about whom the following is read in the Annals of the Franks of Massay, extending from the year 726 to the year 796, in Labbe, tome 2 of the Manuscript Library, page 736: "In the year DCCLVI, the Vth year of the reign of king Pippin, Wicterp, bishop and abbot of St. Martin" (of Massay in the diocese of Bourges) "died. And he was a Bavarian, of the Heilosuing family: an old man and more than eighty, he was sitting until that time, writing books with his own hand": the same, as appears, who at the end of a certain little book to a friend, a fellow-countryman or Bavarian, wrote: "I Wicterp myself wrote, although a sinner, a bishop now old, ninety, I think, or above, with aching limbs and dimming eyes… In the third year of the reign of Pippin, son of Charles, king of the Franks, in the month of June, in ten days I wrote this little book, that is, in the year DCCLIV from the Nativity of Christ, VIIth Indiction." But this one is altogether other than the Wicterp of the Roll of Benediktbeuern: he is called bishop indeed, but such as there were in cloisters, who had no diocese to rule; nor in any other sense than that in which it is read of Andegar in the same Chronicle at the year 790: "Andegar, bishop of the monastery of St. Martin, died on the XVth before the Kalends of February." He is called abbot, which the author of the Roll nowhere says of his Wicterp: he is said to have died in the year 756: but the Wicterp of whom the author of the Roll speaks is said to have buried Lantfrid twenty-five or more years after the year 740 or 742: wherefore it is not likely that anything about this Wicterp came into the mind of the author of the Roll. And that Marcomannus sat at Augsburg in those years neither Meichelbeck nor Gasser, whom he cites, has given as proved. It becomes very likely, therefore, from the cited Roll, that the bishops of Augsburg exercised their office beyond the Lech too before St. Simpert. But perhaps Adilbert meant only this, that it was only under St. Simpert that it came about that that part of Bavaria was first joined or confirmed to the diocese of Augsburg by the solemn letters of Leo III and Charlemagne, in which way all disagreement between Adilbert and the author of the Roll of Benediktbeuern will be removed. It could likewise have happened that the portion of Bavaria adjoining indeed the river Lech, but more remote from the Danube, obeyed the prelates of Augsburg before the episcopate of Simpert; but the other portion, which is nearer the Danube and Neuburg, first came to the diocese of Augsburg when St. Simpert was prelate. Moreover, not the whole diocese of Neuburg was joined to that of Augsburg: "For the parts situated on our side" (that of the people of Eichstätt) "of the Danube," says Gretser at the end of the Appendix on the bishops of Eichstätt, "seem to have fallen to the episcopate of Eichstätt, which division still lasts; for Neuburg itself, and what is beyond the Danube for us, belong to the episcopate of Augsburg; the rest to that of Eichstätt, except that near Ingolstadt a village beyond the Danube, which takes its name from the Saviour, with some others adjoined, is reckoned under the diocese of Eichstätt."

[44] his other deeds in the episcopate. St. Simpert, if we believe Corbinian Khamm, was present at several synods, of Mainz, Regensburg, Frankfurt, Aachen I, Thionville, Worms, and Aachen II; greatly benefited the fathers of the councils, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious in the affairs of religion and of the kingdoms by his counsels; promulgated the synodal decrees and took care that they were observed; opened schools for the instruction of youth at St. Afra's, etc., which are partly true, partly to be cut away. Since of the various epochs of St. Simpert's episcopate which the praised author says are laid down by various people, the first in order of time is that which ties the beginning of his episcopate to the year 779, he sufficiently indicates that the synods mentioned by him here were held after that year: taking the beginning from there, I find in Hartzheim, in the Chronological Index of the Councils of Germany at the beginning of tome 2, a synod of Worms, one celebrated in the year 786, the other in the year 803; of Aachen I in the year 789, the second in the year 797; of Regensburg in the year 798, the other in the year 803; of Frankfurt in the year 794; of Mainz in the year 800; and likewise another in the year 813; finally of Thionville in the year 805; at all of which indeed (but except that of Mainz of the year 813), taking account of the time at which he sat at Augsburg, Simpert could have been present: whether he was in fact present, as I would not dare plainly to deny, so neither to assert. A specimen of the decrees promulgated by Simpert and of his solicitude that they be holily observed you have above, where the discourse was of the synodal Statutes promulgated by him to the monks of Murbach: but what Corbinian Khamm said about schools instituted by him at Augusta Vindelicorum for instructing youth probably rests on the Epistle of Charlemagne given in the year 788 to Baugulf, abbot of Fulda, which is for instituting schools in every bishopric and monastery. Finally, that he was frequently at the court of Charlemagne, and was entangled, though unwilling, in affairs of graver moment, is clear from what we related from the synodal Statutes at num. 17: but that the same befell him while very frequently at the court of Louis is to be cut away; since from what was said above at num. 12 St. Simpert did not reach the times of the emperor Louis.

§ IV. The death of St. Simpert, his burial, certain miracles, the first translation, his sacred cult begun and increased.

Snatched from among the living at the beginning of the 9th century I indeed do not doubt that St. Simpert did more things in his episcopate worthy of the eternal memory of posterity, but which the vicissitude and injury of the times has snatched from us: Adilbert and others commonly hand down that he presided over the church of Augsburg for thirty years; which, although it cannot be proved by sufficiently certain and ancient monuments, I did not think I should rashly depart here from the common tradition. And the year about which he died (namely 808 or the following) you have already determined, as far as was possible, from what was said above. Adilbert says that he was called to the reward of his labors in heaven while Leo III was governing the Church and Charlemagne the empire of the West, which space of time runs from the year 795 to 814; and he lays down the day of his death as the XIIIth of October, on which he is noted in the very ancient Necrology of St. Ulrich (although without the title of Saint, as Mabillon witnesses, tome 4 of the Analecta, page 328), omitted perhaps because the Necrology was written before St. Simpert was declared a Saint by the Pontiff and obtained special and public cult, of which matter it will be spoken below. Hence, as appears, he was adorned with no other than the title of Bishop by the biographer of St. Ulrich, presently to be cited, in the 9th century. St. Simpert is indeed venerated on that day, nor have I found anyone who contradicts Adilbert in this matter.

[46] It was at that time the established custom of the bishops of Augsburg and buried in St. Afra's that they wished their remains to be laid in the church of St. Afra near Augsburg: moreover, the same church had been raised from its ashes by the care of St. Simpert, as was said above: it was natural therefore that St. Simpert should wish to be buried there; which was done according to his wishes, as Adilbert witnesses; namely in the choir near the steps, as may be gathered from the biographer of St. Ulrich, to be cited more fully below. The remains of St. Simpert lay there from his death for a hundred and sixty years and more, as Adilbert writes, until the church of St. Afra perished by fire a second time, when the Hungarians in the time of St. Ulrich were laying waste the whole of Bavaria and besieging Augsburg. But Adilbert's calculation is not consistent; for that incursion of the Hungarians into Alemannia took place, as I shall presently show, in the year 955: and if you count back 160 years from this, you will roll back at least to the year 795, the first indeed of Leo III, but the fifth before the reins of empire were taken up by Charlemagne; whereas Adilbert says that St. Simpert died while Charlemagne was still ruling the imperial sceptre. Adilbert adds further that, the Hungarians having been driven off, the church of St. Afra remained without a roof, and the tomb of St. Simpert exposed to the rains: but that Ulrich was admonished in sleep by God to take care that the tomb of St. Simpert be covered with a fitting roof: there lay in that temple the bodies of other Saints too; but these were in some fashion protected against the injuries of the weather: wherefore mention of St. Simpert alone seems to have been made to Ulrich divinely; perhaps because he was venerated less than was fitting, or God wished to prevent the merits of his Servant from being consigned to perpetual oblivion. Stengel affirms in his Life that from then on St. Simpert began to be invoked by the faithful as a Saint.

[47] he begins to grow illustrious with prodigies in the 10th century; But lest this matter, as asserted by an author not very suitable, should be held less credible, it will help to set before the reader the words on this matter of the writer of the Life of St. Ulrich, not only a contemporary of this Saint but also an intimate: "But the church of St. Afra," he says, tome 2 of July, page III, num. 50, "which had been burned by the pagans, had not yet been rebuilt, but a hut roofed with shingles defended the altars from rains and inclement weather: the tomb of Simpert the bishop, situated in the choir near the steps, still remained without a roof; and, admonished in a vision about its covering, he covered it with timbers skilfully joined in the manner of a lid." The same author expressly gives the year of the siege of Augsburg by the Hungarians and of the burning by them of the church of St. Afra as DCCCCLV; Sigebert however notes 957, Marianus 956; most others referring it to the year 955. He adds further, which Adilbert too does, that when the church of St. Afra had already been repaired, but only by makeshift work, not long after St. Ulrich was again divinely admonished to restore it with more splendid work: "Taught thoroughly by this revelation" (the second), he says, "what he must do, he had the walls, for the greatest part laid low" (or devoured?) "by the fires, rebuilt with great haste, and added to the former height the measure of one cubit; and adorned the western part of the church with a fitting crypt; above, the buildings having been carefully measured in his presence, he ordered timber to be cut and brought with the greatest zeal, and did not delay until he had covered it entirely with tiles, and clothed the interior of the church with panelled ceilings, and adorned it with bright painting, and had the ornaments of the church restored, which on account of the barbarians had been carried into the city and kept in the mother church" (the cathedral, restored by St. Simpert in the year 807 and dedicated to St. Mary, as Corbinian Khamm writes in Simpert).

[48] his relics first translated in the 11th century, The church of St. Afra, restored by St. Ulrich, stood until the 11th century, when it had advanced to its twelfth year, under Bruno, bishop of Augsburg, members of the Benedictine Order were substituted for the canons who had hitherto administered it, and Reginbald was appointed the first abbot of that place. But about the same time

St. Ulrich, buried there, began to grow illustrious with so many and so great prodigies that to the church, which had hitherto been called St. Afra's, the name of St. Ulrich too was added; by which name I find it called in a diploma of the emperor Henry II, given in the year 1023, part 3 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, page XI. In the same century likewise, Adalbero being abbot, the pomerium of the city of Augsburg having been extended, the monastery of SS. Afra and Ulrich was received within the bosom of the walls. So Bernhard Hertfelder, Prior of the same monastery, On the Basilica of SS. Afra and Ulrich, part 1, partly chapter 3, partly 4. And in the year 64 of the same century (wrongly in Pez, as also in both Manuscript Lives of St. Simpert sent by Wiltheim and Gamans to our predecessors, the year 1004 is read) the temple of SS. Afra and Ulrich, having collapsed again, was restored by Embrico, bishop of Augsburg, on which occasion the relics, found, not of St. Simpert only, but also of SS. Wicterp, Nitgar and Adalbero, likewise prelates of Augsburg, were translated to the Southern part of the basilica under a certain vault, into the place where now (about the middle of the 13th century, when Adilbert was writing) they are venerated by the people. And this was the first translation of the body of St. Simpert, which was followed by the miracles which Adilbert afterwards narrates; but only those which are nearer to his own times. Of these the first, which took place when both the temple and the monastery of SS. Afra and Ulrich had been burned again in the 12th century, is wrongly read to have taken place in the year 1180; since Hertfelder, Stengel and Corbinian Khamm write that their monastery fell into that new calamity in the year 1183, on the VIth before the Kalends of July.

[49] And the prodigies which Adilbert narrates that God wished to show by the merits and intercession of St. Simpert miracles increase are these in summary: swelling of the feet driven away; the tomb of St. Simpert, although exposed to the open sky, yet untouched by the rains; pain of the head and quinsy taken away; a demon cast out of a human body; soundness of mind restored to a madman; an infant unharmed by the teeth of a wolf; the use of an arm restored; an iron fetter broken of its own accord; paralysis driven off; sight restored to a blind woman; a withered arm and a contracted hand recalled to their former use and vigor. And as the number of prodigies increased, there likewise increased the concourse of the faithful to the tomb of St. Simpert, the abundance of pious offerings, and the sacred cult of the holy Bishop: Udalschalk, bishop of Augsburg from the year 1184, wished the day sacred to SS. Simpert and Adalbero to be kept with special cult: likewise Henry III, elected abbot of SS. Afra and Ulrich in the same year, ordered the day of their deposition to be celebrated, as Corbinian Khamm witnesses, part 1 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, pages 228, and part 3, page 48. And although in Pez no miracles of St. Simpert are thereafter narrated which were wrought before the year 1465, yet there is no doubt that in the 13th and 14th centuries he grew more and more illustrious by them, as will become abundantly plain from what is presently to be said.

[50] For, as Corbinian Khamm writes, part 1 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, page 281, and Nicholas V grants his cult to the monks of St. Ulrich, "in the year 1450 Peter von Schaumberg, bishop of Augsburg and Cardinal of the H. R. C., moved by the frequency of the miracles of St. Simpert, proposed this heavenly Man, shining with miracles, to the supreme Pontiff Nicholas V, and obtained from the same Pontiff (by oracle of the living voice) that he might be venerated by all the faithful like the other Saints, and in the said monastery" (of SS. Afra and Ulrich) "might also be celebrated with the divine Office"; after, namely, as Sigismund writes, the Legend and metrical History with certain prose sequences had been offered to the Pontiff and examined. And he not only granted the cult of St. Simpert to the monks of St. Ulrich, but wished them, as the same Sigismund witnesses, to be adorned with this notable eulogy: "We, when we were in minor orders, saw his place and Brethren, and we judge them to be good Men, nor do we suspect any deception. Wherefore we will that they perform the obit of the same blessed Simpert with a solemn Office, until a legate shall have been sent to these parts by the See: then let what is to be done be done." Yet an error lies in Sigismund's words; for it was not Felix V (Amadeus, duke of Savoy and antipope) who granted the cult of St. Simpert, as is read in him, but Nicholas V, the successor of Eugene IV (to whom Peter von Schaumberg constantly adhered, as Corbinian Khamm witnesses, part 3, page 77). For thus it is read in the public testimony which the praised prelate of Augsburg gave concerning this indult of Nicholas V in the year 1408 on the sixth of February, of which, in part 1 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, page 77, this fragment is exhibited: "That the abbot and convent of the monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra of Augsburg might and should discharge the divine Office, both of the day and of the night, with the History and Legend found in old codices and books concerning blessed Symbert, singing and reading with due reverence, and that blessed Symbert himself might henceforth be revered and venerated as a Saint by them and other faithful of Christ without the stain of any sin and the mark of transgression, he conceded and granted by the same authority by a like oracle of the living voice."

[51] and other Pontiffs increase it, Bishop Peter, emulating the munificence of the Pontiff, that he too might promote the cult of St. Simpert, subjoined the following to the testimony just related: "To all the faithful of either sex, contrite and confessed, who on the day of St. Symbert shall devoutly visit the chapel or altar of the same St. Symbert, situated in the aforesaid monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra, and as often as they shall stretch forth helping hands for the preservation of the same chapel or altar, of the chalices, books and other ornaments necessary for divine worship there, we mercifully relax in the Lord a hundred days of the penances enjoined on them, the present letters to last for ever." The indult of reciting the Office of St. Simpert, hitherto granted to the monastery of St. Ulrich, Gregory XV in the year 1622 extended to the diocese of Augsburg, and ordered his Office to be recited under the double rite, through the care of Johann Merck, abbot of St. Ulrich's, which afterwards, says Corbinian, often praised, part 3 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, page 131, was raised to a feast of the II class. And Clement XI, through the care of Wilibald Popp, abbot of St. Ulrich's, in the year 1713, on the VIIIth day of October, as the just-cited Corbinian witnesses, page 195, granted plenary indulgences to all the faithful, to be gained on the XIIIth day of October, sacred to St. Simpert, in the church of St. Ulrich.

[52] the abbots of St. Ulrich promote it The abbots of St. Ulrich's, Henry, bishop of Augsburg, the caesar Maximilian, and the city of Augsburg also contributed their share to promoting the cult of St. Simpert. "Johann Melchior von Stanham, abbot of St. Ulrich's from the year 1459 to the year 1474, after the indult of Nicholas V," of which above, "ordained an Antiphon, Versicle and collect of St. Sympert, bishop of Augsburg, to be discharged among the common suffrages or commemorations at Vespers and Lauds," says Corbinian, part 3, page 80. The same of Conrad the abbot: "Moreover, building the chapel of St. John the Baptist and the Evangelist above the tomb of St. Sympert with a vault of wonderful art, he surrounded the tomb itself with a grating artfully fashioned of ductile bronze, in the year 1496." Johann Merck, of whom in the preceding number, adorned the chapel of St. Simpert, as the same witnesses, page 130. He adds on page 196 of Wilibald Popp, of whom likewise in the preceding number: "In the year 1714, substituting for the old gilded statue of St. Symbert another of Parian marble, he sumptuously adorned his tomb itself with Porphyry stone. On the occasion of this structure an iron chest was seen, two feet and nine inches long, and nine inches wide, bound with two iron bands or plates lengthwise and three widthwise. On top of this chest these words were read: 'St. Simpert, bishop of Augsburg.'" Of Frederick von Zollern, bishop of Augsburg, and Johann Giltlingen, abbot of St. Ulrich, it will be spoken below.

[53] But of Henry, bishop of Augsburg, Bishop Henry, the caesar Maximilian, and the city of Augsburg, Corbinian speaks thus, part 1, page 393: "In the year 1624 he promulgated that the feast of St. Symbert, bishop of Augsburg and secondary patron of the diocese, already for a hundred years" (nay almost two hundred, from num. 50) "celebrated with the canonical Office in the monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra, was to be performed throughout the whole diocesan territory under the double rite on the XIIIth day of October. At St. Ulrich's he granted a solemnity of eight days"; which he then describes specifically, and anyone who is desirous of knowing that pomp can see it in the place cited. The caesar Maximilian, having gained a victory over the Bohemians, consecrated a military trophy to St. Simpert, which formerly hung at his tomb, with this inscription: "MDIIII, on the day before the Ides of September. The emperor caesar Maximilian, pious, fortunate, august, being victor, with the auxiliary leaders Albert of Bavaria, Eric of Brunswick, and the margraves of Brandenburg, Frederick the father, Casimir and George the sons, the Bohemian enemies, in the fields of the Norici, not far from Regensburg, the Danubian city, having been struck, slain, routed, and with the other baggage and impedimenta these standards which you see having been recaptured, on account of the victory gained, they were dedicated to the divine Simpert." So Stengel in the Notes on the Life of St. Simpert. And the city of Augsburg was afflicted in the year 1628 by a grave pestilence, and in the year 1646 by a grave siege: the former began to cease when a supplication had been instituted on the XIIIth day of October, sacred to St. Simpert; the latter was raised on the same day, "on account of which," says Corbinian, part 3, page 132, "and other innumerable benefits bestowed on natives and foreigners, he was taken as secondary Patron of the whole diocese of Augsburg." To these may be added Udalric Zürcher, canon of Augsburg, whose piety, as the often-praised writer says, part 1 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, page 645, erected an altar to St. Simpert in the cathedral church in the year 1658. But let this be enough said about the beginning of the sacred cult paid to St. Simpert and its progress, and let us take up again the interrupted thread of the translations of his relics.

§ V. The remaining translations of the relics of St. Simpert, the proper Offices, his memory among the martyrologists.

[The relics of St. Simpert are translated again in the year 1491 and the following,] We have already seen above the first translation of the sacred body of St. Simpert, by which it was laid away from the choir of the church of St. Ulrich, where it had first been entombed, in a certain vault toward the Southern part of the same, made in the year 1064, when Embrico, prelate of Augsburg, had raised the burned temple from its ashes. The monastery of St. Ulrich burned again in the year 1183 together with the temple (as was said at num. 48), and the tomb of St. Simpert was indeed broken by the weight of the falling beams, but his body was not moved from its place; and on that occasion, when a woman, perhaps walking about, had touched the relics of St. Simpert through an opening, she drew back her foot struck with a swelling, from which evil, however, the help of the same Saint having been invoked, she was freed and at once restored to her former health: then likewise, as I briefly hinted above at num. 49, the very rains did not dare to touch the tomb of St. Simpert, although it was exposed to the open sky and was not raised higher than the pavement. Likewise in the year 1333 I read that the same monastery was seized by fire: but no,

as it appears, change was then made which would pertain to the tomb or relics of St. Simpert. But in the year 1474 Henry Fries, the successor of Melchior the abbot, saw the new fabric of the temple, begun from the year 1467 by Melchior, thrown down by the force of the winds on the festive day of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, with the graver loss in that the remains of St. Simpert, overwhelmed and lost in the rubble, lay hidden until in the year 1491 they were happily discovered by his successor, Johann von Giltlingen, and found in a tomb before the altar consecrated to his name, but, as we have said, not exceeding the height of the ground. Taken out of the old sarcophagus and translated into a new one, Johann the abbot ordered them to be brought into the sacristy with religious pomp, Maximilian, then king of the Romans, looking on, on the day sacred to St. Andrew, that is, the day before the Kalends of December, and they were kept there, until in the following year, on the second feria of Easter, they were brought back into the former place indeed, but into a higher tomb (except the head and a few others), with a pomp altogether notable, which you will find described at length in the Monuments to be subjoined below to the Life of St. Simpert.

[55] [the bishop of Augsburg takes care that nothing of them be carried off on this occasion.] On that occasion the piety of Frederick von Zollern, bishop of Augsburg, toward St. Simpert shone forth, as one who not only wished to be a great part of the things that were then done, but also took care by an edict that nothing of the relics of St. Simpert should go to loss or fall as plunder to thievish hands: I transcribe the edict here from part 3 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, page 93 and following: "Frederick, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Augsburg. To each and all the parish priests, vice-parish priests of the parish churches, and the other clerics, notaries and public scriveners, established anywhere throughout our diocese and city, greeting in the Lord. Since therefore, as we have ordained, the relics of St. Symbert, confessor, bishop and our predecessor, laid away in the monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra of Augsburg of the Order of St. Benedict, are to be translated * from the old tomb into a new sarcophagus, that they may be venerated and held with greater reverence and honor. Willing therefore that nothing of these relics be alienated: we therefore command you, each and all the aforesaid, and each one of you, in virtue of holy obedience, that by our authority you prohibit the venerable and religious, sincerely beloved to us in Christ, the abbot and brethren of the said monastery, jointly and severally, and each and all other faithful of Christ, clerics and laymen, whom we too by these presents prohibit under the penalties and censures in written form, from alienating or receiving any of these relics, or allowing them to be alienated and received, and from giving or handing over to any person, of whatever dignity, state or condition he may be, anything of the said relics, publicly or secretly, or permitting it to be given or handed over, under pain of excommunication, which we will that each and all violators of this our present prohibition incur by the very fact. By these presents willing that the same excommunicated persons, and each of them, remain so bound until they shall have merited to obtain from us the benefit of absolution. We also prohibit each and all confessors, under the said penalty, from absolving the excommunicated, or any of them, in the penitential forum from their sins and the said excess, except at the point of death, until they actually and effectively restore these relics to the said abbot and convent. In testimony of which we have ordered the present letters to be fortified by the appending of our seal. Given from the castle of Dillingen, on Friday, the seventh day of the month of October, in the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and ninety-one." Moreover I do not know for what reason Stengel in the Life of St. Simpert and Corbinian Khamm, Augsburg Hierarchy, part 3, page 103, tied this solemn translation of the year 1492 to the IIIrd feria of Easter: on which day indeed it is read below to have been performed in the Instrument drawn up concerning this matter; but since the feria of Easter is there connected with the XXIIIrd day of April, and in that year Easter fell on the XXIInd day of the same month, it is manifest that an error was committed there either in assigning the third feria of Easter or in the XXIIIrd day of April: I, retaining the XXIIIrd day of April, have substituted the second for the IIIrd feria of Easter, following in that matter the credit of the Instrument issued by Frederick, bishop of Augsburg, and exhibited here at the end of the Monuments below, in which these chronological characters, cohering excellently with one another, occur: "Given and done at Augsburg in the monastery and places aforesaid, in the year of the Nativity of the Lord MCCCCLCII, Xth Indiction, on Monday, the twenty-third of the month of April, which was the IInd feria of Easter," etc.

[56] Besides the two translations mentioned (namely the principal ones, The last translation made in the year 1579, of which the former took place in the year 1064, the latter in the year 1492, from what has been said), "the bones of St. Symbert," says Corbinian Khamm, part 1 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, which appeared in the year 1709, page 104, "were with sacred solemn pomp, in the year MDLXXIX, for the third and last time, under abbot Köplin, translated to the side chapel related before; whereas anciently they rested outside the said chapel, surrounded by very high iron gratings." And he had premised on the same page this notice of that chapel: "This very place" (in which the bones of St. Simpert were laid away in the year 1492) "is in this age called the chapel of St. Symbert, placed under the vaulted arch dividing the upper chapel of St. John the Baptist and Evangelist" (deputed by Conrad the abbot in the year 1496 as a private oratory of the abbots) "from the lower chapel of St. Symbert. In this lower chapel there exists today an altar consecrated by the Most Reverend Lord Michael, bishop of Adramyttium, suffragan of Augsburg, on the IIIrd day of October in the year MDLXXXII. And on the Epistle side is seen the Mausoleum of St. Symbert, most famous, as I remember, for frequent miracles." Hertfelder, On the Basilica of SS. Ulrich and Afra, exhibits a picture of his tomb inserted at pages 56 and 57; and of a bust on page 90, which I do not know whether it exhibits the silver statue of St. Simpert overlaid with gold, or that one which Corbinian Khamm, part 3, page 97, says was owed to the sermons of Conrad Mörlin; who in part 1, page 454, also writes that in the cathedral temple a statue of this kind, of silver, in whose base notable relics (of St. Simpert, as I think) are enclosed, was made in the year 1682 for adorning the high altar. The cited Hertfelder, page 92, exhibits, engraved in copper, the head of St. Simpert, kept apart from his other relics, which Maria Fugger, of the illustrious stock of the Schwarzenbergs, adorned with a precious mitre by her pious munificence. Finally the praised Corbinian, part 1, page 488, says that every year in the cathedral temple on the day before St. Michael's, together with other relics of the Saints, a part of St. Simpert is exposed to public veneration. The reader will therefore easily understand from what has been said so far with how notable a cult St. Simpert is honored, especially in the diocese of Augsburg.

[57] Proper Offices recited in honor of St. Simpert, But as regards specially the monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra, I find in our literary furniture a triple Office of St. Simpert customarily celebrated there, transcribed from the Proper of the Saints of the monastery: the first of these, to be recited on the day sacred to St. Simpert, that is, the XIIIth of October, is double, and contains four Lessons proper to the Saint, in which his life is set forth in a few words, and then the miracle of the boy snatched from the jaws of the wolf, and it is related that St. Simpert was enrolled in the register of the Saints by Nicholas V. And it is subjoined that this was approved by the authority of Paul V. The second, likewise divided into four Lessons, is noted to be recited with double rite on the feast of the Finding, on the first day of December: in Lesson 1 mention is made of the church of St. Afra destroyed by the Hungarians when St. Ulrich was prelate of Augsburg; in the second, of the tomb of St. Simpert protected by the same holy prelate against the injuries of the weather; in the third and fourth, of the second Finding of the relics of St. Simpert, made in the time of Johann von Giltlingen, abbot of St. Ulrich's. The third finally, likewise double, treats of the three translations of St. Simpert mentioned above, likewise in four Lessons: and it is noted to be recited on the fourth feria after Low Sunday. St. Simpert also has a place in the proper Offices of the diocese of Augsburg, printed at Dillingen in the year 1638, where, besides three proper Lessons, this Prayer also is read: "O God, who hast evidently declared the glorious merits of blessed Symbert, thy confessor and pontiff, by virtues and miracles; grant us by his patronage health of mind and body; that, following his examples, freed from all evils, we may merit to come happily to thee. Through our Lord."

[58] and the mention of him among the martyrologists. And since St. Simpert was enrolled in the number of the Saints by the authority of the Pontiff only in the 15th century, you would look in vain for mention of him in Martyrologies a little older: Sollerius in the Usuardine Auctaria at the XIIIth day of October transcribed this eulogy of him from Molanus: "Of Simpert, twelfth bishop of the church of Augsburg, about the year DCCLXVI; whose body rests in the monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra. Through whose merits, among various miracles, a certain poor little woman recovered the use of one arm and hand, which she had lacked for some years. Who, having received health, paid praises, and left there a wax arm as a sign of her health." St. Simpert is referred to the XIIIth day of October also by Walasser in the German Martyrology, the author of the Martyrology of Basel, Dorgain in the Benedictine Calendar, Ferrari in the Catalogue of the Saints not inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, Chastelain in the Universal Martyrology, Arnold Wion, Lignum Vitae, part 2, page 338; but Greven and Bucelin in the Benedictine Menology to the twelfth day of October, though wrongly.

* Supply statutum sit "it has been decreed" or something similar.

THE BOOK OF ADILBERT, PRIOR OF ST. ULRICH'S, ON THE LIFE AND MIRACLES OF ST. SIMPERT.

Simpert, bishop, confessor, at Augsburg. (S.)

BHL Number: 7773

Here begins the Preface to the Life of St. Simpert the bishop.

Adilbert, Prior of the monastery of St. Ulrich, Since it is useful and necessary that at the opening and head of every book a Preface be placed, through which the matter of the future Work, the intention of the writer, the utility or quality for the reader may be indicated; whence near the beginning of this book the author must of necessity be put forward for this reason, that the readers may know to whose sayings they ought to give credit. I therefore, Adilbert ^a, Prior of the monastery of Augsburg of the Order of the divine Benedict, formerly tutor of the little ones, vowed and proposed (which I have at last fulfilled in old age) to gather together and write, namely, some notable instances of the virtues of the confessor of Christ Simpert ^b, bishop of Augsburg, being led and enticed to this by the benefit of his grace, conferred on me at his tomb in a certain infirmity of the body under which I labored at that time.

[2] But because almost all his deeds, through the carelessness and negligence of those then living, were not written, having been granted a benefit by St. Simpert, I have nevertheless here described, gathering them into one, the few things which I found written about him or came to know by investigation. For sometimes miracles cease to be wrought by the Saints, as well on account of the service

of God being neglected, as on account of the incorrigible malice of the inhabitants. They cease also for this reason, that, when at times they occur through the intercession of the Saints, not only are the praises or thanks due to God and his Saints by no means rendered, but they are not even committed to memory. But why am I especially solicitous in seeking out some things about the holiness of him whom I have mercifully experienced in myself? What weak person ever came believing to his tomb and did not merit health?

[3] From their frequency and usualness, therefore, for a long time now none are noted, he undertakes to describe his Life and some Miracles. none published, none written, because, if anyone had wished to write them hitherto, he would long since have filled a huge volume. Yet I have here written down a few things which have been related to me about him by truthful men, lest I should seem to have kept altogether silent about his holiness. For from a few things, as from many, the abounding gift of God can be comprehended, because holiness is commended not only in the occasion of signs, but ^c also in the execution of the precepts of God and in the purity of the conversation of life. Here ends the Preface.

ANNOTATIONS.

HERE BEGINS THE LIFE OF ST. SIMPERT, BISHOP OF AUGSBURG.

§ I. The birth of St. Simpert, his character, his deeds in the episcopate and his burial in St. Afra's.

CHAP. I.

Blessed Simpert, then, adorned by God with the grace of all the virtues St. Simpert, XIIth bishop of Augsburg, with which the Apostle describes that a bishop ought to be strong, was by the glorious king of the Franks and emperor of the Romans, the lord Charles, nay ^b divinely predestined for this, set over the church of Augsburg as pontiff, in the twelfth place of the order from blessed Dionysius ^{c d}: which number twelve, consecrated by many names and distinguished by terms from the writings of both the New and the Old Testament, can not unfittingly be adapted, through the merit of his life, to his ordination; which, partly sought out for the instruction of readers or hearers, we wish to be recited here.

[5] to which number the author alludes variously from Sacred Scripture, For there are twelve signs, twelve months, twelve hours of the day, twelve fountains in Elim ^e, twelve spies ^f, twelve princes of the people of Israel ^g, twelve stones in the rational ^h, twelve stones of the altar ⁱ, twelve stones taken from the Jordan ^k, twelve loaves of proposition ^l, twelve oxen under the brazen sea ^m, twelve stars in the crown of the bride ⁿ, twelve foundations ^o, twelve gates of the city [p], twelve fruits of the tree of paradise, twelve thousand in the valley of the Salt-pits [q], twelve thousand sealed [r], twelve Patriarchs, twelve Prophets, twelve Apostles, twelve Seats. By the terms and properties of which number this father Simpert, and holy Preachers like him, are figuratively expressed: because in the house of God, that is, in holy Church, by the operations of their virtues they shone like the signs of the months in the firmament, and like stars in the crown of the bride, or the gems of the stones in the rational; against the dangers of the world they stood forth strong, like the spies of the promised land; constant, like the leaders of the people of Israel, or the twelve thousand champions in the valley of the Salt-pits. They were also teachers of virtues and justice and of the precepts of God, like the Patriarchs, Prophets and Apostles.

[6] Of the origin of the parents of this Simpert, therefore, [s] and of his birth and infancy or even boyhood, nephew of Charlemagne by his sister, since nothing is anywhere declared in writing, we too do not presume to write anything [t]. Yet we relate this of him, which we have heard from the truthful relation of our elders, from ancient tradition brought down to us, that he was the nephew by his sister of the lord Charles, king and emperor, and drew his genealogy from the royal stock. For his works worthy of imitation and praise which he did, how he lived and taught, how he strove to preside over and profit his subjects, have, through the faulty neglect of writers, been almost consigned to oblivion for posterity, as we said before.

CHAP. II.

[7] That he [u] therefore led an angelic life among men, and by chastisement of the body showed himself a temple to the Holy Spirit, shining with angelic manners, and made bishop of Augsburg, and by the continual offering of the sacred altar immolated himself to God as a living victim, is proved after his passing by frequent attestations of signs. He being therefore appointed by the lord Charles to the dignity of the pontificate [x], he commanded, and, as the Lord once did to Jeremiah at the beginning of his prophecy, to build and rebuild all things which he should find destroyed and burned there. That he might be the more able to accomplish this, he gave by royal authority to the same places all the things which had been handed over there by the lord Pippin, his father and predecessor in the kingdom, for the sake of devotion. He himself also added no moderate gifts to the same gifts, imitating Hiram, king of Tyre, who added his gifts to the gifts of David, sending to Solomon for the building of the temple cedar and fir timber according to his will.

[8] And the Man of the Lord Simpert, as he had received from the mandate of the lord king Charles, he restores the temple of St. Afra and the monastery of Füssen, just as Judas Maccabaeus, Antiochus being dead, the city and temple having been recovered, rebuilt what had been demolished and burned, and made a new altar of fired stones: so he began with the greatest diligence to rebuild the church of blessed Afra and the monastery of St. Magnus at Fauces, which sacred places and many others besides had been burned and destroyed through the tyrannical sedition which arose between Utilo, duke of the Norici, and Godfrid, duke of the Alemanni, after the death of the pious king Pippin [y]. All which things anyone wishing to know can read more fully in the Life of blessed Magnus [z]: whence we too do not wish to repeat them here on account of loftiness.

CHAP. III.

[9] The episcopate of Augsburg itself, the government and care of which he had undertaken, was not at that time so strong in temporal things according to the pomp of the world as now, he enlarges the diocese of Augsburg but still, as in the primitive Church, according to the precept of the Lord, lay subject to voluntary poverty, nor did anyone in the clergy possess anything of his own, but all things were common to them: which the man of the Lord Simpert strove in every way, as his means required, to exalt and enrich according to the fear of the Lord. He also united the parish on both sides of the Lemannic river, which is called the Lech, by which that church was then for the first time [aa] enlarged, by the authority of the lord Pope Leo the third [bb], and also with the consent and confirmation of the lord Charles, now made emperor, God assenting, in both duchies, namely of the Norici and the Alemanni.

[10] and after 30 years of rule And St. Simpert ruled the church of Augsburg for thirty years according to the form of instruction which blessed Paul the Apostle, writing to Timothy, enjoined thus: "Be an example of the faithful in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, in chastity. Attend to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the grace that is in thee, which was given thee with the imposition of the hands of the priesthood. Meditate upon these things, be wholly in them, that thy profiting may be manifest to all; for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee [cc]." Which form the man of the Lord Simpert, carrying it out fully, made known by his words of divine preaching, and confirmed by showing examples of the virtues in himself.

[11] he dies, and is buried in St. Afra's. Having therefore fought the good fight with vices and concupiscences, and having finished the course of his time in holiness and justice, when, the right faith having been kept, there remained laid up for him the crown of justice which God has promised to those who love him, Pope Leo the third presiding over the holy Roman church, and Charlemagne still ruling the imperial sceptre, in the thirtieth year of his ordination, overtaken by an infirmity of the body with sickness, amid the divine colloquies of prayers on the fourth day before the Ides of October he gave back his spirit to heaven, and, carried by angelic ministries to the ethereal mansions, entered to possess them without end, and exchanged the light of this world for the habitation above [dd]. Whose sacred body with funeral [ee] obsequies was carried into the church of St. Afra, which he himself had rebuilt when burned and destroyed, and was honorably buried, as was fitting, in the choir near the steps; in which place those laboring under various infirmities of the body, vowing and fulfilling their vows, were restored to the most perfect health.

CHAP. IV.

[12] One hundred and sixty years and more having therefore rolled by after his passing, His tomb, exposed to the open sky, St. Ulrich when blessed Ulrich, whose name was held celebrated through all Germany from the fame of his virtues, was presiding over the church of Augsburg, the savage race of the Huns, having gone forth from their territories, crossing the bank of the river Lech, burned the church of blessed Afra a second time [ff], and laid waste the whole of Alemannia by plundering. When therefore the same church remained for some time without the covering of a roof, and the tomb of blessed Simpert, situated in the choir near the steps, lay open to the showers of rains and the cold of snows, one night, while the man of God Ulrich had indulged his weary limbs a little in sleep and rest, he is divinely admonished in a vision to provide the tomb of St. Simpert with a fitting roof. Which admonition the man of God obeyed without delay, and protected it from the rains with rather firm timbers joined in the manner of the lid of a chest.

[13] is ordered in a vision to cover it. Hence it will be able to be clearly plain to all of how great merit this blessed man was in the sight of the divine Majesty while dwelling in this world, to whose ashes such honor is divinely ordered to be paid [gg]; as though it would be unjust for so holy members to lie open to the flooding of the rains, while many Martyrs and Confessors are seen to rest under the open sky and to await the hour of the resurrection. In this too an indication of his holiness can be proved, that the man of God Ulrich is described to have been first divinely admonished about the injury of his tomb, while in the same basilica many bodies of the Saints, and especially of the glorious martyr of Christ Afra, the matron of the same place, as well as of her maidens, are seen to be venerated by the people as preserved without hesitation; which basilica too he is afterwards ordered by a not dissimilar admonition of revelation to rebuild.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Ibid. ℣. 12.

q. In 1 Paralipomenon, chapter 18, ℣. 12 and following, it is read: "And Abisai, the son of Sarvia, slew of Edom in the valley of the Salt-pits eighteen thousand, and he put a garrison in Edom, that Idumea might serve David."

r. Apocalypse 7, ℣ 5 and following.

s. His father, they say, was Ambertus, his mother Symphoriana, daughter of Pippin and sister of Charlemagne.

t. You have some things about his youth in §1, num. 14 of the Preliminary Commentary; and in the following §, the things which he did when from a monk he was made abbot of Murbach. Moreover in the Wiltheim Manuscript, instead of "we do not presume to write," "we presume to write" is wrongly read.

u. The Wiltheim Manuscript has sic "thus"; the Gamans one, hic.

x. You have the year in which he entered on the episcopate determined in some fashion in §1 of the Preliminary Commentary, num. 13.

y. We have given a probable epoch of the burning of the temple of St. Afra at num. 33 of the Preliminary Commentary.

z. The words of the writer praised by Adilbert concerning St. Simpert, Utilo and Godfrid have been discussed in §3, num. 29 and following of the Preliminary Commentary.

aa. Simpert indeed extended his episcopal care beyond the Lech, the boundary of Noricum and Alemannia, from num. 40; but he was not the first of the bishops of Augsburg to do so, from num. 41 of the Preliminary Commentary.

bb. He sat from the year 795 to the year 816.

cc. So, roughly, Paul, 1 to Timothy, chapter 4, ℣. 12 and following.

dd. About the year 808 or 809, from what was said in the Preliminary Commentary, num. 13.

ee. Read: funebribus "funeral".

ff. In the year 955, according to the anonymous biographer of St. Ulrich in Welser, chapter 12, on which year most writers agree.

gg. The Manuscript of Wiltheim as well as that of Gamans: deferre.

§ II. Certain benefits conferred on mortals by the intercession of St. Simpert.

CHAP. V.

Let us now intimate in a few words how his body was transferred into the place His relics having first been translated in the 11th century, where it is now venerated. In the first year, then, of the ordination of Embrico, bishop of Augsburg, which is the one thousand and fourth from the Incarnation of the Lord ^a, with fifty talents of silver left by his predecessor ^b, the church of St. Afra, as it is seen today, is built from its foundations, and many bodies of the Saints are found. The structure of the temple being therefore completed, the relics of his body, with those of the other holy Confessors Wicterp and Niegar and Adilbero ^c, were reinterred with fitting honor in the southern part of the basilica, under a certain vault, in the place where they are now venerated by the people, where, the grace of Christ granting it ^d, by the merits of its Confessor sight is restored to the blind, hearing to the deaf, walking to the lame, and demoniacal violence is excluded from possessed bodies. Those also laboring under various infirmities of the body, frequently admonished in a nocturnal vision, very often also led by hope of confidence, and having fulfilled their vows there, were restored most completely to their former health. Of which notable signs of his we judge it will be worthy to insert some here for the instruction of the unbelieving and the confirmation of believers.

[15] by his intercession a woman's swollen foot is healed, In the year of the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand one hundred and eighty, then, a flame arising unexpectedly through some unhappy persons, all the buildings of the basilica and monastery of St. Ulrich and blessed Afra, by divine permission, were reduced to embers of ashes; to consider the misery of which misfortune, and to relieve it with gifts of charity, no small crowd came from the neighboring cities, towns and villages. And it happened one day, while a certain woman was walking about near the tomb of blessed Simpert, that unexpectedly she slipped and stuck in it through a certain opening which perhaps lay open there through the excess of the flames of the fire, and touched some little part of the relics of the holy Father himself; whence, startled, while she drew back the foot that had slipped in, she saw that it had suddenly swollen. She soon confessed her guilt with a lamentable voice, and complained that she had sinned against the Saint of God. What she should do next she did not know: yet she placed her hope in the Saint of God, and, prayer having been poured out to him with weeping, she was thus restored by him to her former health.

[16] This too I think should not be passed over in silence, but will be worthy of relation, which, not without small * wonder, we learned on the attestation of our elders was done by divine providence around his tomb. After the burning of the basilica, then, for a space of some days the same basilica was so filled with the waters of rains by a flood of showers his tomb is kept untouched by the rains, that the timbers which had been left by the flames of the fires were seen to float about all through the church, nor was opportunity given to anyone anywhere of entering on dry ground. But the tomb of Simpert, confessor of Christ, which in no way stood out from the pavement but was level with the ground, so remained untouched and dry on every side all round it from that flood, as if it had been covered on its surface with rather firm tiles: which indication of his holiness is to be compared with the revelation previously written, which is described to have been enjoined from heaven on blessed Ulrich, that he should defend his tomb from the pouring of the rains. From which it is also given to us to know with how great love his spirit is held in the sight of the divine Majesty, whose body, buried in the earth, is thus assiduously cared for from heaven.

CHAP. VI.

[17] A certain woman of honorable life, coming with a certain nun who in her infirmity had made a vow [a woman who had transferred elsewhere the candles lit at his tomb is punished and freed,] to the tomb of St. Simpert, carried away the candles which had been offered there, and placed them, lit, elsewhere in the same monastery at the memorial of the Saints. Thence returning home, she began to be wearied by a horrible pain, so that she passed almost the whole night crying out. Meanwhile, having fallen asleep a little, she seems to herself to be in the church of Ulrich and St. Afra, and the bones of blessed Simpert to lie on the pavement as if neglected and scattered. And while she stood astonished over these things, she hears a voice as if proceeding from the bones: "Because you carried away the things offered to me and placed them elsewhere, you are deservedly tormented: and unless you make satisfaction for these things to God and to me, you will not be freed. Moreover tell Henry the Prior that he ordain better reverence to be shown to my bones, because I and St. Ulrich continually pour forth prayers in the sight of the Lord for this place." The woman, awakened from sleep and going to the tomb of blessed Simpert with offerings, having prayed, was restored to health.

[18] A certain man of the town of Mendichingen ^f, suddenly weighed down by the disease of quinsy, one is freed from a disease of the throat, another from a demon, the swelling pressing outwardly and inwardly, began one night to be so provoked ^g that he was despaired of by many. While meanwhile he was rapt in sleep, he sees blessed Ulrich standing near in his mitre ^h, and gently handling his mouth and throat and saying: "Go to the tomb of blessed Simpert, and bring your offerings there, and give thanks to God and to him for the health of your body." Wonderful to say! As soon as he awoke, the swelling having burst within, he vomited so much matter and gore that it caused stupor and wonder alike in those looking on, and the man was freed. Coming therefore to the memorial of blessed Simpert, he gave thanks to God, who is always wonderful in his Saints. In this miracle it is to be noted how holy and salutary are the Apostolic precepts, which the Saints are seen to fulfil even after this life, of which this one: "In honor preferring one another ⁱ," St. Ulrich seems here to have fulfilled, when he is described to have handled the limbs of the sick man himself, and that he received health, and ordered thanks to be rendered for this to blessed Simpert, no doubt because the faith of the same sick man had proposed that these things were to be obtained from blessed Simpert. At about the same time we heard that a certain man vexed by a demon was freed at his memorial: but how this happened, or whence the same man was, we do not know, who at that time was scarcely twelve years old.

[19] a madman There was also in the town of Neuburg, of the province of Bavaria ^k, a certain man very well endowed with the riches of this world. He ordered ^l his young son, named Conrad, to drive the horses one night about the time of the barley harvest for the sake of grazing. Who, obeying the commands of his father, fraudulently drove the horses into the endowment of the crops of the wheat harvest of a certain church of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, as is the custom of the attendants of the common people, and soon paid the penalty of his rashness. For about midnight, awakened by a certain terror, he was suddenly seized with madness of mind. When he had been brought home, his father began to question him whence he had thus begun to be alienated in mind. But he did not answer the questions; but only uttered words of blasphemy and the gestures of his madness. He came also into such great frenzy that he would seize half-burned or scorched logs from the hearth with his hands and drive those living with him out of the house. What more? He is led round by his kinsfolk with gifts to the places of the Saints for the sake of health; but by no means obtains the gift of health. At last, brought to Augsburg by a certain lay brother named Adilbero, his kinsman, he was presented in the monastery of St. Ulrich for the sake of health. And, a vow having been performed with gifts at the relics of the body of blessed Ulrich, he did not obtain the gift of health there. Thence he is carried in like manner with an offering to the tomb of blessed Simpert, that there at least he might obtain health.

[20] to a sound mind, And the vows having been duly fulfilled, when he raised himself from prayer from the tomb, stretching out his neck in the manner of madmen, with a furious look, he began to carry his head round, turning it. When the brother already mentioned saw this, raising his eyes and hands to heaven he began to sigh. The madman said to him: "Why," he said, "have you groaned thus from the bottom of your heart?" Who answering said: "We have reason to grieve and groan, who see so great a defect of your sense." But he, with lowered face: "Do not grieve with groaning," he said, "henceforth: because I feel myself cured through the merits of St. Simpert." Then all standing by at once, lifting both hands to heaven, praised almighty God, who does not forsake those who hope in him, who through the merits of the holy Confessor restored him to his former health. And he, taken back whence he had come, was in a short time most completely restored in the strength of his whole body. Afterwards, setting out on the Jerusalem expedition for the satisfaction of his sins, he happily died and was buried in the land of pilgrimage.

CHAP. VII.

[21] In the upper region ^m there was a certain woman, intent on works of great devotion, a boy snatched by a wolf, unharmed to his mother, who, the holiness of St. Simpert having become known, fre

quently came to Augsburg to his tomb for the sake of praying. She also had a little infant, whom she nourished with maternal affection, who one day, having wandered a little way from the house, was snatched by a wolf walking about there and carried off into the forest. And the wretched mother, when she saw herself bereaved of her offspring, went about with a lamentable voice beating her breast with her fists, and did not know what to do. Yet she placed her hope in God and in the patronage of St. Simpert, and prayed in this manner: "O St. Simpert! do not despise me, wretched woman, but have my offspring commended to your grace: by your intervention I believe that the divine clemency can be appeased for my sins, and I trust that my beloved offspring will be restored to me unharmed by you." Having prayed through these and similar things, she lamented the losses of her calamity. Some spaces of hours having passed, then, that most cruel beast, and, so to speak, in some way an enemy to the human race, came running with the aforesaid little infant, whom it had snatched to appease the gluttony of its voracity, and laid him down unharmed in the same place from which it had taken him, and went back, not without trembling, to the hiding-places of the forests. The mother, receiving him with the greatest exultation, carried him with her in her arms, walking to Augsburg, and made known to all how she had received him back from the wolf, restored to life through the merits of St. Simpert; and, her vows with thanksgivings to God and blessed Simpert having been performed at his tomb, to declare the greatness of this miracle she hung up there a wolf made of wax carrying a boy in its mouth, which thereafter for a long time hung there before the eyes of all comers for the confirmation of this deed.

[22] From a certain town of the Norici, called Mamendorf ⁿ, to a poor little woman the use of her arm and hand, there was a certain poor little woman, who among other defects of the body had lacked the use of one arm and hand for some years. She, setting out to Augsburg with certain others of her fellow-provincials, went to the tomb of Simpert, confessor of Christ, for the sake of health. Where, prayer having been poured out with groans for his grace, she did not obtain health from him there. Nevertheless, not abandoning her confidence ^o, which she had placed in God and in the merits of St. Simpert, she returned home without health. When she arrived there, she began to pray, bewailing her misery in words like these: "O St. Simpert, who in your church have shown bountiful things [p] to many asking in their necessities, why have you not succored me with the same grace of piety, having pity on my poverty, by which I have been afflicted for many years?" When she had fulfilled these and similar things with a tearful voice, that joint of the limbs of the arm and hand, which, bent from long continuance, had withered, began by the merits of St. Simpert so suddenly to be loosed that thereafter, not without the wonder of many to whom her calamity had been known, she used them for the service of any work. Having therefore obtained her vow with health, she returned joyfully to Augsburg, and went to the tomb of St. Simpert, and paid praises to God and to his Confessor for the health received, and left there a wax arm as a sign of her health. The fact of this miracle was made known by her to many dwelling there, which we too, as we learned it from the truthful relation of a certain sacristan of ours, to whom the care of the same tomb had been committed, being present * at the same time, have inserted in this page for the knowledge of posterity.

CHAP. VIII.

[23] There was a certain mute, the servant of a certain cultivator of a farm in the township called Chennenhausen [q], speech is restored to a mute, belonging to the sacristy of the church of St. Ulrich and blessed Afra, who for the absolution of his crimes and the restoration of speech had bound himself with two iron rings, with which satisfaction, having taken the habit of a pilgrim, he set out on the journey of St. Giles, by whose intercession and merits he merited to be freed from the constriction of one ring. Thence he went round various places of the regions, walking about, and sought the patronage of the Saints. And thus, the report having been learned of the most holy mystery of the Body of the Lord and of the change made at Augsburg [r], he came to the same city with the concourse of the people, to seek the mercy of almighty God. But he who opens the bound tongues of the mute, and makes eloquent the tongues of infants, enriched with the use of speaking by his grace the man long deprived of it.

[24] and his fetter is broken, Thence he went to the basilica of blessed Ulrich for the sake of prayer and sought the patronage of the Saints resting there. Coming also frequently to the tomb of St. Simpert to pray, he did not implore his help in vain. For one day, when, with knee bent upon his tomb, he had bowed down in prayer, he merited to be freed from that heavy ring of iron by which he was still constricted. At the sound of its breaking that lay brother (of whom we made mention above), standing near, somewhat startled, began to wonder what clanging had sounded in his ears: and approaching him he said: "What iron is here, the sound of whose breaking I perceived with my ear?" But he, wishing to conceal the grace conferred on him by the Saint of God, said, "Nothing." The brother therefore, having drawn out his arm, when he saw the place of the ring, said to him, rebuking him thus: "What, wretch, did you wish to do? Why did you wish to conceal the gift of God? Do not by hiding dissemble what it is fitting should be published to the praise of God, and ought to be commemorated in public for the strengthening of the faithful. Render thanks to God and to blessed Simpert, on account of whose merit this benefit has been conferred on you, and know that you have been absolved through his suffrages from those crimes of wickedness for which you wished to be thus constricted by these iron rings [s]." He, rendering thanksgivings to God and to his holy Confessor, left the same iron hung up there as a sign of this deed, that it might be clearly plain to all comers with how great patronage this holy Man was able to succor the distressed with the Almighty.

[25] former vigor About the same time there was brought to Augsburg in a cart a certain paralytic, who for many years could be freed from the infirmity of his body by no medical art. When he had been carried into the church of the Holy Cross, and had prayed for three days in it with vigils and supplications for the clemency of God for his health, he did not obtain there what he asked. Thence those who had brought him, instructed by the spirit of counsel, decided that he should be brought into the church of St. Ulrich and blessed Afra to implore the patronage of the Saints resting there. And when they had entered the doors of the same church, they were forewarned by him whom, sick, they were carrying on a litter: "First carry me to this tomb, which, opposite to the gaze of my neck [t], is surrounded by a popular throng." There stood therefore at the tomb of blessed Simpert very many comers of both sexes, considering the tokens of signs hanging there and praising the clemency of God.

[26] to a paralytic, And when they had laid him down before the tomb, and for the space of some hour had implored the help of the Confessor of Christ, a certain vigor of health suddenly began to spread through all the limbs of the sick man, creeping slowly, so that it was given him to understand beyond doubt that through the merits of St. Simpert he had merited to be freed from the infirmity of his body; and he said to his companions: "I trust, dearest ones, that almighty God, through the intervention of his Confessor, has looked upon my poverty for my salvation, because I feel that my limbs have received some little vigor; remove therefore these tokens of my unhappiness, and allow me, in the name of Christ, as I shall be able in whatever way, to creep with you on the earth now long desired." They at once, taking him between their hands and arms, led him rejoicing round about through the places of prayer of the same basilica, applauding greatly his former health through the merits of St. Simpert. And thus it came about that he who for a long time was carried by others on a litter, restored to most perfect health, walking by himself followed the same freely wherever it was permitted.

CHAP. IX.

[27] At another time also, from a town called Mazensielerem, to a blind woman certain people turned aside for the sake of prayer. They brought with them, with the same intention of devotion, a woman deprived by divine permission of the sight of her eyes for four years, whom they carried with them round about, walking to the places of prayer for the restoration of light, a staff guiding her step. When, therefore, they had come to the tomb of Sintpert, confessor of Christ, they left her there praying and invoking his patronage. But after two days, when they had proposed to return whence they had come, and had ordered the same little woman whom they had brought to accompany them, she altogether refused, because she had placed the hope of her salvation in the Saint of God. At last, compelled by rebuking words, she followed them not voluntarily. And it came about, while they were making their way toward her dwelling, and her mind, set in compunction, clung to the Saint of God, that God, who regards the hearts of the humble, looking forth from on high, heard her prayer, and removed the misery of her blindness through the suffrages of the holy Confessor thus.

[28] When, therefore, she was following unwillingly those with whom she had come, sight, and was searching out the footprints with the staff which she carried in her hand, suddenly, her eyes growing warm, after rubbing her eyelids, they began, the darkness receding a little after a while, to be lit with light, so that she walked without anyone's guidance and saw clearly the things placed round about. She, therefore, when she saw herself made master of her wish through the merits of St. Sintpert, and saved by the gift of God from the reproach of blindness, said to her companions: "Go on, because for the present I will not accompany you home; but I will return to Augsburg to render thanksgivings to St. Sintpert for the health conferred on me." To whose words they did not give assent, but, because they were near the village toward which they were making their way, compelled her to go on with them. And she, because she could not resist their will, consenting entered the village with them. And when it was now growing toward evening, when she had laid her weary limbs down to sleep, she could give no rest to her body. And when morning came, she returned to Augsburg, and paid thanks to the Confessor of Christ for the sight received, and made known to the custodians of the same church how through the merit of St. Sintpert on her return she had received the light long lost. Having therefore celebrated watches in prayer at his tomb for three days, she returned home with joy.

[29] [and health is restored to a woman struck with withering of the arm and scab of the hand.] There was also in the city of Augsburg a certain man who made needles for furriers, well known to us, who had in his service a certain foolish woman. She, one Saturday, the evening time having passed, as is the custom of silly women, with hair combed and adorned for the Lord's day or another feast day, her face washed and painted, began to apply herself to works of diabolical deception. And soon divine vengeance and correction came upon her, and, her right arm having withered and her hand having been bent, the fingers twisted into the palm, she received the punishment of her iniquity. The hand itself was also suddenly turned into such a scab that it offered a horrible stupor to those who looked on. Chastised therefore for some days by this scourge, and her former life changed for the better, intent on fasts and prayers, she persisted in confessing her guilt. One Sunday, therefore, which preceded the anniversary day of blessed Sintpert, at the evening time she came to his tomb, and prostrated herself to the ground, and placed her hand and arm upon it, and poured out prayers with tears to the Servant of God, and merited her former health through his merits from almighty God.

ANNOTATIONS.

b. Henry II.

p. The Gamans Manuscript: "O St. Simpert, who have bountifully shown your mercy to many asking in their necessities."

q. Stengel, cited at letter n, has Zemetshausen.

r. In the year 1194, from num. 3 of the Preliminary Commentary.

s. Hence we learn that the kind of penance by which those guilty of graver crimes, bound with iron fetters at the command of priests, went round the tombs of the Saints until they should be loosed, although disapproved by Charlemagne, was still undertaken in the 15th century, if not at the command of priests, at least spontaneously by the uneducated.

t. Read: cernitis "you see".

* magna "great"

* adstantis "being present"

THE BOOK OF THE MIRACLES OF ST. SIMPERT

From the year MCCCCLXV to the year MCCCCLXXI.

Simpert, bishop, confessor, at Augsburg. (S.)

BHL Number: 7776, 7777, 7778, 7779

BY AN ANONYMOUS MONK OF ST. ULRICH'S.

In the name of Jesus and of his prelate Simpert begins the Prologue to the Miracles of the same St. Simpert the bishop.

[The author says that he will hand down certain miracles of St. Simpert only in summary.] My pen is not now to be led through the meadows of eloquence, nor is labor to be spent to show you, best father ^a, the beauty of various colors, but in a simple and, so to speak, hurried style the miracles of the most holy patron Simpert are to be narrated summarily, so that namely the reader may both have the matter and not be burdened with weariness. For since so many happen daily that they require not only the office of a proper writer but also of a notary, I should vainly spend labor in weaving one, when presently another equally urgent is at hand. I will therefore sometimes omit the names of persons, places, and other circumstances, and, as it were hastily plucking the gist of the deed, sending him who desires to be informed of others to the longer Record which is with you. For the Priors of the place have always taken this office upon themselves, to have the tomb of your Simpert in their care. Thus Adalbert ^b, by compiling the History and Legend with annexed miracles, thus Henry, his solicitor at the Apostolic See, through the lord Cardinal ^c procured his veneration, thus you too now act religiously and devoutly. I pass over your predecessor ^d, who had the greatest hope placed in St. Simpert while he was laboring for the beginning of the building; omitting therefore for the present the old things, his deeds, namely how in the monastery of Murbach, over which St. Pirmin ^e presided first ^f, he himself as fourth abbot lived laudably and thereafter governed, how he was set over Augsburg, we shall narrate only those deeds, few indeed, which have been done in our age, and this we begin in the name of Christ from the year of Grace MCCCCLXV ^g.

ANNOTATIONS.

DISTINCTION I.

A boy's hernia, swelling of the throat, pain of the breast, phthisis, The first Miracle. A boy born the day before is deformed in his first beginnings by a defect of rupture, which the physicians call carbuncle, about the testicles. The physicians with their Avicenna, the surgeons with their cruel instruments, say that they confer neither hope nor help. Human help failing, the divine is at hand, namely through the aid of St. Simpert. For the anxious mother assails him with prayers, and heaps a vow upon her prayers; to the tomb … ^a the disease growing strong into the fourth month, she carried the boy and received him back sound. The 2nd Miracle. A swelling had gripped a woman's throat to the point of suffocation for fourteen days, which made both her stomach famished and her breathing tight. Now approaching her end, she made a vow to St. Simpert with prayer, and in a moment is healed. The 3rd Miracle. A certain woman of good repute was burdened with pains of the stomach, and, as if that were little, was pricked most grievously about the breast. She invoked St. Simpert, and is restored to health while she is brought to the sacred relics. The 4th Miracle. A little one had not yet reached a year, and, already made a miserable spectacle of human unhappiness, was miserably tormented with phthisis together with spasms, with most violent pain, over the space of many days, so that it was dreadful to see, not only for the mother but for the others too. The mother, groaning, invokes St. Simpert with a certain confidence, and sent him to his tomb. She rejoiced that, received back, he had obtained health.

[3] cough, toothache, syncope, a breast oppressed, pleurisy, bleary eyes, The fifth. When the breast of an honorable matron was wearied for six years with a cough, which is wont to be the prelude of death, made burdensome to all on account of its sound, she wears the ground of St. Simpert with bent knee, heaps up vows, and goes away healed *. Nor less her neighbor, perceiving these things, while she too was being tormented with toothache into the third month, follows the same purpose, and returns home sound. The sixth. A virgin, while she suffered for four years the interruption of the vital spirits which the Greeks call Syncope, made now a spectacle to all, pale of face, wasted in body, heaps up a vow, pours out prayers with tears, and returns vigorous from the tomb of St. Simpert. Her companion, drawn by the example, who was wearied with a grave infirmity about the breast, likewise prostrates herself on the ground sick, but through the merits of the Saint is raised up sound. The seventh. Pleurisy had invaded the side of a woman together with a failure of strength in the feet. While those present secretly discuss her funeral, she asks in her heart for hope of health from St. Simpert, and, her miserable state having been changed, hastens to present herself at the church to pay her vow. A fellow-citizen, who had borne for three years bleary eyes, horrid to others, useless to herself, drawn by the example, drank faith into her breast: and likewise prays and obtains.

[4] The eighth. A woman carries a fetus about to come forth into the sun, if ^b the course of nature should favor it; while she doubts whether it has life beyond a month, and was on this account endangered, she makes a vow to most holy Ulrich and to his predecessor Simpert, as patrons here and fellow-citizens in the fatherland, [one in perilous labor, deafness, a cow's swelling, a woman almost blind, a dying fetus,] life is given to what was as it were an abortion, and the child to its mother. Another offers to St. Simpert a deaf boy and almost a monster of nature, and carries him back sound. And that I may narrate the deed of a simple little sheep ^c, she ^d had a cow and boys. This, all her hope, all her riches, had swallowed a worm in the grass. The wretched animal swells up, the widow laments that milk will fail for herself and her boys, she invokes St. Simpert, the patron of orphans and widows. The worm comes out of the animal through the mouth; hope with effect smiled upon the lamenting woman. The ninth. A woman purblind now for ten years, and drawing only a certain glimmer into her little eyes, very wretched in her possessions and body, while she does not consider that she has Isaac as her partner, nor does she notice the blindness of the aging Jacob, imputes the stroke to her sins. While she bewails at the tomb of St. Simpert in hope of pardon, she feels her whole person safe. Another, while she is endangered in childbirth, and the fetus, as it seemed to all, at last comes forth abortive, and for the space of two hours remains without sign of life. At last, an offering of wax and wheat having been promised, it utters not merely the simple voice of one crying, as all do, but even a trumpet-like one.

[5] The tenth. A poor woman from a neighboring village had contracted dropsy in childbed … ^e might rest, a dropsical woman, a bedridden woman, a woman wounded in the arm, a paralytic, who, brought by her mother to the city to seek the help of physicians, while she was speaking to her hostess about this matter, heard these words: "There is in our church of St. Ulrich a physician of souls and bodies, who aids all by deed and words, namely St. Simpert: go to him and offer prayers to him." Mother and daughter follow the counsel, and pray most devoutly at the tomb. Lo, suddenly the daughter, calling her mother, says: "I feel, mother, a certain intestine burst within me. Wherefore hasten that we may go to the lodging." Coming there, the daughter found herself sound, took food, and, returning afterwards to the tomb with witnesses, gave thanks. The eleventh. Another, lame in both feet now for almost two years, at last lying wholly in bed for the space of six months, weighed down by poverty and infirmity, sighingly invokes St. Simpert, and promises that she will always celebrate his feast and visit his tomb, and moreover offer an annual payment as a sign of ownership. She feels help, visits the place leaning on a staff, and after a short time is wholly restored to health. Her neighbor, having an arm wounded now for three years, makes a vow and heaps up joy. While a third lies paralytic, deprived now for ten weeks of the use of her limbs, she asks help with no lesser faith and obtains it.

[6] The twelfth. A certain neighbor here, having bleary eyes for thirty years, her sight failing, [vertigo, a flux of the ear, a struma are healed by the intercession of St. Simpert.] wishing to go down by the steps into a certain storeroom, slips, and, the shell of her head having been dashed against the stones, contracted vertigo with loss of the senses. At last, turned to St. Simpert with prayers, she promised an offering, and, as happens, "the mind remains unmoved, the tears roll vainly." Restored to health, she forgot her physician: but soon a graver infirmity returned, and, while she delays to pay her vow, her last state was made worse than the first. She doubles her vows therefore and confirms her purpose. And she had a young son, who suffered a horrible flux through one ear in his head. They talked together therefore about the many miracles which were daily happening and being published publicly to the people, and gradually raised their hope and devotion toward the Saint. They promise that at his next festival, which was approaching, they will offer an offering and prayers and publish his praise before all mortals. Presently the piety of St. Simpert is at hand, heals, and brings the sick out of their chambers; they stand before the sacred tomb, and narrate the matter as it had happened to the brethren and others, and, the offering having been made, return glad to their own homes. A woman having a strumous nose for many years, and incurring the suspicion of leprosy in other respects, provoked by these things went to the Saint; soon, the swelling having subsided, she rejoices that she is cured.

[7] Praise of the female sex. Conclusion of the preceding. It seems to me

that someone chatters in my ear because I have now recited so many miracles concerning women. Amen I say to you, if Barak had been willing to go to battle ^f, Deborah would not have triumphed over the conquered enemies. Jeremiah is shut in prison, and messengers are sent to the prophetess. The priests and pharisees crucify the Son of God, and the women weep. Magdalen trusts, while the Apostles doubt. The ways of women had ceased with Sarah, and Abraham is commanded to obey her. Rebecca goes to inquire, and draws worthy oracles ^g. Mary, the sister of Moses, sings victories to the Lord. Rachel gave the name to our Ephrata ^h. The daughters of Salphaad receive an inheritance among the Brethren of God. Ruth, Esther, Judith gave names to sacred volumes. Anna the prophetess begets a levite prophet, a judge venerable for his sacred hair. The woman of Tekoa concludes the most holy David by question, riddle and example. What shall I say of the queen of Saba? Elizabeth prophesies with her womb and with her voice. Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, is made in the temple a temple of God. Women follow the Saviour, and minister to him who satisfies the crowd from five loaves. He speaks with the Samaritan woman at the well, and is satisfied with her conversion. But let these things be said, lest you glory in your name, and lest women regret their sex. Now let us touch briefly on the merits of most holy Simpert, how they have been of help to men also.

ANNOTATIONS.

d. Read ea "she".

* sospes "safe"

DISTINCTION II.

The falling sickness, a grave evil, The first miracle. By epilepsy, which is also called the comitial or Herculean disease (for Hercules, affected with weariness of it, burned himself), a certain man known to me too is attacked ^a, and is struck headlong not once but at repeated times. His wife, overwhelmed with the gravest grief, when she had deplored her husband's misery, saw in sleep that she was placed beside the tomb of St. Simpert with a wax image and a candle fit for the sacred rites of Masses, and that from the little coffin of the Saint there came forth this voice: "Go, your husband will be restored to health." Awaking, she presently told her husband; he invokes the Saint, promises an offering, and, because he was very poor, begs alms from his neighbors from door to door, pays his vow. The powers of his senses, which the gravity of the disease had taken away, are restored, and that most violent plague fled from him for ever. His fellow-villager, having a little boy overtaken by a similar disease, is drawn by the example, and is freed by no lesser patronage. A certain poor man too, the servant of a weaver, who had lately arrived, accustomed frequently both to proclaim the miracles and to visit the tomb, fell into a grave illness. Not knowing how to name the Saint, when he was imploring him to have pity on a stranger, the Father of the poor presently raises him from his bed and sends him away sound.

[9] The second. A certain poor man from the territories of the Bavarians, overtaken by a very rare rupture, [hernia, pain of the arm, contraction of the limbs, swelling of the hand, pain of the head and throat, darkness of the eyes,] labored from it under excessive weakness, and was distressed if at any time he had to labor for the necessity of the body, to the failure of his strength. He invokes St. Simpert (whose praise was flying through the mouths of all) and promises that he will bring an offering to his tomb. Presently, the intestines having returned to their place, the flesh is mended. While these things are heard, another, twisted for ten years with acute sufferings of one arm, also calls upon the same Saint, and does not lack help. The third. A certain neighbor of this most holy place had a son eight years old. He, contracted and with lame feet for three months, all the physicians despairing, carried here to St. Simpert by the faith of friends, experienced a true physician, and one who knows not long efforts. Another, bearing a hand swollen and squalid from a poisonous handling, went to the mausoleum of St. Digna ^b and the tomb of St. Simpert, and received health for his weariness and faith. The fourth. A very honorable man from the village of Lechhausen ^c was tormented for a long time with a grave pain of the head, and (I am about to say wonderful things) you would have thought that the punishments of Tantalus had emerged from the underworld. His throat having suddenly swollen, his lips enjoyed abundance of food and drink, his stomach wasted with starvation, whence vigor too was denied to the other members now for the eleventh day. The man, struck by the fame of St. Simpert, promises a vow with an offering of wax. Presently, health having been received both of the head and of the throat, he calls the Prior of the place, standing by the tomb, to witness, that he may not cover the benefit with silence. And as if this were little, presently he restored to health another, who with purblind eyes was scarcely able to seek his living by his labors, who had brought two wax eyes, and had procured the Offices of two Masses.

[10] The fifth. A certain neighbor, known to all in the monastery, of the number of those pain of the spine of the back, death from an abortive fetus, who lead carts with straps thrown over wretched animals, whom they also call carters or drivers, is attacked suddenly by great pain in the spine of the back, and lay down supine on his bed. An acquaintance visits him, affirms that he suffered similar things, and was healed by the merits of St. Simpert the prelate after an offering at the tomb. The sick man is provoked by this example, and, he whom pain was tormenting and at the same time the care of the horses was distressing, which, as his dogs ate a certain man among the gentiles: he raises his eyes, pours out prayers, promises a vow with a measure of wheat at the tomb, is relieved, and is restored fit for his labors. That we may not go out of his house and have to come back, his wife is endangered in the same year in childbirth. At last, having brought forth a dead boy, when the abortion was now almost to be cast out, a vow having been made, namely of a wax image with a measure of wheat, the boy is presently seen by all standing round to be given a soul. The sixth. While the feast of St. Simpert was being solemnly performed, so many men came narrating the piety of the holy Confessor toward them that the Prior of the place with two other brethren was occupied in the Record of the Miracles. For, as the same man related to me, on that day he scarcely had space to take necessary food.

[11] of the leg, There came a certain man from the parish of St. George, saying that he had been tortured for twenty years with twistings of one leg, all the physicians having despaired ^d, that his wife yesterday after Vespers had heard the sermon about the merits of St. Simpert and at the same time the proclamation of the miracles, and had persuaded him that he too should take refuge in good hope with the Saint: "I," he said, "turned myself to light words, saying: Women are light by nature, prone to believe. At last, when I had lain down in bed, a more violent pain than usual ^e is at hand, to torment me through the whole night, as I feared. Harassed, therefore, I at last understood what my wife had said. Bathed in tears, turned to the piety of St. Simpert, I promised that all the days of my life I would say ^f the Lord's Prayer twice in his honor, and would always celebrate his feast. And behold, the inveterate pain suddenly withdrew, and I stand here before you sound, rendering thanks to God and praise to the Saint." And because he was scarcely worthy of credit, the Prior ordered it to be committed to memory, and when this was now being done by me, reading it he affirmed that it was so, and that he had received from his hand an offering of wax.

[12] dysentery, sharp cough, wound of the foot, The seventh. A certain fellow-villager of ours labored for three years with a grave dysentery. A wretched and horrible thing, when things scarcely taken into the belly had to be discharged again undigested with the bitterest pain at stool. Hearing of these miracles he came most devoutly to the tomb, prays and promises an offering according to his ability, returns home. And as if it would be dangerous that the flux should stop suddenly, our best physician Simpert heals the disease gradually, and in a few days he recovers. A man of the miller's craft, very dear to us for his devotion, having a male child who had fallen into the river Lech, and, scarcely drawn out, while on account of the chilling of the breast he labored sharply with a cough, others now despairing of his life, the father, conscious to himself of his familiar actions (for he was accustomed to visit the tomb of the Saint every day), had great confidence; St. Simpert having been invoked, he presently obtained health for his son. The eighth. But neither is the gem of priests lacking to priests. A certain parish priest from the village of Lankwaid, while on the feast of our holy patron Simpert he was preparing wood for the hearth, unexpectedly split the joint of his foot with an axe so dangerously that many denied him life, the rest the hope of health. His subjects stood by, suffering with their Pastor, and among other things, when despair of human help was now wounding them, they recite the miracles of St. Simpert, not knowing that this was the day of his festival. The priest considers the matter with deep mind, makes a vow at his altar, and promises that he will celebrate Mass there in his honor. Presently the flow of blood stopped, the pain ceases, and in a short time the wound is covered with a scar; he went to the monastery, and, his vow paid, sound, recites the matter to the brethren, whence praise is paid to God.

[13] The ninth. A certain young man, while, as it is the custom of this age to rejoice in horses, danger of death from a fall, a lame gait, he was guiding his steed without circumspection and rejoicing to sit upon the prancer, thrown off by it and dashed most violently against the earth, is laid low, so that, without sense, voice and breath, he was judged altogether dead. The neighbors run up, and at last the kinsfolk arrive; a cry is raised to heaven. Those whose mind was loftier promise that he will be offered with a vow and wax to St. Simpert. Presently life returns, he rises sound, and, the vow paid, frees his sureties. The tenth. Jesus, to whom deservedly every knee is bent, sent upon a certain man, honorable according to the world, a pain in the joint about the knee, so that the foot could no longer perform its office. And lest you should think it accidental, that infirmity lasted for eighteen years, and rendered the foot not only heavy to carry, but also wearisome with violent pain. The man hears of the merits of the Saint, goes to the place, prays, offers, and commits himself wholly to Simpert the prelate. The Saint receives the lame man, and, lest he fall, raises him up sound on both feet.

[14] The eleventh. Physicians whom the Greeks call surgeons rottenness of the hand, are thought cruel and wretched. Is it not wretchedness to grieve over others' wounds and to cut dead flesh with merciless iron, and, in curing, not to shudder at what he himself who suffers shudders at? Of these a certain man from the town of Landsberg ^g, while he is curing the rotten hand of a patient, sees the flesh prevailing against the cauteries. He despairs, he fears to incur loss of reputation and of property on this account. According to the Scripture, therefore, what he ought to have done before medicine, namely to invoke divine help, he at last does afterwards: he comes to Augsburg, St. Simpert

he assails with voice and prayer, that he may bid the help of God to accomplish what he sees is not possible in himself. After his prayers he returns home, hesitating nothing in faith, and sees that he has profited more by prayers with the Saint than by art. Again he returns, praising the mercy of God at the tomb.

[15] The twelfth. The divine Scripture persuades us, saying: [distress of mind and danger of death are driven off by the intercession of St. Simpert.] "Turn to some one of the Saints." Led by whose counsel a certain citizen of our parish, while he was distressed in a grave case and saw a danger which he could not escape by human reasoning, took refuge with St. Simpert and vowed that on all the days of the Lord's Passion ^h, for his veneration, he would pay the Lord's Prayer five times, and is presently freed from his distress. In process of time he went to the parts of the Alps, which surround Italy in the manner of a wall, for certain affairs of his own, and fell among robbers, who, leading him away from the road broken by rocks, despoil him of his goods, and leave him bound firmly with ropes, hands and feet, to a tree. He tries with all his strength to untie himself, if he could; but in vain. At last, his strength failing, weary, he prays to God, and behold, suddenly it seems to him that he sees before him a Prelate venerable in stature and garments, saying: "Cast your hope on the Lord, and I will offer your prayers to him, my own joined to them, and will free you." The man understood that his patron St. Simpert was present to him; he cries out and asks that it may be permitted him to see even once more the holy place of his burial. The ropes are loosed from his hands, and he himself frees his feet, and, the bonds having been taken back, he comes to the tomb, and there, his vows paid, hangs them up before the eyes of men.

[16] Why the author does not add the names of witnesses. Conclusion of the preceding. I do not therefore append witnesses by name to the miracles, because they find them living with you, best father ⁱ, and also because all things are known to you and the brethren, as having been done the day before, and also because it confers nothing toward belief for those to come. For if they shall wish to judge that I lie, which does not befit my profession, they can certainly judge the names of the witnesses to be invented too. Twelve chapters of sections, then, you have about women first, now twelve about men, and in the ancient Legend too twelve ^k, so that the number six, multiplied by itself, may make the most perfect number: it remains that for one who read yesterday's writings and had praised their conclusion I should add something today too, words of the same Doctor whose they are.

[17] Reproof of the female sex. Samson, stronger than a lion, harder than rock, and who alone and unarmed pursued a thousand, grows soft in the embraces of Delilah. David, chosen according to the heart of the Lord, after, walking upon the roof of his house, he was captured by the sight of Bathsheba, joined murder to adultery. Solomon, through whom Wisdom itself sang, who disputed from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that comes out of the wall, withdrew from the Lord because he was a lover of women. And lest anyone should trust in nearness of blood, Amnon the brother burned with an unlawful fire for his sister Tamar. O ye gods above, above how many stars today the proud one sets his throne ^l! How many rocks he hollows out, that the serpent may dwell in their holes! Such a sex makes a monk reprehensible; the race of women is the door of the devil, the way of iniquity, the sting of the scorpion, and a hurtful kind; a woman strikes with flaming fire the conscience of the one who keeps company with her alike, and burns up the foundations of the mountains. If women dwell with men, the devil will not lack birdlime. Lust tames iron minds. Are you kind? I rejoice. Are you chaste? It is false. If you seek chastity, love in mind the woman whom you see living well, do not frequent her with bodily access. Remember always that a woman cast out of paradise the tiller of paradise. These things beyond the order of the matter: now let us turn our pen to St. Simpert, the common patron of all, and speak henceforth of both sexes mingled.

ANNOTATIONS.

DISTINCTION III.

A lame woman, retention of urine, and other diseases, The first miracle. A wretched village woman, possessing nothing but miseries, tribulation and distresses, while she sees her daughter lame with one foot ulcerous and running daily, and her little one laboring with strangury *: but, while all human aid ceases, St. Simpert, the patron of the wretched, is present, nor does he weigh gifts, and he succors both. For, while for her daughter she promises to the Saint that she will present a penny annually at the tomb, the daughter is relieved. For the little one, while she makes an offering of wax, he too is healed. In an altogether similar case a woman from Meringen brings a little one wailing and weeping on account of retention of urine: he is carried back sound. A lame man too from the province of the Norici, placed on a two-horse cart, while he is being brought by the service of horses, healed on the way, visits the place on his feet. The second. A dropsical youth of Günzburg ^a, his limbs swollen, now scarcely drawing breath, while he was now drawing his last breath, is commended by those standing round to St. Simpert with a vow. Presently, his breath recovered, he is relieved, a huge quantity of fluid flowing out through the genitals. A wretched little boy here at Augsburg, struck with a rupture about the private parts, is healed while his parents promise that they will bring the boy three times to the tomb with prayers and an offering. There came also then two women, each bringing a little one, and indeed from different places, affirming that they had been freed from grave infirmities, together with each little one.

[19] The third. When the bladder of a certain boy was blocked by two stones or calculi, those laboring with stones, alienation of mind, one suffocated by earth, and on account of his tender age there was danger in cutting, St. Simpert having been invoked, both are quickly cast out through the urine. A certain man of good repute of Augsburg, too, bringing witnesses of his calamity, related that he had been hurt in the head in boyhood, whence he always labored under a grave weakness of the senses. And when the church was being built, and St. Simpert was flashing forth in miracles, he promised St. Ulrich and St. Simpert that he would labor in his own person for a week on the work of the building. On the fourth day, while he was anxiously pressing on with the work, his infirmity attacked him sharply, so that, his sense lost, he talked wildly. Taken back home, he presently felt his head beaten with an unusual tickling. And behold, a certain bone of wonderful size fell from the upper part into his throat, and, drawing it out, he felt himself sound. The fourth. A certain peasant, called Wilham Fistl, of Schwabmünchen, having gone out with his household to a clay-pit outside the village, they began to dig clay for his house. While the others, therefore, were carrying it home in a wagon, there remained one sixteen years old, named Johann, who, while in digging he was hollowing out the place too incautiously, the earth following buried him entirely. And the peasant, returning then, saw the earth fallen down, sought his servant, and scarcely at last saw one hand raised and stretched out above the earth. He cried out to the divine piety through the merits of St. Simpert, and promises that he will present him at his tomb with six other persons and candles; he removes the earth, draws out the suffocated youth, and applies his hand to his mouth. There was neither voice nor breath. Again he invokes the Saint, and the youth began to yawn, and he himself, invoking St. Simpert, restored to life, appears here according to the vow on the eighth day thereafter, and satisfies the vow, humbly beseeching that the brethren should not conceal such wonders.

[20] those suffering in the feet, of mind The fifth. In the parish of St. George ^b a certain honorable man was so afflicted with pain of the feet that he could not turn himself in bed unless hands carried him to the other side. One night he heard the voice of one rebuking him: "Why, wretch, do you lie here buried in weariness and despair? Rise, and offer a vow with prayers to St. Simpert, and you will experience his mercy ^c." Awaking, sighing, he satisfied the admonition; while in the morning he wished to have himself carried to the tomb, he found himself sound. A woman beset by a most similar ^d infirmity, considering that she ought not to make an alienation from her husband's substance without his consent, calls her husband, and, consent having been obtained, vows three pounds ^e of wax at the tomb, and presently presents herself sound ^f. The sixth. Physicians call mania the passions of the brain, incurring which a certain man labored most gravely for fifteen years, so that, burdensome to all, he did things which were not those of a sane man, such as Orestes, himself not sane, would swear to. His friends invoking St. Simpert, he is succored: brought to the tomb, he is restored to his senses. While a certain man was beginning to labor with a similar passion, given over now to faintheartedness even to despair, scarcely standing firm in mind, making a vow to the Saint, he is freed from the attack, and is preserved from the danger of so great an infirmity. A certain man too, laboring with madness of the head, while he persisted so for three days that some judged him possessed by a demon, a vow having been made for him, is brought, and returns sound.

[21] [the powerless of mind, a blind man, those suffering in the eyes, a hectic, the ruptured,] The seventh. A certain woman, having a broken and empty brain, while she labored with grave insanity, the second month now completed, become burdensome to men, and, since a place in which to shut up the wretched woman was lacking to them, as being villagers, at last, a common counsel having been taken, they commit her attentively to St. Simpert, and promise three pounds of wax from the poor woman's little substance. She is restored therefore to her senses, and herself carries out the vow made for her. Another, when he had lost the light of his eyes for so long a space of time, promised a notable offering, and presently felt the grace of God by the merits of the Saint, and came sound to the place of the tomb. The eighth. There came also at once many persons, having with them a letter of credence concerning this from a notable man worthy of credit, each bearing in his hands a candle of one pound, who confessed that in the name of St. Simpert they had been restored to their former health from pain of the eyes by invoking him. A certain youth too, overtaken by hectic fever ^g, while at every moment he decreased in strength and, so to speak, was dying, a vow having been made, and brought to the tomb, returned sound to his own home. The ninth. A certain man of honorable repute and life and worthy of credit, by his letters ^h sent with an offering to the brethren, signified that, his intestines being ruptured about the private parts, he had been hindered and tormented with pains for twenty years and more. Perceiving that St. Simpert flashed forth daily with so many miracles, since he had no hope at all in man, turned with his whole heart to God he asked that what the divine justice had brought upon him, his sins so requiring, it would remove by the merits of St. Simpert, a vow also being added, namely a measure of rye ⁱ with the other offerings. And presently the mercy which he had sought in hoping, usefully

he found. For, notwithstanding the dangerous length of so great an infirmity, he came out sound. A young man too from the village of Holzheim, injured by a similar rupture, is brought by his poor mother, and is equally restored to health.

[22] The tenth. A certain woman, an inhabitant of this city, one agitated with twistings, one deprived of the use of her feet, a parishioner of St. Ulrich, wearied daily for seven years with twistings and daily prickings, could be cured by no aid of physicians. While on every feast day she heard so many miracles published that had been wrought during the week-days, devoutly turned to the Lord, she placed her hope in St. Simpert, promised the offering of her best tunic with an obligation to certain daily prayers. Presently she is restored to health: yet she does not quickly make the miracle manifest, but, putting it off for a month and more, at last had it publicly proclaimed. The eleventh. A certain poor widow, much devoted to God, in this parish, fell into a furnace doubly kindled, namely by poverty and infirmity. For for three years she lost the use of her feet, and having become paralytic for six months, while she was afflicted with so great pains and miseries, turned to God, who is the father of the poor and the consoler of widows, holding out the merits of St. Simpert between herself and her sins, she shed tears, which went up from her cheeks to him who brings them down. The patronage of the Saint came to her; she raises herself from her pallet, and without the aid of any man or support visits the tomb, pays praises to God and to the Saint.

[23] The twelfth. At the end we add one, in which especially St. Simpert is held to show his merits more clearly daily, he heals those afflicted with stone and hernia. namely in the case of ruptures and stones of the bladder. A certain parishioner of this church had a young son of thirteen years, who disturbed with the gravest outcry not only his parents but also the neighbors whenever, nature urging, urine had to be emitted. The wretched parents were afflicted with daily pain over their son, since they were not able to furnish help. At last a cruel surgeon is brought, who according to custom, the youth having been bound, cut the youth, and drew out, to the stupefaction of all, a stone of such wonderful size that it almost equalled a hen's egg. This having been seen, he did not go on to search further. That same evening the youth fell into an infirmity so grave that all despaired of his life. But the mother with singular hope invokes St. Simpert with tears and prayers. The youth, his breath recovered, in some way asked for the secret retreat of nature. Presently there comes out of him through the passage another stone of the bladder, longer than the former, which had been cut out with the bladder opened, and of almost as great thickness. A wonderful thing, and, if almighty God were not the law of nature, above nature! The boy is healed; the stones, fixed to a tablet, are hung up at the tomb as a sign. Whatever God does, his prelate Simpert also does, and will do greater things if our merits require. Another boy too emitted two stones through the urine as soon as the Saint was invoked. Another ruptured man is presently made whole again as soon as an offering was promised. We must cease, and we shall rather suggest to the reader by silence than by the pen the things which remain.

[24] The author's epilogue. Conclusion of the whole. This brief lucubration, venerable father ^k, I dictated with a swift pen lying in bed, wishing to satisfy your desire and that of the brethren, but I could not. For behold, you bring a chest full of slips of paper, from which the preacher of the Word of God published to the people the miracles of St. Simpert, concerning which the greater difficulty will be in choosing ^l which are to be told than how those chosen are to be commended by the pen. Giving place therefore to another too, I have done what I could, and, as you know the state of my mind, satisfy others for me, so that he who does not pardon the talent may pardon the time, because the days are evil and full of bitterness. Farewell therefore, happy in the Lord, with all the brethren, and do not cease to pray for me a sinner. These miracles among others excerpted were performed from the year of the Lord MCCCCLXV to LXXI under the lords Pius ^m and Paul ⁿ, Apostolics, Frederick being emperor, the lord Peter ^o and John [p] being bishops of the church of Augsburg, and the venerable abbot Melchior [q] of this monastery and the Prior Conrad [r]. MCCCCLXXI.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. The II of this name, and the next successor of Peter.

q. Namely von Stanham: he bore the mitre of St. Ulrich's from the year 1459 to 1474.

r. Other than Conrad Mörlin, who in the year 1496 was elected from Prior abbot of St. Ulrich's, in the 24th year of his Profession, as Corbinian Khamm witnesses, part 3 of the Augsburg Hierarchy, page 105.

* stranguria "strangury"

THE BOOKS OF THE MIRACLES OF ST. SIMPERT

Wrought from the year MCCCLXXXVIII to MCCCCXCV

PART I.

If you will know the miracles of St. Simpert, The author's preface. Who was a famous prelate in the Rhaetian city, That is, bearing cares at Augsburg in the body, Watchful night and day for the flock committed to him: Read these things, which, though in simple words only, It is the motion of my mind to commemorate, With which the almighty Father by power from above Has been accustomed to make his Saint wonderful. Yet, that I may weave nothing of the thread of the false, I will relate to you in loosed speech the same new ^a things. Yet I would not have you believe that I now describe all things, Since such a labor surpasses my power. Nay, it would be superfluous to have set down what in the monastery Of St. Afra the library teaches. Here *, these things having thus been sipped with a thick and slender wit, Sigismund ^b, I wish to be compliant to you. For with much effort I will busy myself how there may be Room for fulfilling your wishes. Although the most slender virtue of my wit trembles, Which (as you know) shines with no eloquence. Whence, if ever I speak less properly, give pardon, Brother; but note the writings first with your ear. For your virtue, nay rather your faith most manifest to me, Has made me undertake of my own accord this heavy labor. My mind is inclined also to obey Conrad Morlin ^c, The Prior, who was bound to me by love: Whose deserved honor and perennial fame grows by the hour, And he has a name that cannot be blotted out. Therefore, although I be very unequal in strength, I attempt whatever, my father bidding me. For unless, brother, I now carry out your commands, I am called an impostor and too little truthful. Hence I approach the Work, beseeching that you further what is begun, O God, by granting me your Holy Spirit.

CHAP. I.

[1] About the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and eighty-eight, on the fifth day before the Ides of July, Paul, baker of the village of Dietingen ^d, ordered his two sons (of whom the elder, John by name, had reached his eleventh year; the other, By a cart whose name was Paul, had scarcely reached his ninth year) to bring wood from a nearby little wood, who obeyed their father's commands. By chance the two-wheeled cart, falling upon John, the elder, injured him bloodily. Which his brother, namely Paul, seeing, and yet not able to be of help to him, grieved deeply, and, crying out horribly with lamentation, seeking his father's house with rapid * course, to announce there the thing that had happened to his father, who was occupied with wool-working. Hearing this, he was greatly stupefied, so that for grief he did not know at all what was to be done. But a little after, coming to himself, he began to beseech the patronage of the holy prelates Ulrich and Simpert from the heart rather than with words, greatly commending to them his own son, that by their merits at least he might merit to see him surviving, promising that he would present the same at the tombs of SS. Ulrich and Simpert with a silver offering as soon as he was able.

[2] crushed, Afterwards he came to the cart, where his crushed son was lying half-alive, and thinking him already dead, since the blackness of his body bore the appearance of a dead man. Lifting him as he lay on the ground, he placed him on his shoulders and returned home. Furthermore, from about the eleventh hour of the day until evening no one could draw out of him a sign of life. But in the evening, by the intervention of the most blessed confessors Ulrich and Simpert, he began to breathe, and step by step to grow strong in his powers. For not a little blood came out from two wounds. At last (God granting strength on account of the intercession of his Saints) he fully recovered. On this account his father, with the promised offering *, and with him who had recovered, going to Augsburg to the sarcophagi of the aforesaid bishops, narrated the miracle to all, to the glory of God and of his Saints, and showed his son with the scars to the lord Sigismund Lang, sacristan ^e there at that time, with a huge rendering of thanks.

[3] from stone, pain of the head, of the finger, Peter Sartor, an inhabitant of the Mount of Peace or Friedberg ^f, had a boy not yet a year old suffering huge pains on account of a stone, whom his wife, namely the boy's mother, makes a votive offering at the mausoleum of St. Simpert with an offering of wax, begging with great effort that the holy Father would deign to be of help to the little infant, as to others, in these dangers. Whence it came about that at night (which would be marvellous indeed to hear) two little stones came out through the passage of the urine without any injury to the boy, by the intervention of the holy Pontiff: and one of the little stones was of the size of a pea, which the woman afterwards showed to the father custodian and presented with great thanksgiving. At the same time, when a certain person had labored for thirteen continuous weeks and a whole year with pain of the head, ^g that she would keep the day of the divine Simpert as a festival every year, and would place one kreuzer at his treasury. Forthwith, by the help of the most holy Father, she was healed. A certain little boy had received an injury in one of his fingers to such a degree that his parents feared the complete cutting off of the little finger. But after they came to the tomb of St. Simpert with a wax finger and some little prayers *, he forthwith received complete health.

[4] A certain woman, suffering molucrum, that is, pain of the belly, of the belly, danger of body and soul, blindness, weakness, on account of huge pains could by no means rest for about two weeks or a little more: who however, after she had vowed to blessed Simpert a wax candle having the breadth of her belly, than which the flux of the belly is presently loosened, just as if she had taken pills for the sake of loosening the belly, and thus was made sound. A certain man too falling into peril of body and of soul, nor had he any hope that it could be removed from him by human means: whom however God (because without divine help nothing comes to pass) on account of the merits of St. Simpert, within a few days after he made a vow to the same Saint,

graciously freed from a danger of this kind. Johann Zeberlein of Kaufbeuren ^h, taken in his eyes for twenty-four weeks ⁱ, that is, deprived of the use of his eyes, devoted himself with some prayers and gifts to St. Simpert for the sake of recovering his sight, whereby * by the merits of the same Saint health was conferred on him, whence he narrated it before the father sacristan in the presence of several men worthy of credit. Margaret Widemennin, a native of the city of Augsburg, weighed down by weakness of body beyond a year, promised that she would sacrifice to St. Simpert one groschen, first to be acquired by her labors. Wherefore she was relieved of such a disease, and no one doubts that it was by the merits of the same Saint.

[5] Johann Sibnacht of Wald incurred deafness. from deafness, hernia, the feet, languor of body, hernia, By the intercession of St. Simpert (to whom he had made a vow with two coins) he is entirely free of deafness. Elizabeth Sweickerin had labored in a certain rupture for more than sixteen years. By the prayer of the blessed father Simpert she is healed, after she paid the pound of wax which she had promised to the Saint. A certain man of Augsburg obtained, after a vow made to blessed Simpert, the use of his right foot lost through apoplexy. Likewise Anna Seigerin of Mittelstetten, who for thirteen years ^k had been weighed down with languor of body, after a vow by the merits of blessed Simpert is unharmed. Ottilia Widemennin too, a native of the city of Augsburg, blessed Simpert aiding her by his prayers, having promised that she would pray there three, that is, three rosaries, kneeling beside his tomb, was healed of a rupture which for about twelve ^l years she had borne not without huge tortures.

CHAP. II.

[6] Johann the miller, dwelling in the village of Inningen ^m, who was altogether expected to die on account of the swelling of his whole body, [those laboring with swelling of the body, with a deadly and grave disease, with blindness,] by which he had been sick unto death for twenty weeks, is likewise restored to safety after a vow made to blessed Simpert. Agnes Beirin of Augusta Vindelica, struggling in a wonderful manner with a disease of the body, who had even been fortified with the ecclesiastical Sacraments, is healed by almighty God, who gives to all to be and to live, blessed Simpert, to whom she had vowed her own tunic, bringing succor, that is, help. Balthasar Miller Zimmerman, as soon as he vowed himself with an offering and prayer to the tomb of the Man of God, namely Simpert, was freed from a rather grave ill-health of body which he had borne for about four years. At the same time Margaret Probstin of Klein-Oettingen ⁿ had pain in her eyes for half a year to such an extent that she almost lost her sight, especially for three weeks, in which she was altogether taken in her eyes, or deprived of sight. On that account, that she might beg away such blindness from herself by holy prayers, she went to the divine Simpert to ask, promising that every year while she lived she would sacrifice in his honor the fourth part of a measure of rye, and thus she obtained her vow.

[7] a mute, one afflicted in body and mind, a somewhat deaf man, a boy near death, Likewise another miracle besides is established to have been wrought through the divine Simpert, namely in Sixtus Hass of Wertingen, who had entirely lost his speech from apoplexy for about four years. But indeed his wife, after she had vowed him annually with two coins to the blessed Confessor, forthwith he received divinely the power of speaking. A certain mother of a family, an inhabitant of the town of Augsburg, most famous everywhere on earth, was, blessed Simpert supplying help, freed from very, that is, exceedingly great disturbances both of body and of soul with which she had been surrounded, after she made a vow to the same Saint. Likewise Johann Meitting of Ostendorf, having become somewhat deaf, after he vowed a quarter-pound of wax and a light for his head to St. Simpert, received back in a certain wonderful manner his former hearing. For in his ears something, I know not what, is broken, and thus suddenly, God favoring, his ears were opened. A certain woman had a little infant so sick that it was thought likely to die forthwith. But she, taking confidence, making a vow to God and St. Simpert that, if the boy were healed by his merits, she would offer * at the tomb of the Saint a wax image the size of the little infant himself, [one whose voice was lost, one ill-affected in the foot, one weak in body, one with stone, one suffering pleurisy,] the little infant presently obtains safety.

[8] A certain poor little man, having for many years no small defect in one of his feet, implored more earnestly the help of the most holy father Simpert, betaking himself beside his tomb and promising that he would pray two rosaries to the most glorious Virgin Mary, and would also offer one candle . Hence it came about (since a gift is reckoned great from the mind of the giver) that, the blessed Pontiff bringing succor, he received complete health of the foot. A certain most honorable matron, miserably weighed down with weakness of body, commending herself to St. Simpert with much insistence, moreover promising that she would present at his tomb a wax candle the breadth of her body, and at once she is made master of her vow. A certain little boy was very, that is, exceedingly, troubled with stone, whom his parents made votive to St. Simpert with a penny every year. As soon as this was done, God being propitious on account of the merits of his saint Simpert, he is at once freed from the same infirmity of stone. A certain mother of a family having pleurisy, when she made a vow to St. Simpert, obtained a cure forthwith by his merits.

[9] one suffering in the head, one not retaining urine, a ruptured boy, Likewise a certain other honorable person bore pain of the head so violently that she feared she would forthwith, that is, quickly, incur mania or alienation of mind. Wherefore she began to beg more insistently the aid of the blessed father Simpert, vowing that every year, or each year, while she lived, she would offer something in his honor from her substance justly gotten or acquired, together with a light. What more? A wonderful thing and done by God! All pain of the head departed, nor does it any longer weary the person whom the prayer of St. Simpert made immune from so great a torture. A certain girl, not yet marriageable, for the space of four years unable to retain her water or urine, made vows to St. Simpert. At once she was released from so great a shame. A certain ruptured little boy came to the tomb of St. Simpert with an offering. He is rendered unharmed, God being propitious on account of the merit of his holy Confessor.

[10] A certain matron, an inhabitant of the city of Augsburg, [one in danger of life from an immoderate flux of the menses, one infirm in body, those suffering in the head,] for about eleven years suffered her months, that is, the menses, so greatly and so continually that almost no hour did such a flux leave her; nay, that very often on account of it she was in danger even to death. But at last, when she was destitute of human helps, she proceeds to invoke St. Simpert, promising that, if she were healed, she would approach the tomb of the holy Father himself once daily as long as she survived, and would say a special prayer there. Nor is she disappointed of her hope, because a flux of this kind is driven off by the merits of her Confessor, nor did it afterwards trouble her in any way, except in the accustomed manner of women. A certain man, weighed down to death by infirmity of body, and having made a vow with a light for his body ^o, obtained the desired safety at the tomb of blessed Simpert. A certain honorable person, suffering exceedingly in the head, vowing one light for the head of the months [p] to St. Simpert, recovered her former health. A certain youth endured great pains of the head until he vowed one light for his head to St. Simpert, and, the vow paid, he was thereafter relieved of such pain.

[11] A certain matron had a little boy unable to digest any food in XV weeks: [a boy unable to digest food, one suffering in body, one suffering pleurisy, one swollen in the throat,] which infirmity is driven off by the merits of the divine Simpert when he was vowed to him. A certain boy, struggling very gravely with pains of the whole body, vowed to the sarcophagus of the blessed father Simpert with three prayers [q] and as many rosaries of the blessed Virgin to be said there, is restored to health by the prayer of the same Saint. A certain virgin of great honorableness, suffering pleurisy, promised that she would visit the tomb of St. Simpert with prayers and a light embracing the length of her body, trusting altogether that she would be healed by God through his intervention, as indeed was done. For with great dancing of mind she went to our sacristan relating how by the merits of the blessed Pontiff she had been made free of those tortures. The throat of a certain youth swelled to such an extent that nothing else than his death was awaited hourly by his parents. But after he had promised himself a third time, again, at the tomb of the Man of God, namely Simpert, with a light three times embracing the breadth of his own neck, he was restored to health.

CHAP. III.

[12] Likewise an honorable person was shaken for some time with very grave pains. On that account she commended herself several times to St. Simpert, one shaken with very grave pains, a frenzied man, beseeching him instantly to be a help to her and to obtain a cure from those above. Wherefore it came about that by the merits of him whom she had invoked pains of this kind were entirely eliminated from her, the glorious God being propitious, who disposes all things by directing them for the better. A certain youth falling into frenzy, whom his elders vowed to St. Simpert with wax and a candle embracing the length of his body, by whose help also he obtained safety. But because they had neglected to publish this for the glory of God and of the holy father Simpert through the priest at the chancel, he relapsed into his former infirmity. Wherefore the parents were struck with greater grief than before, especially since they wondered, or did not know, what was to be done, although, or though, they did not entirely put off the confidence long since conceived concerning the help of the Man of God, but rather more and more begged that the boy, as before, might be cured by his intercessions, promising that henceforward they would commit no negligence, nay would act earnestly that such a miracle should be published at the chancel. Wherefore at last, for the second time, the divine confessor Simpert bringing succor or help, he received health.

[18] [those laboring with a deadly disease, giddiness of the head, swollen throat, a hunchback, one suffering pain of the back,] A certain person was so weighed down by a huge disease that nothing else but death seemed to impend for her. But nevertheless, for recovering health, she made a vow that she would approach the tomb of the divine Simpert with some little prayers, and offer one coin there, and thus, the Most High favoring, she obtained good strength. A certain little youth of the best conversation was gravely troubled for several years with giddiness of the head. Whence, after he promised that he would say a special prayer daily in honor of the divine father Simpert, he was graciously freed. The throat of a certain person was so swollen that she was placed as it were at the point of death. But a vow having been made by her, together with an offering and also a prayer, namely to the blessed father Simpert, she rejoiced that she had been freed from such a peril. A certain boy for about three years, or for three years, had a very deformed hump, which nevertheless was taken away from him by the merits of blessed Simpert, since this was most instantly asked by his parents: for whose sake too they promised that they would present the little boy at the chapel of the Saint together with a light for his body [r], if he became free of such deformity, as afterwards happened: for he received his former health. A certain person, struggling gravely with torment of the back, promised that she would visit the mausoleum of St. Simpert together with a wax light, whence by his help she merited to be healed.

[14] [one with stone, a purblind woman, a blind man, one tormented with worms, a ruptured man, one laboring in the head, a frenzied boy,] At the same time Peter Weiss of Mering [s] had an infant with stone, not yet half a year old, from whose tube [t], by the merits of St. Simpert, eight little stones of the size of peas came out (for he presented the little stones to the custodian), begging earnestly that they be kept, and shown publicly with the greatest rendering of thanksgivings. A certain virgin, purblind for a long time, obtained clear sight by the prayers of the holy father Simpert, a vow having first been made that she would pray one rosary to the blessed Virgin Mary at his tomb. In the rural place of Finningen Peter Prunner was blind for three years in one of his eyes, to whom at last, when he made a vow to blessed Simpert, the light of the same little eye was restored. The boy of a certain mother of a family had worms so violently that he was incurring as it were the danger of death. But after he had been vowed at the tomb of St. Simpert with one wax light according to the breadth of his little body, he at once received the expected health. Ulrich, a fisherman of Augsburg, was ruptured for twenty years. Therefore he suppliantly sought the help of St. Simpert as greatly as possible, and vowed himself with half a pound of wax to his mausoleum. Hence God, to whom nothing is difficult, took away such a rupture from him entirely by the merits of St. Simpert. A great pain had invaded the head of a certain woman, which however is driven off by the merits of St. Simpert, after she bound herself by a vow to visit his tomb and to light there a candle according to the breadth of her head. Stephen Werenhofer of Landsberg [u] had a frenzied boy, whom he vowed to St. Simpert with a wax effigy molded like the little boy, by whose merits too he received health.

[15] Barbara Mayrin of Limershausen likewise, by the intercession of the divine Simpert, one powerless of mind, a ruptured woman, one suffering in the arm, to whom she had made a vow, merited to be healed by God of a rupture which she had had for twenty-five years. At the same time Ulrich Tockler of Graben [x] was so affected by a disease for half a year that he could not rise from bed by his own strength, and came to such an emptying of the brain that he became devoid both of sense and of reason, and so recognized no man. Over which his wife grieved very much, almost desolate of her husband's solace: for some days she shed tears abundantly. At last, having heard the fame of the miracles which were happening at the tomb of blessed Simpert, she vowed her husband too thither for the sake of recovering health, stripped of linen and barefoot. What more shall we say? For God, on whom both heaven and earth depend, being wonderful in his Saints, by the intervention, as is piously believed, of the divine Simpert, within fifteen days gave in twenty hours so much strength to the aforesaid Ulrich that he himself paid the things which his wife had vowed, and could relate all things, as they have been told, to the custodian. A certain person had in one of the arms prickings so frequent and great that he could rest at no time. He implored the help of the holy prelate Simpert, binding himself by oath that, if he were healed, he would bring a wax arm in his honor: which having been done, every pain was driven off by the help of blessed Simpert.

CHAP. IV.

[16] The neck of Martin Stinger of Vischach swelled so much that he could not open his mouth for some time even for the sake of eating. [one swollen in the neck, one suffering in the whole body, a ruptured boy, a paralytic woman, a boy subject to the falling sickness:] But at last, when he bound himself by a vow to the blessed father Simpert, he obtained entire health. A certain person suffering huge tortures in the whole body vowed herself to the mausoleum of most holy Simpert with certain devout little prayers and was healed. Ulrich Eberlin of Berckan [y], having a boy not yet two years old, who was greatly ruptured, after he is vowed with a quarter-pound of wax to St. Simpert, forthwith the peril of the rupture passed away. A certain honorable woman, whose name was Magdalena Riederin of Purgen [z], being paralytic for seven years, making a vow that, as soon as she could walk, she would consecrate half a pound of wax in honor of the divine Simpert, is made master of health, and on the fourteenth day [aa] after the vow, herself approaching the tomb of the Man of God, carried into effect what she had vowed, and rejoicing returned home sound. Moreover the little son of Christopher Franck, laboring indeed with a grave disease, namely the Herculean or falling sickness, is made sound by the merits of the most holy father Simpert, when he is vowed to the basilica of the same Saint together with a libation.

[17] a paralytic woman, a ruptured man, an infant placed at the point of death, A certain woman, named Barbara Schulerin, sprung from the village of Puttenbach, shaken for the course of a year less seven weeks by a very grave disease, but especially for three months, in which she was wholly bedridden or paralytic, obtains health by the intercession of the blessed Father, long since Bishop of the city of Augsburg, when she had promised that she would visit the tomb of the Saint, and would make a libation there of a pound of wax and also certain other things to the honor of God and of the divine Confessor. A certain man, named Magnus, a warper of webs from Gesserhausen, ruptured for over three years, taking confidence of receiving health through the merits of St. Simpert, rendered himself votive at his tomb with a pound of wax. Nor did he do this in vain, since the rupture is entirely taken away from him by the intercession of the divine Prelate. A certain honorable person in Augsburg of Rhaetia, a parishioner of the church of St. Maurice, when she was bathing her little boy in the usual manner, suddenly the boy grew livid no otherwise than if he were dead. Wherefore, exceedingly distressed, not knowing at all whence such blackness had come to the boy, invoking St. Simpert earnestly, suppliantly commending the little infant, whom she had vowed to him with certain gifts. And thus the boy after a little space of time breathed again, and the lividness gradually turns into the former whiteness, and he survived about half a year afterwards.

[18] one held by a grave disease, a ruptured woman, a scalded boy, Maurice, a shopkeeper of Mindelheim [bb], lay very gravely for three months with such an infirmity as no medicine could relieve, although he had very often employed in vain the service of physicians. Wherefore (it was necessary indeed, according to what is said in Job [cc], that he should turn to some one of the Saints) he begged most instantly the help of the divine Simpert: making a vow, he recovered a little after. Nor do I think this certainly should be passed over, that a certain woman suffering a rupture for nearly twelve years, after she promised that she would offer a silver ring which she had in honor of the aforesaid Confessor, received health by the grace of the All-powerful, who restores all things by his word. At another time likewise the holiness of the divine Simpert was declared. For Peter, tailor of Kirchdorf, had a boy not yet two years old, or being of two years, who hurt himself with boiling broth or pottage, which he had poured over himself, to such a degree that he could have no rest days and nights. Whence the aforesaid Peter, dismayed in mind, earnestly begged St. Simpert, of whose miracles he had now heard, that he would deign to help the boy, promising that he would present him together with some little weight of wax at his tomb if he were healed. The divine mercy therefore, condescending at the prayer of his Saint, rendered the little boy entirely free from the pain of the burning.

[19] [one suffering in the arm, one weak in foot and hand, one tormented with pains of the back, a mute, one near death,] There was lately a woman, whose name was Agnes Warhapperin, dwelling in the village of Pergen, who was tormented with great pains in one of her arms, which she had received from a certain accident. But presently the pains themselves left her, as she promised that she would offer an iron arm to most blessed Simpert, and thus at last she was better. A certain man of Augsburg lost through apoplexy the use of his right foot and hand: after a vow made to blessed Simpert he is made sound. A certain one of the women suffering very grave prickings of the back. But when she had constituted herself votive at the tomb of St. Simpert with a wax image bearing a little boy before it, she obtained complete health. A certain man of Augsburg, Johann Zolrer, being a carter, when one day he was making his way with his four-horse wagon full of goods toward Nuremberg [dd], the loaded wagon fell upon him, and so crushed all his members that for three days he was altogether mute. But when he had been vowed to St. Simpert with a pound of wax, he received speech. Margaret Stellin of Iglingen, not far distant from the town of Landsberg, labored with tortures of the heart for about twenty years so great that almost after a month or six weeks she was fortified with the ecclesiastical Sacraments (for from excessive pain it sometimes happened that she was thought about to breathe out her spirit in an instant), who however did not lack the help of St. Simpert either, when she vowed herself at his tomb with a light for her body [ee], because she had heard by certain report of his translation as well as of the miracles which God deigned to work through him.

[20] The seven-year-old boy of a bath-keeper, whose name was Michael, [one with stone, one in danger of death, one laboring with vertigo, one oppressed by tribulation, experience St. Simpert as beneficent to them.] at Magershausen, was so troubled with stone that he very often lay subject to the danger of death. But the father vowing himself with five persons for the sake of the boy at the tomb of St. Simpert, presently an immoderate or great little stone comes out through his passage, which he afterwards handed to the custodian, and showed the little boy healed through the intervention of the holy father Simpert. A certain girl was agitated with excessive infirmity of body to such a degree that she was able to taste nothing of food. Wherefore her life was almost despaired of. But she vowed herself to St. Simpert: at once she obtained good health. A certain man of Augsburg, called Johann Purger, laboring for two years exceedingly with a disease of the head which we are accustomed to call vertigo, a vow having been made to the blessed confessor Simpert together with a kreuzer (for he was poor), the pain is entirely taken away from him. A certain virgin for half a year was in very great perils and tribulations; so that she could extricate herself from these troubles by no remedy. Whence she commended herself confidently to St. Simpert (who certainly, as is plain, has been a faithful defender or deliverer in perils), by whose help too she was freed.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Perhaps with a candle of the same thickness as her head was?

q. Both Manuscripts have: cum itionibus "with goings".

r. See what was said a little before at letter o.

s. It is a village of Bavaria, about two miles and a half distant from Augsburg.

t. Read: tubum "tube".

u. A town of Bavaria on the river Lech.

x. A village near Landsberg. See letter u here. The Wiltheim Manuscript has Braben.

y. Not far from Augsburg on the river Wertach I have found a place whose name is Bercha.

z. A village near Landsberg. See above, letter u.

aa. The Wiltheim Manuscript has: on the first day.

bb. A town of Swabia not far from the source of the river of the same name.

cc. The book of Job, chapter 5, ℣. 1.

dd. A large and free city of Germany in Franconia.

ee. See letter o.

* Perhaps his.

* Read: petit "seeks".

* sponsu or promissa "promised".

* Supply devoverunt "they vowed", and

* Perhaps cum "with"?

* Read: ad tumbam Sancti offerret "would offer at the tomb of the Saint",

* Supply spondendo "by promising".

* abundas

THE BOOKS OF THE MIRACLES OF ST. SIMPERT

Wrought from the year MCCCCLXXXVIII to MCCCCXCV

PART II.

CHAP. V.

At the same time Benedict Roskopff from Rain ^a, for the sake of obtaining sight (for he was one-eyed in one of his eyes), making a vow to St. Simpert with a quarter-pound of wax, A one-eyed man, pain of the teeth at once took the road toward Augsburg. But on the way (that perhaps his constancy might be the more proved) he endured such great labors on account of a strong wind that for a while he was in doubt whether he should return home or pursue the journey. He had indeed little hope of arriving at the threshold. But afterwards, coming to himself, and relying on the help of God and of the confessor Simpert, in whose honor he had entered on the way, he sets out further. Neither his faith nor the fatigue of so great a labor is disappointed of a just reward. For St. Simpert, making his servant ^b master of his vow: since the lost sight of the eye was restored by his merits when he had gone not very far. This ^c he himself related with great joy, to the glory of God and of his confessor Simpert, as it were to two brethren professed in the monastery of the divine Ulrich, on the day following that on which it had been done, in the presence of a certain very honorable man bound to him by kinship. A certain person was so afflicted with pain of the teeth that she could have no rest at all. But St. Simpert having been invoked by her, she promised that every year she would fast on the eve of his feast and would offer a candle and wax teeth at his mausoleum. Forthwith she was restored to health.

[22] Likewise the head of a certain male person ached greatly: [those laboring in the head, the arm, one taken in his eyes, a one-eyed woman, one weak in the limbs, one affected by grave disease, healed:] which pain however is driven off by the merits of blessed Simpert as soon as he vowed to him one light according to the breadth of his head. Nor do I think it should be passed over in silence that a few days ago a certain person betook herself to a certain truthful man of this monastery, asserting that she had had very great pains in one of her arms. But that she ^d had promised ^e her ring to blessed Simpert, and had obtained complete health as soon as possible. When therefore she wished to pay the vow, as was right, another person came asking that the ring be sold to her, and the same money be offered to blessed Simpert. She therefore consenting to this petition, and a day being appointed on which she should receive the money, when she wished to give the ring, wonderful to say! she found it broken. There was lately Johann Gremenbach ^f at Memmingen ^g, taken in his eyes for fifteen weeks, who afterwards, St. Simpert, to whom he had made a vow, bringing succor, merited to be given light. Anna Frein, a native of Engelried, was one-eyed in one of her eyes for two years, who at last received sight by the help of the most blessed father Simpert, a vow having first been made that she would visit the tomb of the Saint himself every year, that is, each year. Thomas Cerdo of Tonhausen ^h, sustaining for four years a very great weakness in all his limbs, through ⁱ the divine Simpert, after a vow made, by his merits received their strength. There was lately a person of great honorableness, who promised that she would give two candles according to the breadth of her body and head at the tomb of St. Simpert for the sake of obtaining health (for she had been gravely vexed with infirmity for about ten weeks), and thus, the prayers of the blessed Father assisting, she obtained health of body as soon as possible.

[23] It happens that God deigns to succor us too when we are in tribulation extinguished and are not supplicating, on account of the merits of his Saints, as every studious reader will be able to recognize very clearly from what follows. For in a certain place named Hailbach there lived a man whose name was Johann Eberlin. To him, as he slept, blessed Simpert seemed in a dream to stand by, saying: "Come now, invoke me; then (for his own house seemed to him to be burned by flames) you will be freed from the fire." Further, on waking he cared not a straw for the vision, chiefly because he had not yet received anything concerning the holiness of the divine Father.

[24] But it happened not long after (namely on the holy vigil of Easter), when it was the dead of night, a fire, that the little house where the oven was blazed, from which flames the stable too began to burn. Fires neglected are wont to gather strength. Then, when he had awakened and saw such things, he did not know at all what was to be done, especially because he was separated from men by a great distance. For his house was situated apart in the field. But at last, the vision which he had had long before in sleep coming to mind ^k, tearful, he begged the help of the blessed Father. "Alas! alas!" he cried, "I am destitute of help, nor shall I be able to protect my little possession from the fire. O most holy of fathers! as you commanded me by night, furnish help. Suppliant therefore I demand your aid, commending all things to your faith. Grant therefore by your prayer now that this flame cease to rage, that it dare not advance further, lest through it all my little substance perish." Wonderful to say! Scarcely had he finished his words in this manner when the fire left all the buildings, and there will be no one who doubts that this was done by the merits of the divine Simpert.

[25] to a paralytic woman, to ruptured persons, to a maimed boy, Agnes Stretlin of Dingna, who lay three years in paralysis, was restored to health by the help of St. Simpert, after she vowed that she would offer a light for her body and one kreuzer in his honor. Johann, shoemaker of Sutershoffen ^l, having a son three years old ^m. He, by some chance I know not what, … ⁿ being of weeks, received a rupture in the genitals. For which cause he vowed him with half a pound of wax at the tomb of the holy Confessor, and thus by his merits, God being propitious, from whom is every healing, he obtained safety. A certain person ruptured beyond reason in the greater manner, promising that beside the tomb of St. Simpert she would pray the Lord's Prayer with as many Angelic Salutations seventy-seven times, and also offer a candle there, is very graciously freed from the same rupture. A certain man of Augsburg, named Laurence Winter, had a little son who from his mother's womb lacked the joints of his little fingers. Moved on account of this, the father, the boy having those members no otherwise than if he had been maimed, vowed him to the blessed Virgin in the crypt which is situated in the cemetery beside the monastery of St. Ulrich, and to St. Simpert, greatly begging their succor or help for the boy, which afterwards followed; because he obtained entirely and wholly the use of the fingers and joints and hands by the prayer of the blessed Virgin and of the divine prelate Simpert.

CHAP. VI.

[26] A certain honorable mother of a family, afflicted now for a long time with a grave disease, to those afflicted with grave disease, so that none of the physicians was able to cure her, although she had put much zeal and labor into seeking remedies, recommended herself with intense affection of heart to St. Simpert, making a vow concerning certain things to be fulfilled in honor of the Saint, that she might obtain health. Whence it came about that by the intervention of the blessed Confessor such a disease was taken from her. A certain little boy was affected with so grave an infirmity that even his parents despaired of his life, although nevertheless they earnestly begged blessed Simpert to give his right hand to the boy, or furnish help, promising that they would offer a wax effigy like the boy in his honor. What more? Scarcely had they made the vow, forthwith or at once the boy began to be better, and at last, God aiding on account of the merits of St. Simpert, he recovers completely.

[27] The finger of a certain woman from Haimhofen swelled up to such a degree to one laboring in the finger, one infirm in body, one in tribulation, that it embraced the size of a hand. To her memory came the holiness of blessed Simpert and the grace of the miracles which was spoken of him; taking confidence of recovering health, she went to his tomb, and while praying placed her purulent * or matter-filled little finger upon the altar of the Confessor, which after a short interval burst in the middle, and very much matter, flowing out wonderfully from it, made the woman master of her vow. Sixtus Hegeling at Fischach had a boy who, from great infirmity of body, could by no means stand or go anywhere, as is known to all the parishioners of that place. Whence his parents, hearing of the miracles which the divine Mercy wrought through St. Simpert, commended that little boy to the faith of the Saint, and, constituting him votive, earnestly asked that he would obtain safety for the little son. On the following day, therefore, he rose from bed, going wherever he wished, and there is no one who denies that this happened by the merits of Simpert. A certain very honorable person (for the predestined too are sometimes, as Scripture testifies, proved more sharply in the Babylonian furnace), tried by huge temptations, was freed from them through the intervention of blessed Simpert, after she made a vow with two Masses and her ring to the most holy Prelate, namely Simpert.

[28] It happened at the same time that Peter Has at Hirblingen had a boy to one who suffered flux of the head, in the foot, the side, childbirth, who for about two years had been wearied with a very perilous flux of the head. But at last, vowed with certain offerings to the tomb of the man of God Simpert, he at once received safety. A certain one of the matrons, having an evil foot, vowed a candle of some pounds at the tomb of blessed Simpert: then at once she received health. Sympert, tailor from Hymelstetten, bore for four years very grave pains in one side, so that death almost often followed him from such things. Who at last, for the sake of obtaining health, undertook that he would offer a quarter of one pound of wax at the tomb of the man of God Simpert: and thus by the intervention of the divine Simpert he was restored to safety. A certain most honorable one of the women, when she had brought forth a boy, fell into great infirmity of body, which however was miraculously driven off from her by the merits of the glorious Virgin Mary, and also of blessed pontiff Simpert, whose patronage she had related, and she had bound herself by oath that she would say two Rosaries of the blessed Virgin in the aforesaid * crypt of souls, and moreover would sacrifice one candle for her belly with her offering at the chapel of the divine Simpert.

[29] By the merits of St. Simpert a boy of thirteen years, from stone, adversity, being troubled with stone, was healed, a vow however having first been made by his mother that each year, as long as he lived, he would offer a candle of two ounces in honor of the most blessed Father. A vow of this kind having been made, several little stones came out through his member. And that this was done by the prayer of the divine Confessor I think no man at least of sound mind will doubt. It happened that a certain person was agitated by hard adversities (God often indeed bites some with adversities, lest they grow wanton with long prosperity), who at last, by the help of the divine Simpert, to whom she had commended herself,

was rescued from the same adversities. Michael, an innkeeper at Maningerin, for fourteen years, because troubled with stone, bearing huge pains, receiving by true report the miracles which God was working through his Saint, namely Simpert, promised for the sake of obtaining health that he would visit his monument, and, as far as he could, would perform an offering there from his own goods. Promising ^o these things with great confidence and invocation of the holy Father, a little stone of great size came out through the man's tube, which afterwards, when he carried the promises into effect, he consigned to the custodian.

[30] an immoderate flux of the menses, madness, A certain servant woman in the Vindelician city, whom treacherous fortune too was accustomed to spurn in very many other matters, suffered her months or menses rather gravely beyond the accustomed manner: from which it came about that she endured immoderate or very great poverty. For she could not work as a maid, as would have been fitting, while yet she had nothing from elsewhere by which to pass her life. She therefore, hearing the miracles of the divine Simpert, began to beg his help most greatly, promising that she would give two coins in his honor, emulating the widow of the Gospel, who offered two mites. Thence, since God weighs not the gift but the good will, the blessed Confessor interceding, she never again suffered the menses so gravely as before. To Peter, a priest of Engelsberg, who from a very great infirmity, with which he had labored six weeks, had been made out of his mind [p], the divine Simpert appeared three times, assuring him that he would be restored to health when he made his vow at his mausoleum. Moved by this, therefore, the man, especially because he had now had such a vision three times, determined by oath that he would visit the tomb of the glorious Confessor with a little wax. Which vow, after he became master of his mind by the intervention of the blessed father Simpert, he fulfilled.

CHAP. VII.

[31] On the sixth day before the Kalends of November, in the year of the Lord DCCCCXCI, a certain mother of a family, of very great honorableness above all and especially, from Gundelfingen, betaking herself together with her little son, those laboring with stone, in his thirteenth year, to the tomb of the most holy father Simpert, once bishop of Augsburg, declared that her son had been troubled with stone for some years, and that he had been healed by a certain surgeon, as was thought, by cutting, as those laboring with such a disease are usually cured; but that not long afterwards he had relapsed into the same infirmity: wherefore both she and her husband had been greatly distressed over this, not knowing what was to be done. Then to her, thinking day and night (as mothers are accustomed to do) in what manner she might cure her son, it came to mind that she ought to vow that, stripped of linen garments, she would go on pilgrimage [q] with the same son to the tomb of the aforesaid Pontiff. Which vow namely having been made, presently through his tube, that is, the passage of the urine, ten stones of no small size came out.

[32] one anxious in mind, one placed in peril of death, Bernard, a shoemaker from Oberbalbach, for fourteen weeks was so tormented within himself with anxieties and cares, I know not what, that he could not rest day and night. Whence not without cause or reason he suspected himself bewitched, especially since he did not know the cause of such great anxieties. Hence, since he perceived that the help of men was lacking to him, he vowed that he would visit the Holy Mountain [r] for the honor of the glorious Virgin Mary, and would approach the tomb of the divine Simpert, and would offer to these half a pound of wax, so that at least by their patronage he might be released from vexations of this kind, as afterwards happened. For in a short time he was entirely freed from the same vexations. On the day before the Kalends of December, or on the day of St. Andrew the apostle, in the year of the Lord MCCCCXCI, when the body of the divine Simpert, once bishop of Augsburg, was found for the second time, a miracle indeed worthy of note took place. For a certain woman, named Agnes Peuterleini of Waltpach, was present at the aforesaid finding, who secretly snatched a little of the earth where the body of the holy Confessor had rested, trusting that health would be restored to her eyes, which were then greatly aching, if she should anoint them with that earth. But it came about or happened far otherwise than she had reckoned: since not three hours had passed after such a theft when earth of this kind was turned into stones, although or though not even so did the woman repent of the theft, even though pious: because she carried such things home with her. Having arrived there, falling into a very grave disease, she was in danger of death in it for so long, namely six weeks, until she promised both that she would carry back what had been taken, and that she would offer wax at his tomb in satisfaction, or rather in appeasement of the Saint whom she had offended (as is believed). After this the strength of her body is restored daily more and more, until she received complete health.

[33] The boy of certain persons was agitated by bodily diseases, [to a sick boy, to one suffering grave tortures, to one in a fever, to a blind man,] and these so grave that his parents themselves had no hope for his life. But there suddenly came to their memory both the holiness of blessed Simpert and the grace of the miracles which were spoken of him everywhere and on all sides. Taking confidence, they bind and oblige the boy to the Saint with certain gifts, and faithfully ask his life. Whence it came about that not long afterwards by the intervention of the most holy Father he recovered his former health. A certain person, after * surrounded by grave tortures, is freed from them by the merits of the divine Simpert when she vowed herself with one rosary of the blessed Virgin at his tomb. Adam Gietter of Thonhausen [s], when he was feverish, or suffered fever to such a degree that he almost breathed out his soul, begged most greatly the help of St. Simpert, promising to take pains [t] that one Mass should be said in honor of the divine Prelate, and that he would offer an offering at his tomb according to his ability. Hence forthwith, when he had invoked his patronage, he came out safe. To Conrad Zenhart from Desingen, who had been blind for three years, sight was fully restored by the intervention of the blessed confessor Simpert, to whom he had made a vow.

[34] A certain woman, having a hunchbacked little boy, whom she commended to St. Simpert: [to a hunchback, to one subject to flux of the head, to those faring ill in the foot and back, with weakness of body, with grave infirmity,] by whose patronage a few days after he was released from such aforementioned deformity of body. A flux of the head likewise is driven off by the merits of the divine Simpert from a certain little boy, after his mother vowed that she would offer her ring in honor of the Man of God. A certain woman from Zusmarshausen [u] came on the day of St. Thomas the Apostle to the monastery of the divine Ulrich, who declared that she had been afflicted with pains of the back and feet for sixteen weeks to such a degree that she could by no means and in no way go anywhere, until she determined that she would go over to the tomb of St. Simpert and promised that she would offer a little gift in honor of the same Saint; suddenly she had obtained her former health. Likewise the little boy of Peter Kugel of Gesserhausen obtains health by the merits of blessed Simpert (although he had labored for two years with weakness of body) when he was vowed to the sarcophagus of the holy Father with a light and one coin. Margaret of Aix likewise is healed by the intervention of the father Simpert of a very great infirmity, after she proposed that she would approach the tomb of the same Saint with a certain offering.

[35] [to those agitated with anxieties, pains of the head, to a hunchback, to a purblind person, to a ruptured man,] Johann Kunig for three months was surrounded with very great anxieties of body and mind, nor could he easily, at least by human means, be released from such things. Wherefore he vowed himself to St. Simpert, that he would offer one penny every year, earnestly beseeching that he would deign to have pity on his trouble, and eliminate it by holy prayers, which also followed. For shortly afterwards he obtained full tranquillity of both the outer and the inner man by the intervention of the blessed Father. A certain person, having suffered huge pains of the head for a notable time, obtains health by the merits of St. Simpert, a vow having been made before that she would weigh out two wax ears in honor of the Saint himself (since God does not attend to the price of the gift, but to the devotion of the offerer). The little boy of Erhard Steirer is released by the prayer of St. Simpert from the hunchback which he had for five years, immediately after he was vowed to the Saint with an offering. The eyes of a certain person were dimmed [x] for a long time, and so gravely that she could by no means even contemplate the sacred Host when it was raised by the priest at the altar. She at last, after she vowed two eyes to St. Simpert, forthwith merited to obtain sufficiently competent light of the eyes. Johann Ziegler of Herbertshofen [y] likewise is healed by God, who restores all things by his word alone, of a certain rupture by the merits of St. Simpert, after he promised that he would give half a pound of wax to the same Confessor.

CHAP. VIII.

[36] A certain person from Zusmarshausen [z] betook himself to the sarcophagus of the most blessed prelate Simpert, to one affected with pain of the heart, to a somewhat deaf man, who, as he asserted, was most gravely affected with pain of the heart for a month. But that, when he had promised that he would offer a little wax (little things indeed befit little people) at the tomb of the Saint, he was presently restored to his former health. Johann, a wheelwright of Pibrach, being somewhat deaf for about three years. To whom, after he promised the divine Simpert his cap stuffed with rye, hearing was restored. But because he did not show himself faithful in paying, namely he never once offered the cap full as he had vowed, by the just judgment of God he grew deaf again, that he might experience that an unfaithful promise, not only a foolish or rash [aa] one, displeases those above. Whence the man, trampled in a wonderful manner, repenting of the fraud committed, vowed again to the blessed Prelate a cap more fully filled with rye. Which when he carried into effect, by the mediating prayers of him whom he had invoked he obtained hearing. A certain very honorable person bore grave pains of the heart until she vowed that she would take pains that one Mass should be read in honor of St. Simpert, and would place an alms in his treasury, nay also would pray fifteen times the Lord's Prayer with as many Angelic Salutations about his tomb. All these namely having been promised, pains of the heart of this kind are presently eliminated from her.

[37] Health likewise is restored to a certain little boy by the prayer of the divine prelate Simpert, [to a sick boy, to one laboring with asthma, to one vexed by nocturnal phantasms, to one affected with a long disease,] after he was vowed at his tomb with one light and a penny as well as a rosary of the blessed Virgin. A certain person, having for about four years very great difficulties of breathing on account of frequent prickings about the heart (because she was orthopnoic, that is, short of breath), is restored to health by the patronage of the holy prelate Simpert, after she promised that she would say the Lord's Prayer ten times daily in his honor with as many Ave Marias. Andrew, surnamed Hierzog of Purtenbach, had a little son three years old who, on account of terrors in dreaming, could not sleep even for a little while. Whence he thought he should present him at the tomb of St. Simpert together with a pound of wax for his deliverance: by which the boy is freed from such nocturnal phantasms of his by the intervention of the blessed Confessor. Likewise at the same time there was a certain woman, Agatha Tagwerckerin, possessed for more than five years by a huge disease, whom no one (although she had many physicians consulted on that account) could cure, for this reason perhaps, as is piously believed, that it might become clear to men of how great worth St. Simpert was with God

of merit, by whose intervention afterwards (for she had made a vow to him for the sake of obtaining health) she received firmness of body.

[38] Moreover about the same time, on the Vigil of the Nativity of the Lord, a certain one of the men wishing to one endangered on a journey, in the foot, the throat, with obstructed jaws, to set out, I know not whither. Further, because he did not know the way, he began for almost six little hours to stray and wander hither and thither, or here and there, over the field, nor could he in any way (because snow had covered the earth) find the highway. Therefore he altogether despaired that he could come to the company of men scarcely without danger, or without peril. But indeed, as soon as he had promised that he would approach the tomb of the divine confessor Simpert with three rosaries to be prayed, and as many lights, through the merits of the same Father he is relieved of a peril of this kind and came by the due way whither he was making. A certain person having an evil foot for some time: and after she constituted herself votive to St. Simpert, she obtained complete health of the little foot. Another person too, suffering [bb] rather grave pains in the throat for some time, taking confidence of recovering health, vowed a farthing of wax to St. Simpert, by whose merits too she was graciously freed from a peril of this kind. For [cc] also to a certain girl a little bone had come into the throat while eating, and this she could not draw out for a whole day, although she sought remedies in many ways. Wherefore, or for which reason, since she was destitute of every other help, she began to beg the help of the holy father Simpert. Then a little after, that is, at once, with a small interval, wonderful to say! by his merits the little bone passed from the gullet without any pain.

[39] safety restored. Finally, now at the end of the Miracles to be written, I will not omit a miracle plainly worthy of note. The monastery of St. Martin of Prenzenhausen, of the Order of the divine Benedict, of the church of Augsburg, having as steward, whom in Latin we may rightly call dispenser, and some designate or call master of the court, of its house which it then possessed in the suburb of Gundelfingen [dd], one whose name was Thomas Franck, who for about four weeks was goaded by such grave pains of all the bowels that he was almost despaired of by all. For he could not taste anything of food or drink. For he loathed all foods. From which it came about that those attending him awaited in him nothing but the hour of death. But suddenly (and no doubt divinely, because without the divine Deity nothing of salvation is breathed into man) there came to his mind the miracles in which the holy confessor Simpert indeed was powerful at Augusta Vindelica. On which account he began to beg the Saint from his inmost heart that he would deign to help or aid him too, placed in the greatest weakness of body, promising that, if he recovered, he would visit his mausoleum together with his wife, and would sacrifice a silver offering there. What more? The sick man had not yet fully made his vow when, by the merits of the often-mentioned father Simpert assisting, through the grace of God, from whom is every healing, he began to grow strong in powers, and was at last restored to his former health. And God, being wonderful in his Saints, wrought this miracle through the merits of his blessed confessor Simpert in the year MCCCCXCIII.

Here end the Miracles with whose praise he shines, etc.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Out of his mind.

q. So the Wiltheim Manuscript. Another: peregraturam.

r. Or the monastery of Andechs in Upper Bavaria, into which the Benedictine Order, introduced from the year 1132, was brought back in the year 1455. It is called the Holy Mountain from the relics of the Saints preserved there.

s. See letter h above.

t. Supply: ut quod "that", which conjunction the author frequently omits.

u. A village of Swabia near Augusta Vindelicorum.

x. Caecutiebant "were growing dim".

y. I find a village Habertshoven, one on the river Lech between Augsburg and the Danube; another likewise on the Lech between Landsberg and Füssen.

z. See here letter u.

aa. Read: temerariam "rash".

bb. Read: perpetiens "suffering".

cc. It is lacking in the Gamans Manuscript.

dd. This town is situated between Ulm and Donauwörth, where the river Brenz discharges itself into the Danube, from which the monastery mentioned a little before seems to be called Prenzenhausen or Brentzenhausen.

* Perhaps purulentum.

* num. 25

* It is redundant.

THE BOOKS OF THE MIRACLES OF ST. SIMPERT

From the year MCCCCLXXXVIII to the year MCCCCXCV

PART III.

CHAP. IX.

A certain discreet man, and one bearing credibility of his sayings in age and character, Swelling of the foot, called Johann Gros, of the town named Wertingen ^b, weighed down for about twenty years with a swelling of one foot so much that he was for the most part rendered altogether powerless for the works by which the necessities of livelihood were to be acquired for him, vows having been made here to the holy Pontiff with an offering, when he had presently begun to be better, and the disease receding daily, forgetful of his Benefactor, while he delayed to render his vows through him and to present himself at the tomb of the holy Man, the disease returning, he began to bewail his former pains with repentance for the deferred vow, and lamentably offering one pound of wax to the Saint, asking pardon. But what happened to this man after this, and whether afterwards the Divinity conferred again on him the former benefits of health through the intercession of the Confessor, is not established to me.

[41] A certain honorable woman, called Anna Wagnerin, pain of the arm and of stone, from the village of Fischach ^c, related wonderful things about our holy patron Simpert. For she said that for two whole years her right arm was rendered so useless to her through most violent pains that she asserted ^d not only that it was useless to her for any labors, but also that from the violence of the pain she was for the most part almost turned to fury. Further, from her clear narration, I think that she had been driven to it by sorceries ^e. She therefore, while by the force of the pain she was turning over in her mind in different directions whether she could henceforth recover if she should vow herself to St. Simpert; and yet, though having deliberated, did not vow the vow, suddenly she noticed an unknown vigor of health poured into her arm, and the disease gradually receding; she, nothing being more certain than that this gift of health had been conferred ^f on her by the holy pontiff Simpert, presently fulfilled in deed with an offering the vow which she had revolved in mind, and coming on the day of St. Augustine in the year MCCCCXCIV to the tomb, bringing an eighth part of a pound of wax with exceptional praise. A boy of three years, when, a little stone forbidding the passage of the urine, he had come almost to the extremity with excessive pains, his father, a tenant of the village called Arlosried, of the district called Reibschenaw, called Michael Gleich, when, pitying his son, he had vowed a vow with an offering to St. Simpert, presently on the following night, while the boy slept, the little stones passing away without pain, he received entire health.

[44] a grave wound of the arm, hernia, difficulty of childbirth, Blessed pontiff Simpert added besides to magnify his grace with the aforesaid man. For his daughter, a girl of twelve years, while, as is usual, she was playing with the children outside the house, struck by chance by the push of a horse running down there, dashed to the ground and gravely injured in one little arm, smote her parents with great grief. Who, while caught in their straits, when they had sought to the full the patronage of the holy Prelate, of whose fame they had heard many things, with a vow and offering, presently experienced magnificently his benefit in the health of their daughter, which they had asked humbly and devoutly. Michael Stosser, a parishioner of our church, when, having suddenly suffered a rupture, the intestines falling down, he was rendered useless for all labor, and bewailed his calamity greatly, at last, helped by the merits of the holy pontiff Simpert (for, a suppliant vow having been made, namely to bring forth a special prayer every day of his life, and also to offer an offering every Sunday, he was forthwith thereupon cured), rejoiced that he had not in vain implored the help of so great a Patron. A certain honorable woman, Anna Huberin of Mindelheim ^g, when she was in danger, anxious in childbirth, she too, by a vow with an offering of the veil with which she had been accustomed to adorn her head, and part of wax ^h, being very speedily delivered from childbirth, rendered huge thanks to her saviour and the kindly pontiff Simpert.

[45] [obstruction of the throat, swelling of the mouth, stones, pains of the belly and head,] Bartholomew of Czusenaltheim, when his tender boy, choked by something in swallowing so nearly suffocated that his face was now blackened like coals, he had vowed to the holy Pontiff that he would offer something for help, presently beyond expectation received him freed and unharmed with exceptional thanksgiving and gladness. When Apollonia Kezin of Hasselbach ⁱ, a very honorable woman, had her mouth swollen, and, the veins of the neck so swelling, was swollen for four weeks, so that you would think nothing more certain than that, the matter flowing down to the breast, it would bring death, a vow having been made to the Prelate with an offering of wax, she received entire health with great jubilation of heart. Leonard Küng of the town of Echingen ^k, when he vows to St. Simpert with an offering of wax his son of four years, disquieting all for three continuous days with dire cries from the pain of the stone, the little stone coming forth of its own accord, beyond hope he embraces the little boy suddenly quiet and freed from all pain. Anna Prunaweini of the village of Lechhausen ^l, worn out for four continuous years by continual and most grave pains of the belly and especially of women's parts, so that she was for the most part rendered useless for all work, when she had vowed herself to St. Simpert, was healed indeed *. A certain citizen of this city, a man not middling among the chief, related that he had been vexed for four continuous weeks both with pains of the head and with most violent twistings of the belly, and that, when he had vowed a vow to the B. Virgin Mary in the crypt of the Dead and to the holy Prelate, he was mercifully and entirely healed.

[46] A certain honorable woman, a poor widow from the castle of Radaw ^m, [frenzy and swelling of a testicle, pain of the belly and head, trouble of childbed,] on the day of the Assumption of B. Mary offered to St. Simpert one little boy with a gift of an eighth part of a talent of wax. He, when a few days before he was agitated so terribly by frenzy that all doubted that he had even a little life now, vows having been offered with suppliant prayer to the holy Pontiff by his mother, whom the perils of the boy straitened the more, the boy is presently freed from the frenzy. Besides, one testicle of the boy had swollen violently, who, freed from frenzy, and the mother having very much hope in St. Simpert that he could be freed from this pain also, she vowed him to the Saint, paid the things promised ⁿ, and obtained from God entire health by the merits of St. Simpert. A certain man, Andrew by name, of the leading men of this city, with pain of the head and belly for

four weeks worn out, when he had vowed himself with an offering to the B. Virgin in the crypt of the Dead and to St. Simpert, the disease departing, at once felt himself healed. Anna Prumillerin of Mering ^o, so weighed down in childbed with a most troublesome infirmity that for three continuous days she denied all rest by her cries to all remaining with her, when she is vowed to St. Simpert with an offering, the pain being calmed, granted quiet to herself and to others.

CHAP. X.

[47] In the year MCCCCXCV a certain man, not the lowest among the first citizens of this city, asserted that, delirium, a dangerous wound, when a few days before he had set out to the hot springs together with his wife, or to a natural bath, and already in the middle of the way he saw that by the hidden judgment of God his accompanying wife had incurred complete alienation of mind, what grief and shame thence held this honorable man, let him say who can! Anxious therefore and stripped of all human help, he gave suppliant prayers to God and his Saints. Finally, among all the other Saints whom he besought with prayers and vows, he committed the cause of his wife especially to St. Simpert. A wonderful thing! No delay of time intervening, the wife returned to her mind, and recovering entirely within a few days, rendered due thanksgivings for so great a benefit, with the payment of the vow, to God and his Saints, and especially to blessed Simpert. Furthermore Margaret, called Diettrichin, having suffered [p] most dangerously by a wound, so that, her breath now almost cut off, she trembled that she would lose even her life, when she fled with a vow to the help of the holy Prelate, presently, all danger departing, felt that she had by no means done this in vain.

[48] A certain tenant from the town of Inningen [q], relating plague, deafness, that, when almost half a year before he had vowed to St. Simpert, with half a pound of wax, for obtaining his life, his son mortally struck by the pestilence, and, the boy having been at once healed, had put off rendering the vow, SS. Ulrich and Simpert had appeared to him visibly in sleep, and St. Simpert indeed, as if indignant at the delay of the vow, and threatening, arranging to depart [r], but St. Ulrich had persisted, and persuaded him to render the vow at once, lest he incur the indignation and vengeance of St. Simpert. Elizabeth Rymlin of the town of Bobingen, worn out with such pains of the head for seven weeks that, the use of hearing having been lost by the force of the pain, she feared that she would now at once lose the office of reason too, when, seized amid her straits, she vows herself to St. Simpert with an offering and a visit to his sacred tomb, made sound at once within a few days, rendering the vow with joy, she extolled the praises of her benefactor Simpert.

[49] disturbance of mind, swelling of the face, pain of the belly, Bernard Stolz of Betmiis, servant of the vigorous knight the lord George Gumperger, when through a certain adversity he was so weighed down and disturbed in mind that for three continuous hours he had lain without any sense and speech as if about to die, when he is vowed through his wife, anxious indeed and saddened, to St. Simpert with a wax image and a visit to his tomb, at once, sense and speech having been received, he himself, rejoicing, related it about the tomb of his patron Simpert, his wife likewise accompanying him. The face of a certain woman from our parish, Dietpurgis by name, was violently swollen, and, getting worse, swelled up so much that no one hesitated that she would lose her common breath together with life. Finally so great a deformity had overspread her face that to those looking on there appeared the likeness not of a human being but of a mask. When therefore she had now come to her last departure, remembering the holy Confessor Simpert, the consoler of the wretched, she vowed that, with an offering of an eighth part of a talent of wax, … [s]. Which done, presently in a wonderful manner within the space of one hour the swelling was turned into putrefaction, matter flowing out most copiously through the mouth, and the woman is restored to her former health with exceptional joy. A certain honorable man, called Johann Balneatoris, from the village of Ostendorf near Kaufbeuren [t], agitated for a whole year without interruption by most violent pains of the belly, powerless for almost all labors, when he vows himself to St. Simpert and promises to visit his tomb barefoot with an offering, presently on the following day, the disease departing entirely, goes forth tireless to the labors long unaccustomed.

[50] deafness, pains of the head, I am about to say wonderful things. There came to the tomb of St. Simpert a certain woman, called Narcissin, from the village of Puchel, with joy itself and thanksgiving. For she narrated that her two daughters (one indeed was twelve years old, the other under age), when they had remained deaf for the course of half a year without any use of hearing, a vow having been made by the anxious mother herself with an offering and a visit to the tomb, their hearing returning within a few days, had graciously received tinkling ears. A certain farmer of the town of Graben [u], Bartholomew by name … [x] and gradually through the days the pain grew strong, so that you would think nothing more certain than that he would lose death, or rather life itself. But when, as the wretched are wont, he redoubled querulous cries, calamity was rather increased for him (I judge, that the grace of the holy father Simpert might shine forth the greater on him), namely while his wife Margaret with his daughter Anna lamented his misery with tearful vigils, they too were seized with no less pain of the head, and she who before bewailed her husband's misery now bewailed her own. But when, despairing of human protection, raising their hope to the patronage of the kindly Prelate, they had implored his help with suppliant prayer with a vow of an offering and of a visit to his tomb, the Holy Trinity, one God, through his servant Simpert (cured) these three persons laboring with a single pain. And lest it should seem to have happened by chance, they suddenly felt that they were sound, and redeeming the vow made at the tomb with certain offerings, with the greatest joy they narrated to us the magnificent works of God, in the year MCCCCXCV [y].

[51] At last wonders follow upon wonders. A certain boy of a year and a half, frenzy, whose name was Alexander, the name of his father George [z] Bader, his mother's Anna, and his grandmother's Elizabeth, of the town of Graben situated near Landsberg. All made a vow on the part of the little boy Alexander at the tomb of the holy Prelate together with offerings both of silver and of wax. For the same little boy was troubled with frenzy for seventeen weeks, and was vexed by this infirmity to such an extent that it was a stupor to men that the soul was not shaken out of the body by such great convulsions. For he was tormented to such an extent that he vomited foam together with blood from his mouth, and his eyes, turned up, stretched out the other part of them. What more? The parents made vows without effect to the suffrages of many Saints.

[52] At last, by the persuasion of certain persons, it was also settled in their mind taken away by the intercession of St. Simpert. that, lighting candles of the same weight and length in the name of some three Saints, the Saint of whose name the candle should burn up more quickly should become the patron of the little boy, and should be believed without hesitation to be about to free him too from every infirmity. A wonderful thing! The three candles, lit together, began to burn with a wonderful inequality. For after the other two had descended to their middle part, the third, which had been lit in the name of St. Simpert, was consumed entirely by the voracious flames. Hence there came to the parents a greater confident love in the Saint of God Simpert [aa], and they began more instantly to invoke his patronage with a vow of the offering [bb] of the boy and of a candle. And behold, for nearly half an hour the disease, more bitter than usual, invading the little boy, began to torment him so much that the parents expected nothing but that his soul would go forth. With this last vexation, therefore, the disease, bidding farewell to the boy, departed, nor did it return any more, and the boy having been presented by his parents at the mausoleum of St. Simpert, I saw the little boy sound, beautiful, laughing and joyful, nor did the parents rejoice less in every jubilation of heart, and at last rendering thanksgivings before many men who were present together, to God and his Saints and especially to the most glorious prelate Simpert. Whence blessed be God, who is wonderful in his Saints. MCCCCXCV.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Elsewhere: pressa "pressed".

q. It is a village of Swabia not far from Augsburg.

r. Elsewhere I read: "And St. Simpert indeed, as if indignant at the delay of the vow, and threatening, had arranged to depart."

s. Perhaps to be supplied: "she would approach his tomb."

t. A town of Swabia on the river Wertach.

u. Near Landsberg.

x. What seems to be lacking here it has not been possible to supply from our Manuscripts: yet from the following words of the writer it is easy to gather that Bartholomew was affected with a huge pain of the head.

y. Our Manuscripts have: "These things were done in the year MCCCCXCV."

z. Georgius is read in the Wiltheim Manuscript.

aa. Read: in sanctum Dei Simpertum, as one of our Manuscripts has.

bb. Oblatione "offering", from the same Manuscript.

* Perhaps profecta?

THE ACTS OF THE SECOND FINDING AND TRANSLATION OF ST. SIMPERT, BISHOP OF AUGSBURG, BY AN ANONYMOUS MONK OF ST. ULRICH'S.

Simpert, bishop, confessor, at Augsburg. (S.)

BHL Number: 7780

BY AN ANONYMOUS MONK OF ST. ULRICH'S.

Here begins the Preface and Prologue concerning the second Finding of the body of our holy patron Simpert, bishop of Augsburg, which was made in this sacred place in the year of the Incarnation of the Greater number one thousand four hundred and eighty-nine, on the day of St. Andrew the apostle.

The author invokes the grace of the Holy Spirit, necessary for all things. For the glory and praise of the Undivided Trinity, being about to treat ^c of the second finding of the blessed prelate of Augsburg Simpert, we invoke the grace of the Holy Spirit, who is to be implored even in the least things, that he who went before and followed him ^d in contempt of the world and in the denial of himself may deign to go before and follow us too in this rehandling, and make us suitable relators of so great and magnificent a finding. For nothing worthy of God is said without him, nor is he himself invoked without himself, whose gifts indeed they are, if anyone merits to show and announce the works of the Almighty, and to magnify God himself in his Saints. And first indeed let us set before you the beloved exemplar and mirror of God, and

let us venerate in him the apostolic form and the angelic life on earth, and, as far as is possible, as emulators of the good, imitate that very thing. For while it is a great and very good thing to proclaim the merits of the Saints and to extol their virtues themselves, and to strive after them by imitating, to acquire them is truly the best and most excellent: yet in whatever way, it is both given from heaven and inspired divinely, and its administration is free. He, the distributor of graces, gives of them to whom he wills, and divides to each as he wills. Now therefore let us approach those things concerning the second Finding of the body of so great a Patron of ours, as of a glorious Prince, which pertain to common edification and which can profit the devout minds of hearers for imitation. The other deeds which were of the world, namely pertaining to secular dignity, although worthy of relation in eternal memory, we have nevertheless decided to pass over in all silence, applying our pen only to reciting in part his spiritual deeds. And now let the hand begin to labor at those things which the religion and holiness of the good man demand, and let us turn the pen to the second finding of his body, which is also mostly required concerning holy and great men; we shall note it beforehand according to the capacity of our strength.

Here ends the Prologue.

ANNOTATIONS.

d. Namely St. Simpert.

Here begins the Process concerning the relics of St. Simpert lately found for the second time.

A visitation of the tomb of St. Simpert having been decreed by common counsel, To all, of whatever state, rank, dignity, condition or eminence they may be, sailing on the sea of this world with the merchandise of the Catholic faith, we, Johann, by divine patience abbot of the monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg of Rhaetia of the divine Order of Benedict, would that well deserving, make known by the present Writing to each, wherever established, that St. Simpert, twelfth bishop of Augsburg, was raised to the dignity of the prelacy of this city by Leo, Pope, third of this name, and by the emperor Charlemagne, son of the most pious Pippin, king of Francia, in the year of the Lord 735 ^a. Who, having ruled the church of Augsburg laudably for thirty years, died, and was buried honorably in the church of St. Afra the martyr with certain of his predecessors and holy pontiffs of Augsburg, where to this day their tombs are shown and are attended with all fitting honor by all the faithful of Christ. But, all doubts having been set aside, that we and our successors might be made more certain of the body and relics of St. Simpert, patron of this place, and that the veneration of the aforesaid Bishop might be increased and grow daily, we the aforesaid abbot, together with the Fathers and Brethren professed of this monastery, moved by the greatest devotion, began to treat of the honor, praise and dignity of the same Prelate, as well as of the second Finding of his relics, concluding together, relying on the authority of superiors and the ordinary, concerning the opening of his tomb to be made; we all with one mind gave consent in the house of the Lord, and, a suitable opportunity of time having been obtained, the process was such as follows.

[2] and the earth having been dug out, The divine Clemency favoring, the day of finding the relics of St. Simpert is fixed beforehand. Whence, to expedite a business of this kind, the reverend Dom abbot Johann von Giltlingen designated four Brethren of the convent worthy of credit: and since that work would be too laborious, the same Dom prelate added help to them, namely four honorable men, fellow-citizens of this imperial city, to wit, the master of our building, named Burchard, George Seld the goldsmith, and two masons, namely Sifrid and Conrad, surnamed Bierschenk. These aforesaid eight, both spiritual and secular, leave having been asked of the Dom abbot and graciously obtained (having first, however, been well disposed for this according to their strength, both by attrition and contrition for their sins, and by their confession, and also with the humble resolve of making satisfaction), the most strong locks, bars and bolts of our church having been closed behind them, in the evening about the seventh hour of twilight ^b undertook the very great work of obedience laid upon their shoulders and necks with unspeakable joy and firm hope. And entering the church, at once prostrated to the ground, to adore the true God, who can grant all salutary things: and thus, preludes of devout prayers having been premised (as was fitting), after this they humbly approached that most holy place where the relics of our St. Simpert rested. There they began to dig with a strong hand, and, each of the exhortations and commands having first been set forth by the reverend Dom prelate, about the tenth or eleventh hour or a little more, while working they found a certain stone which was placed over the sarcophagus of St. Simpert, in which the body of the kindly pontiff St. Simpert rested for many years, which, now placed and set under the altar in our chapter-house, can be seen by all. This having been found, they by no means laid down the stone itself or presumed to move it.

[3] They, laboring inflamed with ardor from heaven, examined the stone more diligently with lynx-like, The relics of the Saint, through a crack in the tomb, by the abbot so to speak, little eyes, and in one part of the stone itself they found a little crack or small fracture, and again they gave themselves to their accustomed prayers, prostrated on the ground, and, a light having first been put in through the opening, suffused with great joy, then with bended knees, with the greatest devotion, all looked in through the stone. What more? Joy indeed is added to joy, when all freely saw lying openly, without earth, in the middle of the stone sarcophagus, the most holy bones of our patron Simpert. Which having been seen, and refreshed not moderately with dancing of hearts, they were exhilarated by so great and wonderful relics. They were struck with a joyful fear, not knowing more what was to be done. Yet strengthened, and their powers of acting resumed, calling the lord prelate in the night through messengers ^c in their midst, to declare what had been done concerning the things worked out. Further, the lord abbot, roused unexpectedly, and almost awakened from sleep, coming with hastened step astonished, yet first with the greatest sighing detesting his own sins committed during the days of his life, and purged by confession and contrition together with the resolve to amend himself. Then, with those eight others present at the divine business, he gave himself to heartfelt prayer, about to approach the tomb of St. Simpert himself. When he arrived [d] there, at the information of the others he too looked in through the fracture of the stone.

[4] Who, when he had gazed upon the bones of St. Simpert, our most faithful patron, and are beheld by the other monks: placed in a heap in the middle of the sarcophagus most orderly, bursting into most bitter tears, though sprinkled with the greatest dancing, did not know at all what he should say or whither he should turn. Yet relying on the counsel of those who were with him, he at once had the whole congregation called 5 to contemplate the gifts of God, the most sacred bones of our St. Simpert. Who all, as true obedient men, at once obeyed the commands of their superiors, and, regularly assembled, after an interval, with one mind, after the morning synaxis, with great fearfulness, greater reverence and the greatest devotion, desired to visit the mausoleum or tomb of our patron, namely Simpert, and were permitted by the lord prelate to look in beside the tomb through a certain crack of the stone. And I will speak edifying things: when those present from the bosom of the monastery had gazed upon the sacred pledges of the body of St. Simpert, and beheld the relics, they shed tears, though sprinkled with the greatest joy, thinking within themselves and crying from the heart: "O almighty God! we wretched sinners, members of this royal monastery, give thanks to thy most divine majesty for that gift by which thou hast deigned to call us, thy unworthy household servants, to this most divine and arduous work, that before our death and the tribute of our flesh we should behold with bodily eyes the bones of our Patron." And thus all, refreshed with spiritual joy, all together in jubilation of hearts praised God with Psalms, Hymns, Prayers and speculative contemplations for the finding of the holy relics of the body of Simpert.

[5] then on the day before the Kalends of December, At last, therefore, all these things having been performed, by the command of the aforesaid lord abbot the tomb of the holy Prelate is closed most firmly by the masons, and, earth having been placed over the tomb, the bones of our holy Father remained unbroken, unharmed and whole, and now at last, all things having been completed with that reverence and devotion which is fitting, the Fathers of the venerable convent went to the choir of the most holy martyr Afra to begin the Lauds of the morning Office. But the devout fathers of the congregation who had toiled in the labors returned to their beloved little cells: and the laymen went with safe escort to their own homes. These aforesaid things were done in the year from the Incarnation of Christ our Saviour 1491, on the day before the Kalends of December. Likewise it is worthy of note that in the year of the Lord 1491, from the tenth before the Kalends of April to the feast of St. Andrew of the same year (this was the day before the Kalends of December), this magnificent work concerning St. Simpert remained almost unfinished and unattempted. The reason, that all things pertaining to such a solemnity might be the better and more conveniently arranged by the lord abbot in time, delay being set aside, as was also seriously done. For, all necessary things having been arranged by the father sacristan on the appointed day, this divine act at the tomb of St. Simpert was begun in such a manner as follows.

[6] the whole city having been called together. First and beforehand this business concerning St. Simpert was begun on the day of St. Andrew, but first published everywhere here at Augsburg from the pulpit, that the faithful of Christ might the better dispose themselves with devotion to be present at the aforesaid things. Wherefore on the aforesaid day first our ringing was made with the great bell for the singing of Terce, and that ringing was protracted at length, both that the venerable lords of the chapter of the greater church and of the other spiritual places might the more easily and freely discharge themselves at home in the divine praises, and then come with their mature steps gradually to the aforesaid monastery: and also the aforesaid ringing was then protracted on account of the coming of the burgomasters of this city and of the whole community, so that thus each, with devout mind, devoutly and slowly, without lawful hindrance, might be able to come up to such divine spectacles, in our age unaccustomed, unknown and unusual to us. And the police of this imperial city having been most sagaciously disposed about the gates and towers and everywhere, the superiors both of spiritual and of secular persons, together with all (so to speak) the people, came to be present at the wonders of God, and, prostrated in their hearts to the ground, with great fervor of devotion listening from the beginning to the end of the issue of the divine things, so that they might thus leave to their posterity for ever the acts of the things seen and heard in truthful writings, as without ambiguity was done, etc.

Concerning the procession held on the aforesaid day.

[7] from the tomb, All things having now at once been copiously arranged by the father custodian for holding the procession, the same sacristan distributed lighted wax candles among each of the fathers and brethren of our monastery and of the other monasteries going in the said procession, as well as to certain other more honorable laymen of this city, over fifty, who with their candles by the custodians

given to them surrounded and protected the relics of St. Simpert in that solemn act until after the Office of the Mass. And thus the procession was begun. For, the principal cantor beginning the Responsory: "Let your loins be girt and lamps burning in your hands," etc., and when they had arrived there, a devout station was held. Whence, the Responsory "Let your loins," etc., having been finished, with the Verse and "Glory be to the Father," etc., as well as with its repetitions, then the lord abbot began the Versicle: "Let us bless the Father and the Son with the Holy Spirit," with the Collect: "Almighty everlasting God, direct our actions in the good pleasure of thy beloved Son," etc. After that the Antiphon was begun by the principal cantor: "Confirm this, O God," etc., with the Versicle: "Let us bless the Father and the Son," etc., together with the Collect: "Our actions, we beseech thee, O Lord, go before by thy inspiration," etc.

[8] These things having been most devoutly performed, the reverend lord abbot, often mentioned, took the instrument most suitable for this work, namely the masons' iron spade, [an edict of the bishop of Augsburg having first been promulgated against carrying any of them off,] making three distinct strokes: "In the name of the Father † and of the Son † and of the Holy † Spirit. Amen." Then he handed the spade to the master of the building of the church, Burckhard, granting to him and his household servants the faculty of actually digging. And during the digging the greatest silence was kept by all assembled there, prayers being meanwhile poured out especially to God, that this divine business, unheard of in our times, might obtain a good end. After that the mandate of our most reverend prelate of Augsburg, Frederick von Hohenzollern ^e, was published by a brother of the convent, brother Conrad, not the least of the stock of the young lords of this city, namely that no one should with rash daring at all steal or take away anything of the relics of St. Simpert our patron, nor in any way inflict violence on the place and on the fathers of the black Order of the divine Benedict assembled there, and this under the sentence of excommunication pronounced, of penalties to be inflicted.

[9] with a great retinue Then, after they had arrived at the sarcophagus of St. Simpert, the stone placed above having been lifted, the father Prior at that time began in jubilation of heart the most glorious Hymn Te Deum laudamus, the whole choir following with a manly (as was fitting) harmony of voices, with joyful tears, as well as with the formal ringing of all our bells. Which having been heard, the ringing of all the churches in the whole city was arranged in honor and jubilation of our patron St. Simpert. Then, the Hymn having been finished, the lord abbot began this versicle: "Glorious God," etc., with the Collect of St. Simpert, namely: "O God, who to us of blessed Simpert," etc. These things having been completed, our lord abbot entered the mausoleum of St. Simpert together with the lord prelate of Kaisheim, namely the lord George, and the lord dean of Hochrechberg, the lord Ulrich, as well as with certain others worthy of credit, and there, fitting prayers and reverences having been made, the lord abbot of this place took with little silken cloths the head of our holy patron, namely Simpert, going out of the tomb, the others following with great devotion, and he enjoined on a certain father of the convent, at that time preacher, Conrad Morlin, in virtue of holy obedience, that he should ascend the pulpit and openly show the head of St. Simpert to all the men of both sexes present there. Which proclaimer of the Word of God in this obeyed the precepts of his superior with all the humility, devotion and reverence truly that was fitting, ascending the more eminent place, somewhat dismayed and trembling, about to show the head of St. Simpert to the people, and with all seriousness carried out what was to be promulgated. O how great a jubilation of hearts was manifested there of all those present! I nevertheless call God to witness: I then saw the tears of very many men poured forth from the dancing of their hearts, and on that day so great a concourse of men came to us, for the sake of seeing the relics of St. Simpert, that it scarcely stands to be believed. And after the showing of the head of our holy Patron to the people, our lord abbot at that time, with the aforesaid other prelates, entered again the said grave of St. Simpert for the sake of gathering the holy relics, adorning all the members of the sacred body, placing them in a wooden sarcophagus arranged beforehand by the custodian for this most divine work, until he ordered a copper sarcophagus to be made, etc.; so he also did, etc.

[10] into the church, And the procession having been set in order, the principal cantor of the choir began with a trumpet voice the Antiphon: "Hail, kindly Prelate of God, filling the world with glory," etc., and the head of the Saint was carried in the procession by the eminent lord doctor and noble lord Ulrich von Hochrechberg, most worthy dean of the cathedral church of Augsburg, and the other parts of the whole body of the relics of St. Simpert were carried in a sarcophagus adorned with most beautiful tapestries by the venerable noble lords, the well-deserving canons of the chapter of the greater church of the blessed Virgin, namely by the lord Ludwig von Zilhart, by the lord George von Sthanberg, by the lord Conrad von Harsther, and by the lord Christopher von Knöringen, who with the greatest kindled devotion and humility, together with the aforesaid lord dean, the procession through our church having been finished, placed the whole body of St. Simpert upon the altar of St. Ulrich, and at once the Office of the Mass of St. Simpert was begun, namely "The Lord made to him," etc., which was solemnly sung through by our reverend lord abbot at that time, to wit Johann von Giltlingen, a noble, there remaining the lord Vicar in spirituals of the church of Augsburg, namely the lord Heinrich von Liechtenau, together with the aforesaid lords of the chapter, and the honored lord, the most worthy prelate of the monastery of Kaisheim, namely the lord George, and many other lords of both estates remained until the end of the Office in the greatest fervor of Spirit.

[11] At last, the Office of St. Simpert our patron having thus been most solemnly sung through, as was fitting, but thence they are carried into the sacristy. most devoutly in jubilation of heart, and the thanksgivings fitting to God from all the people having been finished, each went to his own home to take food. But all the relics remained upon the aforesaid altar of St. Ulrich until after Compline of that day, well guarded by two devout fathers of the convent, to whom certain armed household servants of our monastery were associated by the lord abbot for the guarding of the aforesaid relics; and, Compline having been performed, a procession was made again. For our lord prelate, often mentioned, clothed in vestments, with the fathers of the convent and each of the brethren, came processionally to the choir of St. Ulrich, Compline having been finished, torches and lighted lights going before, with the greatest seriousness and devotion, receiving the relics of St. Simpert from the altar of St. Ulrich to carry them to the sacristy of the relics with a solemn Responsory of St. Simpert, to wit: "O Simpert, Saint of God, full of the grace of virtues, hope of the wretched, glory of the churches, attend to the prayers of the people beseeching, that thou mayest obtain pardon for their offences. ℣. Behold, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, being set over many things thou hast entered into the joy of thy God: attend," adding: "Glory be to the Father," etc., with its repetitions, namely: "Attend." Which having been finished, the lord abbot, in the presence of the whole convent, fortified and closed the sarcophagus of the relics of St. Simpert with his seal, lest perhaps anything might be stealthily withdrawn, as the same lord abbot had in commands about this from our most reverend lord of Augsburg, until the washing with the best wine. Where his paternity, in the presence of some, removing his seal for the washing of the holy relics, and afterwards more diligently gathering them back into the sarcophagus, closed it, and fortified it with his seal. And, the usual reverences having been made, both the lord abbot and the convent went out of the sacristy to rest, namely of their dwellings, there to repose in Christ Jesus until the rousing for the morning Office. These things were done on the day of St. Andrew the Apostle in the year of the Lord 1491.

ANNOTATIONS.

b. Of the evening.

THE HISTORY OF THE THIRD TRANSLATION OF ST. SIMPERT, BY AN ANONYMOUS MONK OF ST. ULRICH'S.

Simpert, bishop, confessor, at Augsburg. (S.)

BHL Number: 7783, 7784

BY AN ANONYMOUS MONK OF ST. ULRICH'S.

Here begins the Prologue to the second Translation of St. Simpert, bishop of Augsburg, our most glorious patron, which was made in the year 1492 on the IIIrd Feria of Easter.

The Translation of St. Simpert by Being about to write the second Translation of blessed Simpert, bishop of Augsburg, with great affection indeed, but with unequal ability, I approach the sacred matter, aiming finally at these two things, that God, the author of his virtues and merits, may be glorified in him, and that the faithful may receive the light of piety and devotion from the lamp loftily kindled in the house of the Lord: for the good odor of Christ is in him, and in the universal Church, as the groomsman and friend of the bridegroom, he too is fragrant with the best ointments, the ointment of contrition and of devotion, and of precious piety toward God and neighbor. For the ointment of a contrite heart and of humility, as one poor in spirit, he suppliantly showed to the feet of the Lord, opening his mouth in prayer, and continually interceding for his offences: whence also Christ purged his sins, and exalted his horn for ever. And the ointment of devotion, in which the remembrance of the divine benefits is understood, he poured out so piously and copiously in the service of divine worship, as upon the head of the Redeemer, that it seems to have been said expressly of him: "And the house was filled with the odor of the ointment." For not only in his own person, as priest and pontiff, did he offer to the Lord the Sacrifice of justice, the exhibition of the heavenly Sacraments, approaching through himself to God with oblations and holocausts, but also in various places, both near and remote, at great cost and labor, he founded and restored many churches for Christ, in which the mercies of the Lord might be continually recalled, and the death of the Lord be announced by spiritual disciplines and divine sacrifices until he come. But the ointment of piety, which from the widest bosom of charity, out of all hope of mercy, as out of spices and every powder of the perfumer, is prepared for the whole body of Christ, who showed more abundantly to the members of Christ?

[2] I pass over his infinite (so to speak) expenditures and mercies, the author describes on account of his excellent merits. which he made in the churches of the Lord, immortal before God: I pass by his alms, which he instituted with most diligent care in fixed places, in hospitals and dwellings of the poor. The redemptions of captives, which he paid out not only in his own diocese, but also by sending into foreign places outside his episcopate of Augsburg, and the immense money which the hands of the poor daily carried from his hand into the heavenly treasuries, who would suffice to enumerate? Truly his mercies are above all his works. These things I have premised in a brief epilogue for this reason, that it may be seen at the head of the little book how great is this patron of ours Simpert, of whose translation discourse is to be held in the course of what is to be said, and that concerning so great a Pontiff and new wonderful Patron of this place not only our own especially, but also

the whole Church generally may be glorified: who, when the world was now growing old and declining toward its setting, appeared according to the increases and consummation of perfection "as a star in the midst of a cloud, and as the full moon shining in her days, and as the sun shining forth"; so St. Simpert shone forth in the temple of God, the firmament of the Roman empire and priesthood, the gem of priests, the preacher of truth and teacher of the nations, a Martha frequent and fervent in the service of the Lord Jesus, the father, minister and receiver of pilgrims, of captives and of all the members of Christ. There are written in this book those things done by him which our predecessors, men most approved in religious and monastic life, all doubt set aside, and worthy of credit, read, and also learned by experience from their predecessors, and faithfully left in writings to us their posterity, so that thus (as is said) nothing of private love and favor may be inserted into the testimony of truth, but his works, which were done in God, may be brought forth with the greatest sincerity and truth for the honor of God and the utility of the Church.

Here ends the Prologue to the Translation and Life of St. Simpert, also twelfth bishop of Augsburg.

[3] Being now about to relate a little of the second translation of the body of St. Simpert, In the year 1492 the relics of St. Simpert, fittingly arranged, and before I begin to say anything about it, I should like everyone who will read, see and also hear this matter not to be ignorant at present that from the time of the second Finding of the body of St. Simpert, namely from the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle of the year 1491 until the joyful feasts of Easter of its Translation, to wit the third feria of the year immediately following, namely 1492, the relics of St. Simpert were held in the greatest veneration by the lord prelate at that time of the aforesaid place and by the whole Congregation, and were guarded in the sacristy with the greatest fear and trembling. Also immediately after this the lord abbot appointed other fathers of this place, zealots of the sacred religion, most worthy of credit, who with the greatest devotion washed the relics of the whole body in the best wine, and, the cleansing of the body of St. Simpert our patron with the precious wine having been finished, by the command of the lord prelate and the convent there was summoned and called for this our ordinary physician existing at that time, by name doctor Bartholomew of Weilheim, to be present at the arrangement of the bones of St. Simpert according to their lineaments, as the same too willingly obeyed our precepts and requests. For, being excellently qualified, namely attrite and contrite for his sins, a devout and entire confession of them having been made, as well as a good resolve of making satisfaction for them, leave having been received from the lords who were to receive it, namely the Ordinary of the bishopric, as well as also from the well-deserving lord prelate of this monastery, at that time the lord Johann von Giltlingen of noble stock, he arranged the whole body of our holy Patron according to its lineaments with the greatest industry and labor, and fitted it together most orderly in the presence of us all, as well as of very many other fathers of various Orders and Observances, who also were present at these arrangements of the sacred body with unspeakable devotion at the time of ordinations, namely of the Ember days ^c, who at that time made their stay with us for the sake of hospitality. Seeing these wonderful things, they rejoiced with great dancing in the Lord Jesus, and, going away to their own places, gave very great praises to God and to St. Simpert, to relate at home the things seen and heard, etc.

[4] all things necessary for the translation having been made ready, Let it also be known by these presents to all who come after us that all the bones of the whole body of St. Simpert there were in full number two hundred and nineteen, and thirty-two teeth out of the entire number, two teeth being taken away in my view (that I may not lie). These things therefore having been performed and more diligently inspected, the relics of St. Simpert were fittingly shut up in the sarcophagus with most clean and precious cloths, and it is again fortified by the lord abbot with his seal in our presence, as had been done before in the sacristy after the finding, as the lord abbot and we had a mandate concerning this from our lord bishop. Wherefore, these narrated things having been completed, at once the relics of St. Simpert were carried again by devout fathers and brethren of the convent, attending them with all honor (as was fitting), candles and torches going before, from the hall of the lord abbot into the sacristy. And then nothing more was done by anyone thenceforward concerning those sacred affairs until the aforesaid feasts of Easter of the second Translation to be made. But meanwhile all things necessary for that future translation to be made and for the deposition were prepared by the lord abbot of the place and his people, according to the little capacity of all their powers, awaiting thereafter the coming of the royal majesty, as well as of very many other princes of the empire, both spiritual and secular, who were to come to perform this most divine work, who also were present at this business most devoutly together with the people of both sexes, as, God granting, I am about to make more widely plain in what immediately follows.

[5] [on the IIIrd feria of Easter they are brought back to the tomb with notable honor.] In the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and ninety-two, the tenth Indiction, on the twenty-third day of the month of April, and it was the third feria of Easter, Pope Innocent the Eighth ruling the bark of Peter, Frederick the Third holding the imperial sceptre, and Maximilian, son of the same Frederick, king of the Romans, ruling over all, under the reverend father and lord, the lord Frederick the Second, bishop of Augsburg, and the lord Johann von Giltlingen presiding as abbot over this monastery, the bones of St. Simpert, raised from the earth, were laid away in this sarcophagus and this tomb with fitting solemnity, and, as is seen, shut up, there being present the most invincible king of the Romans aforesaid, and the aforesaid bishop and abbot, there assisting and helping them the reverend fathers and lords, the lord Ulrich, bishop of Adramyttium, suffragan and vicar general in spirituals of the same aforesaid bishop, the lord Bartholomew, abbot of the monastery of the Holy Cross at Donauwörth, the lord George, abbot of the monastery of Kaisheim, the lord George, abbot of St. Michael at Fultenbach, the lord Ulrich von Hochenrechberg, dean of the greater church, with the reverend lords of his chapter and the whole clergy of the city of Augsburg, there being joined to them princes, counts, barons, knights and many nobles, with the burgomasters of the city and much people. Let these things about the second translation and newest deposition of St. Simpert be said superficially and succinctly and most compendiously, but concerning the manner and form of all the acts in this translation, God leading, they need a fuller style, as will at once become plain in what follows [d]. For in our age such a solemnity has not been celebrated among us for the relics, found, of any Saint, deposited again in the same place, though somewhat higher, as has now been done, etc.

ANNOTATIONS.

FREDERICK, BY THE GRACE OF GOD AND OF THE APOSTOLIC SEE BISHOP OF AUGSBURG, TO EACH AND ALL THE FAITHFUL OF CHRIST, PRESENT AND TO COME, EVERLASTING GREETING IN THE LORD, WITH KNOWLEDGE OF THE THINGS WRITTEN BELOW.

Frederick, bishop of Augsburg, God, glorious in his Saints and wonderful in Majesty, whose ineffable height of prudence, enclosed by no limits, comprehended also by no bounds, by the censure of right judgment disposes things heavenly and earthly alike, although he magnifies all his ministers, adorns them with high honors and makes them possessors of heavenly beatitude: yet those, that he may repay worthy things to the worthy, he raises with greater insignia of dignities, and attends with a more abundant retribution of rewards, whom he recognizes as more worthy and whom a greater excellence of merits commends. Moreover, if everyone labors much to find a guide who may bring him to some mortal, how much more are the guides of the human race, who intercede for us men with God, to be honored, whose relics Christ the ruler has furnished to us as salutary fountains, watering us with manifold benefits? For in honoring them we honor in them, and proclaim wonderful, him who sanctified them.

[2] [the relics of St. Simpert, faculty having been given by him to the monks of St. Ulrich for this,] Hence it is that, whereas formerly the lord Peter of good memory, Cardinal and bishop of Augsburg, our predecessor, had impetrated and obtained from the late lord Nicholas the Fifth of happy remembrance, Pope, an indult that the divine Office, of day and of night, of St. Simpert the bishop, who rested entombed in the monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra of the Order of St. Benedict at Augsburg, might be performed there by the abbot and convent of the same monastery, and that St. Simpert himself might henceforth be named, revered and venerated as a Saint by the faithful of Christ, according to the tenor of the letters of the aforesaid late lord Peter, Cardinal, drawn up concerning this ^b. We, desiring that the relics of the same St. Simpert be brought forth into the light for greater veneration, lest the lighted lamp be kept in a hidden place or under a bushel. Wherefore we granted faculty to the venerable Johann von Giltlingen, beloved to us in Christ, abbot of the said monastery, by pretext of which he, having taken with him several prelates and eminent persons, approaching publicly with solemn procession, in the sight of a multitude of the people, the tomb of St. Simpert, which was situated before the chapel at the altar consecrated under his title in the church of the said monastery, dug out his relics contained in the sarcophagus there, and received them from it, to be placed in a new sarcophagus to be constructed for this purpose, as these things appear more clearly in the letters drawn up thence.

[3] But, a new mausoleum or sarcophagus raised above the ground having been made in the same place for placing and preserving there those relics, before himself and Maximilian, king of the Romans, and others, we Frederick the bishop, willing, after the manner of a watchful shepherd, that the said relics of St. Simpert be venerated the more devoutly, that our Lord Jesus Christ may direct the vows of the faithful by his intercessions and lead them to the grace of being heard, receiving those same relics with due honor and reverence, namely the head of the same St. Simpert, there standing by and helping us the most serene and invincible prince and lord, the lord Maximilian ^c, by the favor of divine Clemency king of the Romans, first, ever august, of Hungary, Dalmatia, Croatia, etc., archduke of Austria, duke of Burgundy, Brittany, Lorraine, Brabant, Limburg, Luxemburg and Guelders, count of Flanders, Tyrol, Artois, Burgundy, Palatine of Hainaut, Holland, Zeeland, Namur, Zutphen and Mechlin *, and marquis of the sacred Empire and lord of Frisia and of Salins, through us, but the remaining relics of this kind in a certain reliquary through certain persons whom we thought should be joined to us in this act,

namely the reverend father and lord in Christ, the lord Ulrich, by the said grace bishop of Adramyttium, our suffragan, and the aforesaid Johann, of the said SS. Ulrich and Afra of Augsburg, and the venerable, beloved to us in Christ, Bartholomew of the Holy Cross at Wörth, George at Fultenbach, of the aforesaid St. Benedict, and George at Roggenburg, Premonstratensian, abbots of the monasteries of the Orders of our diocese, there standing by them and cooperating the illustrious and noble princes and lords Christopher and Wolfgang, counts Palatine of the Rhine, dukes of Upper and Lower Bavaria, Rudolf, prince in Anhalt, and Eberhard the Younger, count of Württemberg, in a procession laudably held round about the precincts of the monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra itself, with the clergy and people assembled and called for this, solemnly carried up to the aforesaid new mausoleum or sarcophagus, and, having been carried, we caused them to be publicly proclaimed Jesus and commended.

[4] And all the solemnities usually observed in these things having been observed, except the head and a few others, the head of St. Simpert himself having been ordained by us to be held honorably in the aforesaid monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra beside the treasury of the other relics of the Saints existing there, and one of the ribs of the same St. Simpert having been enclosed in the seal of the said altar, consecrated by us under his title, as well as a certain particle of the same relics of St. Simpert, of almost the length and thickness of one thumb, having been handed over to the aforesaid lord king Maximilian at his request, and a certain other smaller particle of the same relics having been reserved and received for ourselves: all and each of the other relics of St. Simpert we placed in the new sarcophagus mentioned above, to be preserved there perpetually, ordering and causing the same sarcophagus to be closed with the greatest diligence, there assisting us also in the premises the venerable and honorable, sincerely beloved to us, Laurence Velma of St. George, Vitus Fakler of the Holy Cross, Provosts of the monasteries of the Order of St. Augustine of the Canons Regular, Jacob Cönzelman, dean of St. Maurice of Augsburg, Heinrich von Liechtenau, our vicar in spirituals, Conrad Harscher, scholasticus, Ludwig von Zullnhart, Burckhard von Freiberg, Andreas in der Klingen, Christopher Knöringen, George Schwabsberg, Wolfgang von Züllnhart, and Conrad Frolich, official, canons of our greater church, Johann de Salinis, doctor of decrees, protonotary of the Apostolic See, as well as the religious Brethren of the often-mentioned monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra, namely Wilhelm Ranger, Prior, Johann Stenglin, Subprior, Matthias Umhofer, Thomas Rieger, Wilhelm Wittvver, Peter Conrad and Leonard Wagner, Conrad Mölin, Johann Peurlin, Simon Weinhart, Balthasar Kramer, Johann Griesher, Sigismund Zymermann, Leonard Weinlin, Heinrich Hayden, Sigismund Lang, Stephen Thegen, Andreas Burg, Leonard Gregg, Ulrich Flechsenhar, professed. Simon Ridler, Erasmus Hueber, novices. Bernard and Laurence, lay brothers.

[5] testifies that they were translated into a new sarcophagus, In faith and testimony of all and each of which premises we ordered and caused our present letters, or the present public instrument, to be made thence, and to be fortified by the appending of the seals of the aforesaid most serene lord king of the Romans, commanding this, and of ourselves, together with the subscriptions of the notaries written below. Given and done at Augsburg in the monastery and places aforesaid, in the year from the Nativity of the Lord one thousand four hundred and ninety-two, the tenth Indiction, on Monday, the twenty-third of the month of April, which was the second feria of Easter, in the eighth year of the Pontificate of the most holy father in Christ and our lord Innocent, by divine Providence Pope the Eighth, there reigning the most glorious and invincible prince and lord, the lord Frederick, by the said favor of Clemency the Third emperor, and the aforesaid most serene lord Maximilian, king of the Romans, his son, ever august, there being present the noble, vigorous, honorable, notable, eminent and provident men, the lords master Francis de Ponte, orator and chancellor of the king of England, Francis Wolfgang von Hohenzollern, Christopher von Sunnenberg, Nicholas and Johann of the kingdom of Croatia, counts of Frankenham, Christopher von Limburg, Cupbearer of the Holy Roman Empire, Martin and Erhard von Bolhain, George von Stain in Gossen, Sigismund von Rorbach, George von Kastelwart, Leonard von Fronberg vom Hag, Michael von Eizingen, George von Kalten, barons, Wilhelm von Pappenham, Magnus and Leonard the younger von Hohenreichen, Marshals of the sacred Empire, Philip Loit from Burgundy, master of the court of the said lord king of the Romans, Caspar Meck, chamberlain of the same lord king, Ernest von Welden, Diepold vom Stain, Jacob von Landau, knights, Wolfhard von Knoringen, Paul and Andreas von Giltlingen, George Marschalk of Biberbach, Dietmar von Liechtenau, Heinrich von Paulsweil, Peter von Frodenberg, Ulrich von Weichs, George Buchbech, George von Aw, George von Lizelstain, Jacob Geblin vom Pfird from Sundgau, George von Lilberg from Styria, George von Liechtenstain, Wilhelm Guss, noble esquires, Wilhelm Vorchtel, our secretary and master, Jacob Pflanzenman, procurator of our court of Augsburg, and syndic of the said Johann the abbot and the convent, and Sigismund Gossenprot, Johann Langenmantel, Hilpold Ridler, Ludwig Hoser, burgomasters, George Ott, prefect of the city of Augsburg, Bartholomew Ridler, canon of Trent, of Decrees, Conrad Peutinger and Sebastian Illsung, doctors of laws, George Herwart, Leonard and Jacob Rechlinger, Luke Dain, George Canzelman, George Ridler and Johann Hemerlin, citizens of Augsburg, witnesses specially called and asked for the premises.

[6] And I, Jacob Wirsing, cleric of the diocese of Augsburg, and likewise by their testimony canon of the church of St. Maurice of Augsburg, public notary by sacred imperial authority, because I was present at the aforesaid procession, carrying of the relics, proclamation, commendation, deposition into the new sarcophagus and requisition, and all and each of the other premises, while they were thus, as is premised, being done and transacted before the most serene prince and lord, the lord Maximilian, king of the Romans, and by the reverend father in Christ the lord Frederick, bishop of Augsburg aforesaid, together with the notaries below and the witnesses written above, and saw and heard them thus done, therefore I have made thence this present public instrument, faithfully written by the hand of another, have subscribed, published and reduced it to this public form, and have signed and fortified it with my sign and name usual and accustomed, together with the appending of the seals of the named king and bishop, asked and required, in faith and testimony of all and each of the premises.

[7] And I, Johann Fischer of Dinkelsbühl, cleric of the diocese and canon of St. Maurice, and sworn scribe of the court of Augsburg, subscribed here public notary by imperial authority, because I was present at the aforesaid procession, carrying of the relics, proclamation, commendation, and placing into the new sarcophagus, and all and each of the other premises, while they were thus, as is premised, being done and transacted before the most serene prince and lord, the lord Maximilian, king of the Romans, by the reverend father in Christ and lord, the lord Frederick, bishop of Augsburg aforesaid, together with the notaries below and the witnesses written above, and saw and heard them thus done. Therefore I have made thence this present instrument, faithfully written by the hand of another, have subscribed, published and reduced it to this public form, and have signed it with my sign and name usual and accustomed, together with the appending of the seals of the aforementioned lords king and bishop, in faith and testimony of all and each of the premises, asked and required.

[8] And I, Peter Mor of Aichach, cleric of the diocese of Augsburg, the public notaries public notary by apostolic and imperial authorities, and sworn scribe of causes of the court of Augsburg, because I was present and in person at the aforesaid procession, carrying of the relics, proclamation, commendation, and placing into the new sarcophagus, and all and each of the other premises, while they were thus, as is premised, being done and transacted before the most serene prince and lord, the lord Maximilian, king of the Romans, by the reverend father in Christ and lord, the lord Frederick, bishop of Augsburg aforesaid, together with the public notaries below and the witnesses written above, and saw and heard all and each of them thus done. Therefore I have made thence this present instrument, faithfully written by the hand of another, and have signed and fortified it with my sign and name and surname usual, and together with the appending of the seals of the aforementioned lords king and bishop, in faith and testimony of all and each of the premises, asked and required.

[9] confirm. And I, Johann Bayr of Heidenheim, cleric of the diocese of Augsburg, master of the liberal arts and licentiate of decrees, public notary by imperial authority, because I was present at the aforesaid procession, carrying of the relics, proclamation, commendation and placing into the new sarcophagus, and all and each of the other premises, while they were thus, as is premised, being done and transacted before the most serene prince and lord, the lord Maximilian, king of the Romans, by the reverend father in Christ and lord, the lord Frederick, bishop of Augsburg aforesaid, together with the notaries and witnesses written above, and saw and heard them thus done. Therefore I have made thence this present instrument, faithfully written by the hand of another, have subscribed, published, and reduced it to this public form, and have signed it with my sign and name usual and accustomed, together with the appending of the seals of the aforesaid lords king and bishop, in faith and testimony of all and each of the premises, asked and required.

At the lord king's own command.

Con. Stürzel, doctor of law, royal chancellor, subscribed.

ANNOTATIONS.

our Lord the Pope having been seen, and, so far as was needed, having been informed of each thing. The same our most holy Lord Pope Nicholas the fifth, that the just might be in everlasting remembrance, and his name be sought from generation to generation, and that his memory might not depart, by oracle of the living voice and by Apostolic authority granted and indulged that the abbot and convent of our said monastery of SS. Ulrich and Afra of Augsburg might and should discharge the divine Office, both of the day and of the night, with the History and Legend shown by us to his Holiness and found in old codices and books concerning St. Simpert, singing with due reverence, and that the blessed Simpert himself might henceforth be revered and venerated by them and other faithful of Christ as a Saint without the stain of any sin and the mark of transgression, and he granted and indulged that this may be valid by the same authority by a like oracle of the living voice."

* Read Mechliniae "of Mechlin".