Gall

ON ST. GALL, CONFESSOR, AT ARBON IN ALEMANNIA,

ABOUT THE YEAR 627.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Gall, abbot, in Alemannia. (S.)

BHL Number: 3253, 3257

BY J. V. H.

§ I. The memory of this Saint in the sacred calendars; his cult in various regions.

The Saint's name at the beginning, To St. Gall, whose deeds we undertake to illustrate, that part of present-day Switzerland which lies to the south of the Lake Potamicus, now of Constance, and which today the people of Appenzell and Glarus, besides those of St. Gallen, inhabit, ought to credit its Christian faith. The distinguished Ildefons von Arx, Prefect of the abbatial library of St. Gallen Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, volume II, page 5., rightly observes that the older writers called our Saint Gallo, Gallunus, Gallianus, until at length the name Gallus began in the middle of the eighth century and then gradually prevailed. Thus in Melchior Goldast [Rerum Alamannicarum Scriptores, volume II, pages 36 and 48, edition of the year 1730, and Neugart, Codex diplomaticus Alemanniæ, Charter IX, volume I, page 11.] a certain Rinulf says: The slave Allidulf, with all my things, with fields, with meadows, with plains, with waters, etc., I hand over from my right to St. Gallo… I noted that I made it in the month of June (July?) on the 5th day before the Ides of July, in the 15th year, in the reign of our Lord King Theodoric, Charles being Mayor of the Palace. Theodoric, king of the Franks, who is cited in the charter, is Theodoric IV, who alone had Charles Martel as mayor of the Palace: since he began to reign in the year 720 in the month of December, the 15th year of the reign coincides with the common year 735. The names Gallunus and Gallo recur together in another charter there: We, the brethren or monks of St. Gallunus the confessor… Moreover it has so pleased us that every year

from feast to feast of the Lord's Nativity, which is in the month of December, you must pay a rent to that church of St. Gallo or its Rectors… The precarial grant was made on Monday, the 5th day before the Ides of May, in the 10th year, in the reign of our Lord Pippin, King of the Franks.

[2] variously called, The name Gallianus is found in a charter in the cited Goldast Rerum Alamannicarum Scriptores, page 45.: I, in the name of God, Hruothard, son of the late Bainomus, … hand over all and entire into the lordship of St. Gallianus the Confessor, whose church shines in the best way in the district of Arbon, and its rector the Pontiff John… For I, Antuuing, lector, wrote and subscribed in the 8th year of King Pippin. Given on the 15th day of the month of January, at Constance, happily. John, abbot after St. Othmar, who had died on the 16th day before the Kalends of December (16 November) 759, held the helm of the monastery in the year 760. The various inflections of the same name, by the testimony of the already praised distinguished Ildefons von Arx, the ancients formerly derived, some from the Scottish Gilli, which signified a cell, as though Cellita, others from Callehc, which in the idiom of the Irish denoted milk. Whence Ermenric, a monk of Reichenau, who flourished in the ninth century and died in 850, sings of St. Gall Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ, volume II, page 5.: Father Gall, who shinest with the fair name of milk, nourish me, O blessed one, with thy holy milk. Our Saint is at length called Gallus in a charter of the year 744 Neugart, Codex Diplomaticus, volume I, page 12.. At the beginning, indeed, it says: The most holy church of St. Gallo, confessor, and of very many other Martyrs and Confessors, which is built in the site of the Thurgau and in the district of Arbon; but Lantbert continues: all and entire, from the present day, from my right into the lordship of the church of St. Gallus, or to Autmar its rector … I hand over and transfer for the salvation of my soul… Given on the 4th day before the Ides of September, in the 3rd year, Carloman being mayor of the palace, under Count Chanchuro. On the death of Charles Martel, Carloman succeeded as mayor of the palace of Austrasia; on the 10th of September, therefore, the third year of Carloman's mayoralty was running.

[3] until the appellation Gallus about the middle of the eighth century There might perhaps be someone who would reckon that the name Gallus was used much earlier, when he sees in the cited Father Neugart Neugart, Codex Diplomaticus, volume I, page 5. a charter noted under the year 670, in which our Saint is expressly called Gallus. I shall copy the whole word for word, because it is brief: The part of our church which is called Raudinleim, where Landarius the priest is seen to be present. Ebo and my wife (wife) Odalsinda and Alodoes affirmed some of their goods and so handed them over to St. Gallus — whatever we hold (possess) in Vachinchova and in Laidolvinshova, Bodinchova, all and of all, we hand over to the same St. Gallus — Done in the public village of Vachinchova. Sign of Ebo and of my wife Odalsinda, who requested it to be made. Sign of Volffar, Bertar, Aimo, Vuaninc, Teutmar, Count Berno, Cunleusot, Auttin, Dodo. I, Landarius the priest, requested (requested), wrote it. Given on the 7th day before the Ides of September, in the 10th year of the reign of our lord King Ildiric. Father Neugart, on the cited diploma, thinks that it belongs to the 10th year of Childeric, and therefore to the year 670, led by this reasoning: Three Childerics, he says, are numbered kings of the Franks. One, the parent of Clovis I, died in the year 481; and so more than a whole century before the cradle of the monastery of St. Gall. Another, the younger son of Clovis II, who succeeded his brother Clothaire III in the kingdom of Austrasia under the tutelage of his mother St. Bathild in the year 660, while the lawful heir of this kingdom, Dagobert II, son of Sigebert II, deprived of the throne by the wicked arts of Grimoald, was in exile in Scotland. The third was the son of Chilperic II, king of Neustria and Burgundy, and indeed by his own right also of Austrasia, in which, however, he was prevented from its exercise by the power of the duke Carloman, who, having divided the kingdom of the Franks with his brother Pippin in the year 742, thereafter administered, or rather subdued, Austrasia under the name of duke indeed, but certainly with royal authority. Whence no mention of Childeric III is made in our ancient charters, unless the name of Carloman, mayor of the palace, is added at the same time. The present charter, therefore, looks neither to the year 752, as pleased Goldast, nor to the year 751, which is the opinion of Father Herrgott, but to the year 669 or 670, the tenth of Childeric II. In the codex of St. Gall, the year 678 is noted in the margin, I know not for what reason.

[4] prevailed. I confess indeed that there remain diplomas in which either Carloman alone, or Childeric III together with him, are noted beneath, when Austrasia is in question. Nevertheless there are also charters for Austrasia in which Childeric III alone is marked. In Mabillon Annales Ordinis S. Benedicti, volume II, page 650, Lucca edition. three diplomas are found for the monastery of Honau, in the district, says King Pippin there in his letters of confirmation, of Alsace, upon the river Rhine: now Alsace was part of the kingdom of Austrasia, as our Henschen Acta SS., volume I of February, page 209. and Schoepflin Alsatia Illustrata, volume I, page 621. have shown. The first is a donation made to Boronus and is concluded: This donation was given on the Tuesday next after the middle of the month of April, in the 4th year of the reign of our Lord King Hilderic (22 April 749); the second, by Hugh, son of Bleo, who was nephew by a brother of Duke Adalbert, founder of Honau, ends: Done publicly on the island of Hohenaugia. Given on the 4th day before the Kalends of June, in the 6th year of the reign of our lord King Hilderic; the third, by Bodal, son of the aforesaid Hugh: Given in the month of October, on the 12th day, in the 7th year of the reign of our Lord Hilderic (the year 750). These sufficiently prove that Father Neugart's rule admits exceptions, and therefore that the charter of Ebo can be referred to Childeric III, if for the 10th year of the reign we read the 8th; which, because it is written IIX, could easily have grown into X by the carelessness of copyists. And let this suffice to have been said about the very name of St. Gall.

[5] His memory is celebrated by There is no reason for us laboriously to investigate the Martyrologies and Calendars which promulgate the cult of St. Gall. Almost as many as were written or augmented in the Latin Church after the Saint's death, so many are heralds of his merits. Let one stand for all, Blessed Notker, called the Stammerer, of whom our Predecessors treated at the 6th of April Volume I of April, page 376.. He wrote his Martyrology in the year 870, as he himself confesses at the 10th day before the Kalends of June (23 May), treating of St. Desiderius, bishop of Vienne and Martyr [In Canisius, Antiquæ Lectiones, volume II, part III, page 130, Basnage's edition.]. We adduce him before the others because, as a domestic and ancient author, he presents a compendious Life of our Saint. Further, at the 17th day before the Kalends of November he has these words: Among the Alemanni, who are also Suevi, near the Rhætian Alps, the deposition or passing, or natal day to eternal life, of the most Blessed Gall, Confessor, is festively celebrated. Who, from the island of Ireland, which is situated between Britain and Spain, by the instinct of divine love, about to go on pilgrimage with his master and abbot Columban, making his way through Gaul, entered Alemannia. Coming, therefore, into the wilderness which is situated between the Alps of the Rhætians and the edge of the lake of Bregenz, while father Columban was making for Italy, he was detained by illness. Which having been overcome by the healing hand of God, and his health recovered, desiring to lead a solitary life, he cherished the secrets of the wilderness, being free for God alone, not idle. King Sigebert, therefore, when he heard that he was dwelling on public possessions, ordered a written confirmation to be made, so that the holy man might hold by authority the place which he inhabited, weights of gold and silver also being given to him, and he commanded Duke Cunzo that, if the inhabitant of the solitude wished, he should supply him with an abundance of aids for building a cell.

[6] the Martyrologies, above all that of Blessed Notker, The athlete of God, therefore, about to construct a spiritual edifice, persisting in frugality, prayer, and vigils, recalled the people from the error of idolatry, broke their images, and commended his preaching to his hearers by the effect of signs. Of which, since the book of his life and miracles is everywhere kept and read, and they are increased even today by miracles beyond those done before, we pass over the multitude at present, commemorating only this, that the divine goodness made Blessed Gall the apostle of the Alemannic nation, who, himself a skilful traveller on the path of God, brought back the nation which he found wrapped in paganism, imbued with the truth of the faith, from the darkness of ignorance to the sun of justice, which is Christ, and, the enemies having been driven out, presented to the Godhead as a dwelling the place which he found until then inaccessible to human nature and beset only by beasts, serpents, and demons. It must be seen to and feared above all, lest the tabernacle of God, which the holy man raised by divine demonstration and many sweats, and which by royal authority has been set apart as the lot and line of the inheritance of God, be assailed by any rashness of human presumption; lest the avarice of men seize what has been purged of the rage of demons and the savagery of beasts: lastly, lest, where the limbs of the dead Gall were carried by untamed horses, any restlessness of human daring presume to molest him there. These things Blessed Notker drew chiefly from the Life to be given below.

[7] of Ado and Usuard, although on another day, Ado and Usuard make memory of St. Gall on the 10th day before the Kalends of March (20 February). Why he is celebrated on this day by Ado, says our Du Sollier, I for my part do not see, unless perhaps some other translation or elevation is in question. Mabillon Annales Ordinis S. Benedicti, volume I, page 360. and Colgan Acta SS. Hiberniæ at the 20th of February, volume I, page 382. think the same by conjecture. I do not oppose the conjecture, because no other firm one occurs. Certainly Ado, who had a commerce of letters with the monks of St. Gallen, as is established from Notker at the 10th day before the Kalends of June, seems not to have been able to be ignorant of the Saint's natal day; whence it is deservedly concluded that the memory of St. Gall is celebrated in Ado and Usuard on the 10th day before the Kalends of March on the occasion of some feast. But a scruple torments me which I cannot remove: namely, if by reason of some translation or elevation the 10th day before the Kalends of March was solemn for St. Gall, how does it happen that Notker, a domestic author and no careless examiner of Ado's work, which Du Sollier with Papebroch proves Preface to the Martyrology of Usuard, page XIX., nevertheless altogether passed over this feast on the said day? whereas he assigned the memory of the translation to the 16th day before the Kalends of November (17 October) together with the dedication of the church of St. Gallen, in these words:

[8] perhaps on the occasion of Relics carried into Gaul; The translation of the body of St. Gall, and the dedication of his sumptuous (sumptuous) and most seemly basilica, which is built between two mountains, Cirrius and Walthrammesberch, having on the south the river Steinaha, on the north the river Nigraha. Which place

is named the monastery of St. Gall from the name of that Blessed one. Where, the Lord declaring the merits of his virtues, the blind are given light, hearing is granted to the deaf, the maimed are allowed to work, many rejoice in the loosing of their tongues, the steps of the lame are made straight, the possessed are freed from wicked spirits: the bedridden and the contracted are raised up, having obtained health freely, toothache is checked by the medicine of the beam, and the emptying of other infirmities also is brought about there. Notker therefore does not omit the memory of the translation: and if some other had been celebrated, surely the monks of St. Gallen would have celebrated it above the rest. Since this matter is here carried on by bare conjectures, I should prefer to think that this announcement was brought into the Martyrology of Ado and of Usuard on the occasion of a donation of Relics, or of an arbitrary feast instituted in Gaul.

[9] his cult was most celebrated by rite For that the cult of St. Gall was formerly most celebrated the very singularity of the rite sufficiently demonstrates. Formerly on his feast three Masses were celebrated by each priest, as is the present-day custom on the feast of the Nativity of Christ. This the most learned Father Francesco Antonio Zaccaria attests Storia letteraria d'Italia, volume III, page 157., when he says that there exists at Rome in the Barberini library a Capitulary of the Gospels, which seems formerly to have belonged to the monastery of St. Gallen, in which at the 15th day of October the Vigil of St. Gall is noted, and on the feast day itself three gospels are prescribed for as many Masses. Similarly the most learned Martin Gerbert, abbot of St. Blasien, in his book which he entitled On the Old Alemannic Liturgy, treating of the Canon of the Mass, says that in Alemannic codices, those of St. Gallen above all, the names of Saints Columban and Gall sometimes occur: and he cites the Sacramentary of Gladbach, in which at the Communicantes are read the names of Boniface, Lambert, Gregory, Jerome, Gall, Benedict, Nicholas, Ulric, to which is subjoined: and also of those whose solemnity is today celebrated in the sight of Thy majesty, O Lord our God, in the whole world, of those also whose Relics are laid up in this holy church of God, and of all the Saints by whose merits, etc. The same Martin Gerbert relates Ibid., page 266. that among the treasures of his monastery a choral cope of feather-work is preserved, an image of which he displays; in it is seen also an image of St. Gall, holding a book in his left hand.

[10] and by extension Whence very many records testify that the cult of St. Gall was widely propagated. Already in the eighth century a basilica or chapel had been built in honour of God and St. Gallo by a certain Ruothao in the village of Willimundincas (Welmedingen) of the district of Burichincas, which, by the testimony of Father Neugart Codex Diplomaticus, Charter LXIII, volume I, page 60., is situated between the county of Hohenzollern and the Swabian Alps on the left of the Danube. In Alsace, besides the village of St. Gall in the Old March Schoepflin, Alsatia Illustrata, volume II, pages 214, 301, and 352., there was in the suburban district of Strasbourg a chapel dedicated under the invocation of St. Gall, which was afterwards changed into a cemetery. By the testimony of Nicolaus Serarius In Christian Johannis, Rerum Moguntiacarum, volume I, page 85. there existed also at Mainz, near the upper market, a chapel of St. Gall. At Prague in Bohemia the head and arm of St. Gall are kept in the highest honour Acta SS., volume I of January, page 1084., and his feast is celebrated with double rite according to the Prague Proper of the year 1732. For the rest, almost the whole of Germany venerates St. Gall with ecclesiastical office; but chiefly the Breviary of Constance of the year 1575, that of Würzburg of the year 1597, and that of Passau of the year 1505 honour our Saint with a fuller cult, namely with six historical lessons and proper antiphons and hymns. Lami rightly thinks Florentinæ Ecclesiæ Monumenta, volume II, column 1286. that in more remote centuries a church sacred to St. Gall was erected by the Florentines: for the fame of St. Gall the abbot, on account of the almost infinite miracles wrought by him, had pervaded all the regions of Europe from at least the ninth century. Lami then treats at length, in the place cited, of the said church; which at length, in the year 1529, when the siege of the city was imminent, was levelled with the ground. Giovanni Lami had already before cited Ibid., volume I, column 565 and following. Florentine Litanies of the eleventh century from a ritual codex of the Laurentian library, in which St. Gall is invoked among the holy monks, because the Etruscans honour him with great veneration.

[11] was most celebrated. Probably for the same cause an oratory and hospice under the invocation of St. Gall was erected at Venice, within the bounds of the parish of St. Geminianus, which, founded by Blessed Pietro Orseolo, doge of Venice, afterwards a monk, was afterwards transferred to another under the invocation of St. Mark Cornaro, Ecclesiæ Venetæ Monumenta, volume III, page 245 and following.. In the diocese of Aquileia there existed the monastery of St. Mary and St. Gall in the place called Mosinum, or Mosacium, as is established from a donation made by Macelinus of Coha in the year 1047, indiction XI, or rather X; afterwards confirmed by Pope Lucius III in the year 1184, on the 13th day before the Kalends of October, as is established from the Annals of the Camaldolese Order [Mittarelli, Annales Camaldulenses, volume III, page 315, and in the Appendix, page 507.]: which monastery Father Gian Francesco De Rubeis calls that of Moggio, founded by Count Cacellinus, whose church was consecrated on the 5th day before the Kalends of September in the year 1119 by Andrew, bishop of Cittanova, the venerable Patriarch Vodalric, who was also Abbot of St. Gallen, joining in the blessing. That half of the church of St. Gall with all its goods belonged to the right of the monastery of St. Severus of Classe, of the diocese of Ravenna, the bull of Pope Alexander II, given at Anagni on the 6th day before the Kalends of January 1062, indiction XV, testifies Monumenta Aquileiensia, page 545.. In the year 970, moreover, Gauslinus, bishop of Padua, having built a monastery beside the church of St. Justina, gives it various goods Ughelli, Italia Sacra, volume V, page 434, Coleti's edition., among which the whole tithe which lies in the county of Vicenza, in the place which is called Masone, with the chapel which is built in honour of St. Gall, with the quarters and tithes and with all things which pertain there: on which matter compare the preliminary Commentary on St. Justina at the 7th day of October Volume III of October, page 807, number 72.. The cult of St. Gall was also celebrated among the Camaldolese monks: for St. Gall is invoked by the hermits of Fonte Avellana among the few Benedictine patrons who are found in the Litanies Mittarelli, volume II, in the Appendix, page 342.. In the old Order of the divine Offices compiled by Martin III, Prior of Camaldoli, in the year 1253, part II, chapter IX, three lessons were made of St. Gall Ibid., volume VI, in the Appendix, page 170.. The Necrology of the monastery of Vangadizza, which is situated in the diocese of Adria under the archbishopric of Ravenna, prescribes at the 16th of October twelve lessons of St. Gall the Abbot Ibid., volume VII, in the Appendix, page 397.. All of which demonstrate that the cult of St. Gall was celebrated in the Camaldolese Order.

§ II. The Acts of St. Gall are discussed.

The Acts of St. Gall The most celebrated Acts of St. Gall, worn very frequently by the hands of readers, have as their author Walafrid Strabo, abbot of Reichenau, who, having been as a youth in the schools of St. Gallen, afterwards a hearer of St. Rabanus, then abbot of Fulda, obtained the abbatial dignity in the island of Reichenau, of the diocese of Constance. He dies, by the testimony of Hepidannus Goldast, Rerum Alamannicarum, volume I, part I., in the year 849, under which he writes: Walafred, abbot of Reichenau, died. That lettered man elegantly compiled the Lives of Saints Gall and Othmar at the request of the abbot Gozpert. Gozpert, at whose instance Walafrid wrote the Life of St. Gall, was abbot of St. Gallen from the year 816 until the year 837, when, heavy with age, he left the government to Bernwic, himself surviving until the year 843 [Compare the Catalogue of the Abbots of St. Gall, Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ, volume II, pages 35 and 67.]. The Walafridian Life was therefore written in the time of Gozpert, in the year 833, as is established from the prologue of the metrical Life Ibid., page 31.:

Now, unless I am deceived, the harvests have returned twice eight times since we wrote the acts of the excellent Gall: then Cæsar Louis was stripped of his honour, now another heir of his name is present. (The year 833.)

He who is here called the heir of the Ludovician name is Louis called the German, the third son of the emperor Louis the Pious, who in the year 843 received the eastern part of Francia, in which Alemannia was Pertz, Monumenta, volume I, pages 363 and 440..

[13] elaborated more elegantly by Walafrid; Walafrid was, as appears from the beginning of the prologue, in his youth a monk in the monastery of St. Gallen, since he confesses himself bound toward Gozpert by the necessity of obeying, which can scarcely be understood in any other way than by monastic profession at St. Gall's. Unless the authority of the holy Scriptures, and especially that sentence of the truthful prophet by which obedience is preferred to sacrifice, bound me to the necessity of obeying, I should oppose to your precepts, O most holy Fathers, an apology of this kind: if the prophet who … before he came forth from the womb was sanctified … complained of the weakness of his age and of his ignorance (Jeremiah I), what am I, a sinner, to do… How shall I declare the justices of the Lord and take His covenant in my mouth, whose age neither time has yet filled up nor knowledge commended. He then assigns three causes why he undertook the arduous writing: first, obedience; next, confidence that he would be helped by the intercession of St. Gall and the prayers of the brethren. Lastly, because I press on in the footsteps of others, and am compelled only to measure out with new steps the line of holding to the truth. The Life, therefore, of the holy Confessor of Christ, our Patron, the treasure of whose body you have in your faithful keeping, noble in sense, degenerate in writing, you wish to be adorned by me with the light of correct speech, and its confused series of chapters to be distinguished with boundaries.

[14] but taken from an older writer Walafrid then proceeds to designate another characteristic mark of the primary author in whose footsteps he presses: Further, when I was some time ago reading through that work, I found that the land which we Alemanni or Suevi inhabit is often named Altimannia by the author of that composition; but seeking the origin of the name itself, I found mention of it in none of the writers whose knowledge has as yet sprinkled us. For, unless I am deceived, the same word has been invented by the moderns from the high situation of the province. If we compare the marks set forth here, especially the degenerate style and the use of the word Altimannia, with the fact that Walafrid presses closely on the footsteps of the author of the Life of St. Gall to be published below, which Ildefons von Arx, formerly prefect of the abbatial archive, first made public Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ, volume II, page 5., there can be no doubt to anyone that this Life is that very one which Walafrid points to. For as regards the degenerate style, to have looked into it even in passing is enough to persuade us that such a mark was deservedly branded on the writing. The word Altimannia we have not indeed found; but, what signifies the same, at number 5

and 43, High Germany, derived surely from the high situation of the province: nay, since Walafrid says that the word Altimannia was invented by the moderns, the old Life ought to have contained the thing rather than the word.

[15] who flourished about the year 771, The author of the older Life flourished about the year 771. For after he had said at number 45: Many things also that were heard (miracles) have been passed over, while we hasten to those which have been proved by sight, he narrates in the last place, at number 47, a miracle which was done in the fourth year of the reign of Carloman. The Carloman of whom there is talk is the son of King Pippin, the brother of Charlemagne. On the death of his father, on the 8th day before the Kalends of October in the year 768, the kingdom of Austrasia fell to him. Therefore the miracle of which the author of the older Life treats happened between the 8th day before the Kalends of October 768 and the day before the Nones of December 771, on which Carloman died. Ildefons von Arx, in the critical notes with which he illustrated this Life, says that the fourth year of Carloman is the common year 745; but the editors of the Monumenta Germaniæ rightly correct him: inasmuch as he did not attend to the fact that there it is not a question of Carloman the mayor of the palace, son of Charles Martel, who governed Austrasia in the year 741; but of Carloman, son of King Pippin. Which becomes manifest from the fourth year of his reign; for chronology was ordered by the years of kings, not of inferior princes: next, he had already before narrated a miracle done in the time of Pippin, the glorious king, which demonstrates that the talk is of Carloman, son of King Pippin, and not of the son of Charles Martel, and therefore that the seventy-first year of the eighth century is rightly set down.

[16] whence he is distinct Mabillon Vetera Analecta, page 20, Paris edition of the year 1723., treating of the same Life, says that a metrical prologue was set before it, beginning with this verse:

While the world turns, flitting through empty things.

and attributes it to the monk Wetin: whom Goldast also makes the author of the same writing Rerum Alamannicarum, volume I, part II, page 248 and elsewhere. in his animadversions on the Walafridian Life. First of all, no metrical prologue seems to have been set before the older Life, since the manuscript made about the beginning of the ninth century and published by Ildefons von Arx, with no prologue preceding, begins absolutely, in rubricated uncial letters: Here begins the first book of the Life and miracles of Blessed Gall the Confessor. The verse cited by Mabillon is found in the Song of St. Gall composed in barbarous, that is, in German, by Rahpert, a monk of St. Gallen, after the middle of the ninth century Pertz, Monumenta, volume II, pages 33 and 59.; and afterwards a certain one of the brethren, when he saw that those who understood it were growing scarce, translating that song as nearly as he could so that so sweet a melody might play in Latin, bestowed labour on such things. Nor can the opinion of Mabillon and Goldast, who attribute this older Life to Wetin, a monk of Reichenau, be approved: Wetin died, as is established from his vision, on the 3rd day before the Kalends of November in the year 824 [In Canisius, Antiquæ Lectiones, volume II, part II, page 208: compare, however, the Annals of Würzburg (Pertz, volume II, page 240), which refer Wetin's vision to the year 827.], and indeed while his youth was still flourishing Ibid., page 220.. He could not therefore have been the author of a Life written about the year 771, that is, about fifty-three years before.

[17] from Wetin: we give the Acts to an Anonymous. Another argument also persuades that Wetin is not the author of the older Life of St. Gall: Walafrid, book 2, chapter X, calls the writer of the Life ancient, which cannot suit Wetin, who had died nine years before: Having written down these things which the skill of the ancients has transmitted in writing even to us about the life, end, and miracles of Blessed Gall; from here we shall try to embrace with the pen those things which, indicated by faithful witnesses, were committed to letters by our dearest brother Gotzbert. Certainly Walafrid would neither have been silent about Wetin, very well known to him, since he had adorned his vision in verse, nor would he have attributed his writings to the skill of the ancients. These things abundantly prove that the older Life of St. Gall was wrongly ascribed to Wetin of Reichenau. Wetin excluded, no one occurs whom we can name with certainty as the author of this Life: the distinguished Weidmann, prefect of the library of the monastery of St. Gallen, judges Geschichte der Bibliothek von St. Gallen, page 285. that Winithar, who was a monk and dean in the same monastery in the year 766 Neugart, Codex Diplomaticus, Charter XLV, volume I, page 47., is the author of the older Life: to which opinion the age of Winithar and his skill in writing lend some credence Geschichte der Bibliothek von St. Gallen, page 2.. Since, however, the opinion is still uncertain, I have preferred to praise the author of the older Life under the title of Anonymous. For the rest, another writer seems to have preceded our Anonymous, who had sung the life of St. Gall in rhythmic verse. For the whole narrative is sprinkled with rhythms, which presuppose certain songs composed in honour of the Saint: it would be useless to bring forward instances of the rhythms, since they will at once occur to one reading one or two periods. The very fame of his holiness may have stirred a poet, though rustic, to sing the deeds of the blessed man, even if unskilfully. And this is perhaps the reason why there are not a few things which can with difficulty be reconciled with history and Chronology. But it is ancient enough for us not to deny all credit to the writing.

[18] Walafrid began a metrical Life of St. Gall. Since, as we have said before, Walafrid adhered closely to the footsteps of the Anonymous, I have thought it useless to annex his composition: if anything different occurs, it will be better subjoined in the annotations to the Anonymous' Life: and in the course of this commentary I shall prefer Walafrid to the Anonymous in citations, so that the principal texts may easily be compared by the reader. Walafrid had moreover promised the monks of St. Gallen: If you gratefully receive what has been rightly set down by us, and mercifully correct what totters, and if the Lord permits, I will afterwards pour some seasonings of metres into the rustic pottage of this work. For it is fitting that he should be celebrated throughout the world by our praises whom the Lord destined from the farthest ends of the world for our salvation. Walafrid seems, hindered by other business, to have put his first hand to the promised work in the year 849, but in the same year, forestalled by death, he ended his life in the Life, says Ermenric of Reichenau Mabillon, Vetera Analecta, page 421.. Behold the prologue of the metrical Life Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ, volume II, page 31.:

Mindful of my promise, behold, Gozbert, what I once vowed, I now wish, dear one, to pay. The pottage which the rustic pot of prose set out for the time, behold, it shall season with metrical salts. I am not unaware that some blame me for delays, who, although late, yet pay my debts. Since they know that grandsons have earned what was promised to their fathers, and that seeds sown are reaped after many days. Now, unless I am deceived, the harvests have returned twice eight times since we wrote the acts of the excellent Gall: then Cæsar Louis was stripped of his honour, now another heir of his name is present. I begin, therefore, a worker dwelling in the very wilderness which father Gall inhabited, and loves and cherishes. Making sure epigrams of the former writing, I shall go with new steps along the path of a well-trodden way. And the loftier the matter, the shorter the lines I shall use, joining many crossroads to places adjoining. Receive it, let them receive it, to whom it is dear, what pleases the One on High, let them attribute to the Author; what stinks, behold, to me.

Then, the metre changed, he pursues the Life in hexameter verses; over which labour he died.

[19] Others also Besides the Anonymous and Walafrid there were also others who tried to illustrate the Life of St. Gall in prose and verse. Their labours are accurately reviewed by Ildefons von Arx, Preface to the Life of St. Gall Ibid., page 3., whose words, lest I do what has been done, I have thought should be reported here. But when the deacon Gozbert (nephew of Gozbert, abbot of St. Gallen) knew that he (Walafrid) was hindered by much public business, he began to exhort Ermenric, his monk, who was then staying at St. Gall's, to adorn this task, which he also promised. But when he found him, after finishing the preface, delaying too much, and the same Gozbert (as Ermenric writes jestingly) "thirsting, did not think his thirst could be quenched from one spring, ran to the sea; namely, invoking for this matter I know not what new Homer this side of the Rhine, who, after the manner of Flaccus, does not run in poetry but flows," the same Gozbert also turned to a certain Scot-born man living in the parts of Ausonia, for setting to metre the deeds of the divine Gall, which master Rihpert at St. Gall's had already undertaken to sing. Him the aforesaid Ermenric mocks in a letter (better, in fragments) inscribed in codex number 265 and published by Mabillon Vetera Analecta, in the place cited. with these words: "And the Alps philosophize round about, under (from) which Rihpert possesses the Sambutine ridge (die Säntis-Bergkette) with lyric sound; and if he knew the caves of the muses, he would be such as Cynthian Apollo."*

[20] illustrated the deeds of the Saint By the talent of these men the life of St. Gall was sung in a twofold poem before the middle of the ninth century. One is mentioned by the often-mentioned syllabus of the Library (of nine hundred years) in these words: "Metre on the life of St. Gall in quaternions, vol. I," and by Notker the German, or Labeo, in his translation of the psalms, saying: "Solhe allusiones sint in vita S. Galli, diu metrice getan ist, dar diu officia gesezzet werdent" [Such allusions are in the life of St. Gall which is made in metre, where the offices are set out]. And a marginal note inscribed in letters of the twelfth century on page 69 of codex number 564 thus: "here is to be read the sermon of St. Gall, which is found in his metrical Life." The other metrical Life of St. Gall, which the catalogue of the library made in the year 1461 points to in these words: "The metrical Life of St. Gall, also some sermons," still exists in a paper codex of the fourteenth century, number 587, but, according to the perverse manner of that age, so badly written that Heinrich Canisius called the design of publishing it an attempt of rashness rather than of diligence Antiquæ Lectiones, volume II, part II, page 176.. Since the author of this poem writes that he inhabits the wilderness of Gall, that he had already written the prose Life of that Blessed one in the year 834, had then promised Gozbert to give it also in metre, and now after sixteen years stands by these promises, I do not judge that these things fit anyone else better than the aforesaid Rihpert, supposing that he too corrected the original Life of St. Gall from its faults.

[21] have illustrated, These last words, however, seem to suit Walafrid better than Rihpert; first of all it is certain that Walafrid wrote the Life of St. Gall in prose and promised that he would illustrate the same in verse: while no prose Life by Rihpert is known, for that he perhaps corrected the original Life of St. Gall from its faults is a conjecture, which, even if founded, is yet far from the writing of the Acts of the excellent Gall, as the prologue speaks. The time also suits Walafrid: in the year 833, not 834, Cæsar Louis was stripped of his honour; whence, since the harvests have returned twice eight times, or after 16 years, we fall upon the year of Walafrid's

death, 849; and then truly, as Ermenric says, he ended his life in the Life, that is, he died over the labour. Nor must the allusion be omitted: The pottage which the rustic pot, etc., with the words of the prose prologue: if you gratefully … receive … I will afterwards pour some seasonings of metres into the rustic pottage of this work. This singular and somewhat ignoble image of pottage will scarcely occur in two writers. Nevertheless the verses of the prologue create some difficulty:

I begin, therefore, a worker dwelling in the very wilderness which father Gall inhabited, and loves and cherishes.

Certainly if they were understood of the monastery of St. Gallen itself, as though in the year 849 Walafrid had been its inhabitant, they could not be reconciled with the headship of the monastery of Reichenau which he then held: but the verses are conveniently explained of the whole tract of the region which the holy man had cultivated with apostolic labours, in which therefore Reichenau too lies, only four and a half Swiss leagues distant from the monastery of St. Gallen. Another explanation of the verses also occurs: the poet had said, THEN Cæsar, etc., NOW the heir, etc.; and he applies the two following distichs to each time: I begin, therefore, etc., when Cæsar, etc.; making epigrams of the former writing, I shall go with new steps, when now the heir, etc. Let these things be said, that I may give the reason why I dissent from Ildefons von Arx. Now let us return to his commentary.

[22] but they brought forward nothing new. Of the author of the other metrical Life, which has been missing among us since the Zürich war of the year 1712, nothing remains to be examined [See on this war the history of the canton of St. Gallen by the same von Arx: Geschichte des Cantons St. Gallen, volume III, page 418 and following.] … St. Notker and Ratpert also celebrated the deeds of St. Gall toward the end of the ninth century, of whom the former pursued his Life in three books in various kinds of metres. This work indeed no longer survives, nor even its fragments collected by Metzler two hundred years ago and published by Canisius Antiquæ Lectiones, volume II, part II, page 232.: but it is read reviewed in this manner in the cited catalogue of the year 1461, and St. Notker himself mentions it thus in the Preface prefixed to his hymns and tropes: "the metre which I am pertinaciously persisting in elaborating on the life of St. Gall." Ratpert comprised the Life of St. Gall in a German song, to be sung by the people in church to a very sweet melody, which afterwards Ekkehard IV, writer of the Casus (or History of the monastery of St. Gallen), translated into the Latin language, inserting it in three codices, numbers 168, 174, 393, and which survives now only in Latin… Lastly, I have thought this also should be noted: that the sermon delivered by St. Gall at Constance and published from a codex of St. Gall in the Lectiones of Canisius Ibid., volume I, page 781., and the translation of the same Blessed one made in the year 833, written in Scottish letters and reviewed in the often-mentioned catalogue, are no longer found among us at St. Gall's; and that the homily on St. Gall delivered in the ninth century and met with in codex number 553 contains nothing profitable for history, just as all the mentioned commentaries, poems, songs, and inscriptions treating of the deeds of this Saint bring forth nothing worth noting beyond the original account, on which all rest.

Mabillon Radpertus*

§ III. The homeland of St. Gall; the time of his birth; on which occasion the epoch of the founding of the monastery of Bangor is inquired into.

St. Gall, in the island of Ireland Before all things let us dispatch briefly what pertains to the homeland of St. Gall. Dempster, by the testimony of William Nicolson, Anglican bishop of Derry in Ireland, in the Irish historical library written in English Irish Historical Library, page 97., will have St. Gall to be a British Scot, or sprung from present-day Scotland. Now a great prejudice arises against Dempster from the fact that, without the support of suitable witnesses, he tries to claim for his homeland all the more illustrious Scot-born men, using, namely, that equivocation by which in ancient times Scotia was a common name which was given both to Ireland and to Northern Britain, or present-day Scotland. For the rest, not even the remedy of the equivocal name, which would only leave the dispute pending, can come to Dempster's aid here, since the anonymous author of the older Life to be published below asserts in express words that St. Gall was born in Ireland, educated in Ireland, and set sail from Ireland with St. Columban in order to pass over into Gaul. He, says the Anonymous at number 1, drawing his first flower in the island of Ireland. Similarly Walafrid in the Preface to the Life of St. Gall Acta SS. Benedicti, second century, page 229.: Let it be permitted, he says, to recall in a few words, according to the same authors, the situation of the island of Ireland, from which so great a glory (namely St. Gall) shone forth for us. By which words each writer of the Life most evidently points out that Ireland was the homeland of St. Gall, so that it deservedly excludes all doubt.

[24] born about the year 550, But as light as it is to assign a certain homeland to our Saint, so grave is it to arrange properly the chronology of his deeds. For most of the facts and persons which could shed some light on these darknesses either are known only from the Life of St. Gall itself, or, if they are known from elsewhere, disturb the chronology rather than illustrate it. Let the kind reader therefore take it in good part if we dwell rather long on chronological difficulties. The birth year of St. Gall has hitherto been deduced chiefly from the year of his death. For since all were persuaded that St. Gall died at 95 years of age; hence those who bound the time of his death to the year 625 said that he was born in the year 530: and on the contrary others, whom not light reasons persuaded that the death of the Saint must be put off to the year 645 or 646, set his birth at 550. We prefer, however, to leave untouched for now the questions both of the age and of the year of death of St. Gall, which themselves are not without their difficulties, as we shall see below. Now, however, we shall try to establish by other aids that our Saint first beheld this light scarcely before the year 550. Which we try to prove in the following way.

[25] he is offered by his parents St. Gall was offered as a boy to St. Columban in the monastery of Bangor: since its foundation is to be attached to the year 559, it follows that St. Gall was born about the year 550. Two things, therefore, must be demonstrated here: the one, that Gall was offered in the monastery of Bangor in the years of boyhood: the other, that that monastery could not have been founded earlier than the year 559. First of all, as regards the offering made in boyhood, it is not of difficult proof, since the Anonymous and Walafrid agree in the same. For the Anonymous at number 1: He, he says, drawing his first flower in the island of Ireland, since from his very boyhood he had clung to God, and had bound himself to the studies of the liberal arts, was commended by the will of his parents to the venerable man Columban; who, holding the rule of life by the examples of the fathers, and holding out to all the track of humility, opportunely handed on honey-flowing doctrine to those living with him. Among whom the aforesaid boy excelled in humility and vigour. Walafrid has similar things, chapter I Acta SS. of the Order of St. Benedict, second century, page 230.: The parents of blessed Gall, he says, religious according to God, noble according to the world, offering to the Lord with an oblation their son, shining with the flower of first age, commended him to the mastership of that man (Columban). Which words of each biographer undoubtedly demonstrate that St. Gall was offered in the monastery from his very boyhood, and persevered in it under the master St. Columban.

[26] as a boy The words of Blessed Notker the Stammerer about St. Gall must therefore be explained by a kindly interpretation, singing in the Book of Sequences which were wont to be said at Mass In Pez, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, volume I, part I, page 34.:

Gall, beloved of the everlasting God and of men and of the companies of Angels, who, obedient to the arduous counsel of Jesus Christ, didst spurn the estates of thy father, the lap of thy mother, the care of a wife, the playthings of a son, following, poor, the poor Lord, and didst prefer the cross to slippery joys; but Christ repays these things with a hundredfold price, as this day testifies, while He subjects all of us to thee as sons with sweet affection, and has given Swabia, a sweet homeland, to thee, O Gall, etc.

These words certainly seem to insinuate that St. Gall, before undertaking monastic profession, both took a wife and begot sons by her: the care of a wife, the playthings of a son, thou didst spurn; and therefore that St. Gall was not offered in the monastery in boyhood, but undertook that kind of life in adult age. But both older writers of the Life of St. Gall ought deservedly to prevail over this author, who flourished in the tenth century, since the Anonymous published his Life about the year 770, and Walafrid about the year 833. But lest we say that Blessed Notker was altogether a stranger in the domestic records, the words cited above must be explained so that Gall is said to have spurned the care of a wife, the playthings of a son, because through the profession of the monastic life he was unwilling to contract marriage, and consequently spurned that delight which the father of a family is wont to pluck in the childish games of his sons.

[27] in the monastery of Bangor; That we may proceed safely in arranging the chronology of the life of St. Gall, the other thing remains further to be inquired, namely in what year St. Comgall founded the monastery of Bangor in Ireland. For that St. Gall was offered in this monastery under the discipline of St. Columban is proved from the fact that the latter is said never to have inhabited any other monastery in Ireland, as may be seen in his Life, chapter I In Mabillon, Acta SS. of the Order of St. Benedict, second century, page 9.. Concerning the time, however, at which the monastery of Bangor was founded, the opinion of writers is various. Colgan, in the Life of St. Gildas Badonicus Acta SS. Hiberniæ at the 29th day of January, page 189., weaving a brief chronography of Ireland, seems uncertain to which year above all the beginning of the said monastery is to be fixed, since from the Four Masters he determines the year 551, but from Ussher the year 559: he seems indeed to lean to the former opinion, inasmuch as he cites it alone in the chronological index to the Trias Thaumaturga Page 663.. Our Predecessors approved the same opinion by their reckoning in the Life of St. Comogellus or Comgall, 10th of May Volume II of May, page 580, number 5., and Alban Butler similarly in the Life of St. Comogellus at the same day, saying that the monastery of Bangor was founded about the year 550. Ware, in the Antiquities of Ireland Chapter XXVI, page 180., puts the monastery as erected in the year 555; the Annals of Inisfallen, cited by John Lanigan Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, volume II, page 66., the year 557: finally the praised Lanigan himself determines that the epoch of the founding of the monastery of Bangor belongs to the fifty-ninth year of the sixth century. And that the beginnings of the said monastery come nearest to this year 559 the following things especially persuade.

[28] the year of whose foundation, The beginning of the monastery of Bangor depends altogether on the year in which St. Comgall under the discipline

of St. Fintan betook himself into the monastery of Cluain-ed-neach, in the Province of Leinster. It is established, further, that St. Comgall lived for many years in the said monastery before he undertook the foundation of Bangor. For these things are read in the two Lives of St. Comgall which our men published at the 10th of May Volume II of May, page 580, number 4.. The former: After this, it says, the prudent youth took the habit, and went to the abbot Fintan, namely a most illustrious man, dwelling in the parts of Leinster, under whom for a great space of time he served God with all devotion. Then, with the leave and command of the holy abbot, he returned to his homeland, and built the monastery of Bangor. But in the later Life these things are had Ibid., page 580, number 10.: After a long time now (of the monastic life undertaken) St. Comgall was sent by St. Fintan to return to his homeland, for the purpose of building cells for nourishing the servants of Christ. Then St. Comgall was still, after many years, without (sacred) order; for he did not wish to receive the grades: and having received the blessing and prayer of Father Fintan, St. Comgall with the disciples ordained for him began to proceed to his homeland… After this … he established a great monastery, which is called Bangor, in the region which is called the Height of the Ulstermen, beside the eastern sea.

[29] disputed by many, Since therefore St. Comgall lived for a great space of time under St. Fintan, and was still after many years without order in the monastery of Cluain-ed-neach, everyone will easily persuade himself that the interval of a whole decade is not too much for us to comprise this apprenticeship, as it were, of many years. Now St. Fintan could scarcely have founded his monastery in Cluain-ed-neach before the year 548; which will be made manifest from his Life. For the Life of St. Fintan at the 17th day of February Volume III of February, page 17, number 2. testifies that he was some years younger than St. Columba, abbot of Iona. Columba, already leader of some monks, said to his companions: "We must turn aside a little to an old man dwelling nearby with a holy boy." When therefore St. Columba had come to that place, he said to that old man: "Do not be angry, Father, for I heard, namely, when you rebuked your holy boy with harsh words, foretelling to you our coming. Do not offend him, because you and your place will serve this boy for ever." And the old man said: "I believe that so it will be: for before he was born, the grace of God was caring for him." Afterwards, having become a youth, St. Fintan was much filled with the fear and love of God. These things show the boy placed in some manner within the years of infancy, since he is afterwards said to have become a youth.

[30] is inquired into. Since therefore St. Columba of Iona was born at the end of the year 520 or the beginning of 521 [Compare Acta SS., volume II of June, at the 9th day, page 194, number 19, and Lanigan, History of Ireland, volume II, pages 106 and 113.], it follows that St. Fintan had his birth scarcely earlier than the year 525 or 526; and therefore that he did not found his monastery in Cluain-ed-neach before the twenty-second or twenty-third year of his age, that is, the year of the common era 548. If to this epoch a decade, as we saw above at number 29, be added, we reach the year 558 or 559, in which the monastery of Bangor could first have been built. Therefore St. Gall, who was offered as a boy in the monastery of St. Comgall, which was at any rate already established and had acquired some fame of piety and learning, could not have been born earlier than the year 550, whatever may be the case about the year of his death. Le Cointe, therefore, cannot be excused from error, who Annales Ecclesiastici Francorum at the year 568, § XX. supposes the year 530 to be the birth year of St. Gall, led by this opinion, that the Saint died at 95 years of age in the year 625. Our Predecessors inclined to the same opinion when they wrote the Life of St. Magnus, as may be seen at the 6th of September Volume II of September, page 709, number 43 and following.: inasmuch as they determine that our Saint died in this year at the same decrepit age. For if St. Gall was born in the year 530, he could not have been admitted into the monastery of Bangor earlier than the year 559, and otherwise would not have been offered as a boy by his parents. But a man of twenty-nine years would have taken the monastic habit, which indeed we have demonstrated above at number 25 and following to stray far from the truth.

[31] Of a noble family That St. Gall drew his origin from some leading family of Ireland the two Lives above the rest testify, namely that of the Anonymous and that of Walafrid Strabo. The former begins his narrative with these words: There was a man powerful in nobility, and shining still more in good conduct, whom paternal reverence has handed down to us to call Gall. Walafrid, however, reshaping the norm of the original author's writing In Mabillon, Acta SS. of the Order of St. Benedict, second century, page 230., has these words: The parents of blessed Gall, religious according to God, noble according to the world. Nay, if there is any credit in the genealogy of St. Gall which, by the testimony of Ildefons von Arx, Librarian of St. Gallen, is found in a codex of the ninth century, he must be said to descend from some petty king of Ireland. We present this genealogy from the Historical Monuments of Germany Pertz, volume II, page 34.; Goldast also published the same, a few things changed but with an appendix, in the Alemannic writers Volume I, part II, page 248.: These therefore are the names of the venerable men which some venerable Scots have proved and confirmed to us by reading. There was therefore in Scotia a venerable man named Unuchum (Unuchum, Goldast) a king, who, begetting a son, gave him the name Kethernach; which Kethernach, receiving his father's kingdom, was supported by much goodness. For he was a support to the poor, a help to orphans, an aid to widows. Shining, therefore, with these principal virtues in the kingdom, his excellent goodness providing it, he begot a son powerful in exceeding goodness, who had been called Callehc in their tongue, and among the Latins was called Gallus.

[32] begotten, St. Gall Which Callehc, fleeing his father's riches and kingdom, undertaking pilgrimage, working many miracles in the homeland of the Gauls, at last coming into Germany, died in exceeding holiness. If you wish to know his other miracles, read his deeds and you will recognize (you will recognize, Goldast) all. Of the lineage of Brigid. For there was in that same nation a king named Temeri, who, holding the kingdom a long time, died in old age. Whose son, named Tubthac, succeeding him in the kingdom, took a wife named Brocsach, and they begot a daughter named Brigid, living in great holiness, who, although she was small, was yet very beautiful. For she and St. Gall were of one genealogy. The praised Ildefons von Arx, in the place cited, suspects these things to be fabulous; nor have we anything by which we may vindicate them as authentic; especially if what von Arx notes, that they exist written in another hand in the ninth-century codex, is to be understood in such a way that the other hand is a more recent hand, which is uncertain to us. For the rest, it is well enough known that the Irish, above other ancient peoples, were most solicitous in preserving the genealogies of illustrious men, as is clear to anyone reading even in passing the Acts of the Saints of Ireland. About the maternal stock of St. Gall Goldast annexes other things, as though excerpted from the same codex, which, however, by the testimony of the aforesaid Ildefons von Arx, are by no means found there. Since they do not have the commendation even of antiquity, we deliberately omit them.

[33] had as brother One thing still remains to be inquired which pertains to the family of St. Gall, namely whether St. Deicolus, abbot of Lutra (Lure, département of Haute-Saône) in the diocese of Besançon, who is venerated on the 18th of January Compare Acta SS., volume II of January, page 199., was the brother of St. Gall. Jean Mabillon Annales Benedictini at the year 625, § XLV, volume I, page 298. cites the Necrology of St. Gallen Rerum Alamannicarum Scriptores, volume I, part I, page 94., which at the 15th day before the Kalends of February (18 January) has: Of Deccolus (otherwise Veccolus, better Deicolus), brother of St. Gall. Although, adds Mabillon, nothing is read in his Acts about that kinship with St. Gall. It is surprising that the most learned man did not notice that this kinship is asserted in the longer proem prefixed to the Life of St. Deicolus, in these words Volume II of January, page 202, number 8.: Yet we know these as chief and familiar to him (the abbot St. Columban) above the rest: Columban, his namesake, and the twin uterine brothers Gall and Deicolus. Mabillon indeed deliberately omits this proem Acta SS. of the Order of St. Benedict, second century, page 103., both because, as he says, it is absent from most copies, and, as it seems, because, treating of the more celebrated Saints in Gaul and of the coming and exile of St. Columban, it was idle. But although it is absent from most copies, this omission does not prejudice the domestic parchments of Lure, in which it is found, by the testimony of Bolland Volume II of January, page 200, number 5.; and credence is not to be denied to them without suitable indications. Next, that it is not altogether idle is evident from the fact that it explains some circumstance pertaining to St. Deicolus.

[34] St. Deicolus. That St. Deicolus, however, was many years older than St. Gall appears from the Acts. For when St. Columban was proceeding into Italy in the year 610 Volume II of January, page 203, number 13., Deicolus, being now of more advanced age, began to be greatly weakened in his feet: and without delay, falling on his knees, he devoutly begs the Father's leave to remain. But when there is question of St. Gall being hindered from the same journey, only transitory fevers, which can befall a man otherwise vigorous, are adduced as the cause: since moreover St. Gall laboured for many years yet in the vineyard of the Lord, it is gathered that he was some years younger. To which opinion some weight would be added, if they were true, by what Goldast relates Rerum Alamannicarum, volume I, part II, page 249., namely that the mother of St. Gall bore with her husband (perhaps with her husbands? since Gall and Deicolus are called uterine brothers) twenty-one sons and three daughters. Although there is no need to resort to wonderful fruitfulness of this kind in order to set an interval of several years between the two brothers.

§ IV. The education of St. Gall and his monastic life in the monastery of Bangor; his priesthood.

In the monastery of Bangor St. Gall, offered as a boy in the monastery of Bangor, was liberally educated. For having obtained as master Blessed Columban, a man most skilled in Latin and Greek letters, and who, as Jonas says Acta SS. of the Order of St. Benedict, second century, page 8., had long toiled in grammar, rhetoric, geometry, and the series of the divine Scriptures, he made such progress that among all the companions of Columban, by the testimony of the Anonymous writer of the Life,

below at number 7, he excelled in the charm of his Latinity; and as Walafrid narrates more copiously, chapter I Ibid., page 230.: Heavenly grace going before him, he drank in the divine Scriptures with such zeal that he could bring forth from his treasure things new and old; he also attained with capacious genius the rules of grammar and the subtleties of metres. And he opened the obscurities of the Scriptures so wisely to those wishing to know, that all who had heard his prudence and his discourses judged him most worthy of admiration and praise. For that custom, namely, flourished among the Irish monks, that the labour of the hands, by which they procured their sustenance, brought no detriment to the study of the human and divine sciences, by which they brought aid to the labouring Church of God.

[36] learned in letters, For the monastic institution had been brought over from Gaul into Ireland by St. Patrick, who, as is related in the preliminary Commentary to his Life at the 17th of March Volume II of March, page 526, number 50., had followed the monastic life at Tours in the monastery founded by St. Martin, and in the island of Lérins. This form of living, moreover, was such that monastic austerity was joined with ecclesiastical ministry: whence it was also necessary for monks of this kind to apply themselves to the studies of letters. St. Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli, of whom it will have to be treated at the 15th or 16th of December, had first brought this form of living into the West. Of him St. Ambrose writes in the letter to the Church of Vercelli, number 66 Volume VI of his Works, page 213, Venice edition.: And if in other Churches there is available so much consideration in ordaining a priest, how much care is required in the Church of Vercelli, where two things seem to be demanded equally of the bishop, the continence of the monastery and the discipline of the Church. For Eusebius of holy memory first in the parts of the West joined these things, diverse among themselves; so that, though placed in the city, he kept the institutes of the monks, and ruled the church with the sobriety of fasting. For much help is added to the grace of the priest if he binds youth to the pursuit of abstinence and to the norm of integrity, and, though they dwell within the city, makes them renounce the use and conversation of the city. Which very excellent kind of life, adds Cardinal Baronius at the year 328, § XXII, St. Martin, bishop of Tours, carried over into Gaul: and thence it passed with St. Patrick into Ireland. Wherefore John Lanigan rightly observes Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, volume IV, page 347. that the passage of the monks in Ireland to the institute of regular canons was easy, from whom the monks differed only by greater austerity of life. Let these things be said, that we may give the reason why from the beginning so much care was placed in the Irish monasteries on cultivating divine and human letters.

[37] in Ireland Formed to all piety and learning by the care of Columban, a most holy and most learned master, St. Gall, by the common counsel of all, says Walafrid, chapter I, and by the command of the abbot Columban, ascending through the several grades of sacred promotion, unwillingly received the dignity of the priesthood. With which words the Anonymous to be published below agrees. Each writer then narrates the departure of Saints Columban and Gall into Gaul. But a threefold question here arises: first, whether St. Gall was promoted to the dignity of the priesthood in the monastery of Bangor: if there, how the command of Columban rather than of St. Comgall, who was the abbot of Columban himself, is put forward: finally, at what age St. Gall was ordained priest. Before all things it will be worth while to set forth here the opinion of Baillet at the 16th of October; for it is singular, and destitute of its proofs. I render the same in a Latin phrase, keeping to the words as far as can be done: Although he seemed to have been committed to the care of Columban, yet the latter had no other authority over Gall than that which flowed from examples and instruction. St. Comgall, abbot and founder of the monastery in which he lived, wished, the whole community assenting, to promote Gall to sacred Orders: but if he carried anything into execution, it was nothing else than that the lower Orders should be conferred. For all are persuaded that St. Gall was ordained priest after he had landed in Gaul with St. Columban, and at the command of the same, his abbot. So Adrien Baillet.

[38] a priest, To one reading either Life of St. Gall, whether written by Walafrid or by the Anonymous, a great difference at once occurs between their narrative and Baillet's. And first of all, that St. Gall was ordained priest after his migration from Ireland conflicts with each writer of the Life, since in the books of both the ordination of St. Gall precedes the departure into Gaul: and since moreover Walafrid, after relating the ordination, continues, chapter II: While these things were being done, Blessed Columban, desiring daily to attain evangelical perfection, namely that, having left all things that he had, he might take up his cross and follow the Lord naked, took counsel with the brethren, whose minds the same fervour had kindled, that, spurning the sweetness of kinsfolk and estates, they might prove the ardour of their mind by deed. Embarking therefore on a ship, they came to Britain, and thence crossed over to Gaul. St. Columban, moreover, was turning over these counsels, certainly while still remaining in Ireland, when St. Gall, already made a priest, pressing on with the sacred offices, appeased the Lord day and night with prayers and tears, and, desiring to please the eyes of the heavenly Beholder, was loved by all for the merits of his virtues and life, and pleased all. These things evidently demonstrate that St. Gall was not only promoted to the dignity of the priesthood in Ireland, but also, after obtaining this grade, persevered there for some time exercising himself in virtues.

[39] by the command of St. Columban. Perhaps a scruple moved Baillet to transfer the ordination of St. Gall into Gaul, namely that he is said to have been ordained priest by the command of the abbot Columban, as Walafrid says, Columban compelling him, as the Anonymous has it: since, therefore, Columban was not abbot before he set out for Gaul, Baillet thought he must rightly conclude that St. Gall was also made priest in Gaul. I shall easily concede that the name of abbot was attributed to Columban wrongly, or by anticipation, since in Ireland St. Comgall presided over Columban himself; since by his leave he afterwards set out with his companions for Gaul. But this concession does not go so far that we should take away all authority of St. Columban over his disciple Gall before the migration, and consequently be constrained to defer Gall's ordination until after it. For already at that time, namely, in the several monasteries other superiors presided under the abbot, who kept the monastic discipline in good repair. Of this matter we have as witness St. Jerome in the letter to Eustochium on the keeping of virginity Volume IV, part II, column 45, Paris edition of the year 1706.: The monks in Egypt are divided, he says, into decuries and centuries, so that the tenth presides over nine men, and again the hundredth has ten provosts under him… Until the ninth hour, as is established, no one goes to another, except these deans whom we have mentioned: so that if anyone perhaps is wavering in his thoughts, he may console him with his conversation… Each decury goes to table with its parent… The day's work is fixed: which, rendered to the dean, is carried to the steward.

[40] of his superior indeed, St. Augustine has similar things, On the Morals of the Catholic Church, chapter XXXI Volume I of his Works, column 710., except that he speaks less clearly about the spiritual care which the deans bestowed on their subjects. And that this form of discipline also passed into Ireland is persuaded above all by the very great number of monks who had flocked to the monastery of Bangor, as one may read in the later Life of St. Comgall, chapter I, at the 10th of May Volume II of May, page 583, number 12.: He established a great monastery, which is called Bangor, in the region which is called the Height of the Ulstermen, beside the eastern sea. And a very great multitude of monks came there to St. Comgall, so that they could not be in one place: and thence very many cells and many monasteries not only in the region of the Ulstermen, but throughout the other provinces of Ireland; and in the various cells and monasteries three thousand monks were under the care of the holy Father Comgall. It will certainly come into no one's mind that so great a multitude of men, dispersed through various provinces, obeyed one man destitute of helpers to share the labour. Rather, St. Comgall is here presented to us as a superior general, who rules the various and widely diffused bands of monks through subordinate superiors.

[41] not, however, The Life of St. Cuthbert written by the Venerable Bede, at the 20th of March Volume III of March, page 104, number 24., presents to us the same image of the regular life; he, although an Anglo-Saxon, nevertheless exercised the monastic life under the Irish in the seventh century. When therefore the venerable servant of the Lord (Cuthbert), dwelling many years in the monastery of Melrose (as provost), was shining with many signs of spiritual virtues, the most reverend abbot Eata transferred him to the monastery which is situated in the island of Lindisfarne, that there too he might teach the rule of monastic perfection both by the authority of provost and show it by the example of virtues: for the same most reverend Father then ruled that place also by right of abbot. These things plainly demonstrate that already at that time there existed Provosts or Priors who governed the monasteries under the abbot. Whence it follows that St. Columban was not the first, as Jean Mabillon will have it Annales Ordinis Benedicti*, book VIII, § XI, volume I, page 192., to introduce superiors of this kind into monasteries, but that he followed the form of government which he had seen kept in the monastery of Bangor under his master St. Comgall.

[42] of the abbot, Further, to return whence we digressed, it is very probable that St. Columban exercised the office of provost or prior under St. Comgall in Ireland: for that he was not a simple monk of the flock is abundantly denoted by the offering of St. Gall made to him by his parents, which, as we saw above at number 25, is related by each biographer: and next by what is read in the Life of St. Columba, number 9 Acta SS. of the Order of St. Benedict, second century, page 9.: He disclosed to the father (Comgall) his ardent desire (of pilgrimage to foreign nations): but he did not find in the father such an answer as his petition panted for. For it was hard for the venerable Comgall to suffer the loss of so great a consolation. At length, however, he began to consent and to place before his heart that he should not be more zealous for his own need than he should seek what was opportune for the advantage of others. It ought therefore by no means to seem surprising that St. Gall ascended to sacred Orders by the command of St. Columban, since each writer adds that it was done by the common counsel of all, or, as the other has it, by the exhortations of the spiritual brethren, among whom the abbot St. Comgall certainly also had his place. Whence there is no reason that for a reason of this kind we should put off the ordination of St. Gall until after the migration from Ireland.

[43] at the lawful age Finally, St. Gall was ordained priest at the lawful age, namely thirty years old: For, Christ being propitious, says the Anonymous, coming to the age …

he went up to the grade of the priesthood. For that the completed thirtieth year was the lawful age for the presbyterate is established from canon IX of the Collection of the Irish Canons D'Achery, Spicilegium, volume I, page 492, Paris edition 1723.: Let a priest be made at thirty: a bishop at thirty, or forty, or fifty, because at that age Christ began to preach. In the preliminary Notice D'Achery says Ibid., page 491.: The canons which follow were made before the eighth century, and were selected by us from a great and old manuscript collection of canons. There is therefore no reason why Wilkins Concilia Britanniæ, volume I, page 6. should have deliberately omitted these canons as uncertain fragments: especially since they express the rules of the Gallican Church, which had almost all passed over into Ireland with St. Patrick. For in the fourth Council of Arles, chapter I, in the year 524 Labbe, volume IV of the Councils, column 1622., this same discipline is shown to rest on antiquity: And because in ordaining clerics the statutes of the ancient fathers are known not to have been observed entirely, as is expedient, lest perhaps the priests of the Lord, wearied by the importunate and disordered prayers of anyone whatever, be compelled to transgress those things which have so often been prescribed, they define this to be observed among themselves: that no one of the bishops presume to ordain a deacon before he completes twenty-five years. And let no layman receive the honour of the episcopate or the presbyterate before the promised conversion or before thirty years of age.

[44] he is ordained. The Council of Agde, chapter XVII, in the year 506 Ibid., column 1386., prescribes the same age for the presbyterate. And deservedly this discipline is called a statute of the ancient fathers, inasmuch as it had already been sanctioned in the Council of Neocæsarea, in the year 314, chapter XI Ibid., volume I, column 1483.: Let a priest not be ordained before thirty years, even if he be a very worthy man, but let him be reserved (Dionysius Exiguus translates: but let him observe this time); for the Lord Jesus Christ was baptized in the thirtieth year and began to teach. It will not escape the reader that the same reason for the completed thirtieth year is given in the canon of Neocæsarea and in the Patrician one. Whatever therefore may be the case about the authenticity of this canon, which is supported by the highest antiquity, there is no doubt that the lawful age for the Order of the presbyterate in the sixth century was thirty years: so that St. Gall, whom we said was born about the year 550, was ordained priest about the year 580.

Colgan at the said day has regens*

§ V. The time of the coming of St. Columban into Gaul.

St. Columban's It is a thorny question among the learned, as our predecessors note in the Life of St. Agilus at the 30th of August Volume V of August, page 572, number 15., namely at what time St. Columban came into Gaul with his companions. And although it seems to concern more closely the life of St. Columban, which is to be given at the 21st of November, we nevertheless undertake to discuss it here: first because the life of St. Columban abounds in so many other inquiries that we think it will not be unwelcome to the one who is to comment on that life that a question of this kind has already been at least partly discussed; next because the controversy, perhaps handled again with second cares, will more easily be settled; and finally because the coming of St. Columban into Gaul has an intimate connexion with the history of our St. Gall. That we may proceed in order, however, it is needful before all things to set forth the various opinions of the learned, and to allege the weighty reasons by which they thought to confirm them. I shall then explain my own opinion, that the reader may see which side he ought rather to favour.

[46] coming Le Cointe, in his Annals of the Franks At the year 568, § VI, volume II, page 98., determines that St. Columban came into Gaul in the year 568. The annotator of the Life to be published below from the Historical Monuments of Germany seems in part to follow the same opinion, since he thinks the Saint's coming is to be placed in the time of King Sigebert, that is, between the years 561 and 575, Arabic numerals being placed in the margin. To this opinion, namely that it happened in the reign of Sigebert, Le Cointe seems to have been led by a twofold reason. For all the older writers show this king as the favourer of St. Columban and his companions. But I do not see why Le Cointe adds so much weight to this reason: for he himself confesses that the name of Sigebert crept wrongly into the text, and wishes Guntram to be substituted for it, since this one, not that one, held the principate in Burgundy, and indeed from the year 561 to 593. In place of Sigebert, he says, put Guntram, because the places in which Columban settled, namely Annegray, Fontaines, and Luxeuil, were situated in Burgundy, and belonged to Guntchramn, brother of the aforesaid Sigebert. Which he then demonstrates at length Ibid., page 102.. And this indeed rightly. But since he judges that an error underlies the name of Sigebert, and wishes another to be substituted, no reason occurs why he should labour so much in restricting the coming of St. Columban within the years of Sigebert's rule: for it is known that Guntram prolonged his reign in Burgundy eighteen years after Sigebert.

[47] into Gaul But there is also another reason which seems to persuade that St. Columban landed in Gaul in the year 568: the records of Luxeuil teach that the Saint reached the Gallic shores in the seventh year of Sigebert, or rather of Guntram, king of Burgundy, therefore in the year 567 or 568. But these seem not to be of such weight that they ought to prevail over the solid reasons which demonstrate the contrary. For the Sainte-Marthes themselves, in alleging these records, add Old Gallia Christiana, volume IV, page 585.: if credence is to be given to the records of Luxeuil: by which words they sufficiently insinuate that their authority is called into doubt. Next, we have copiously demonstrated in the two preceding §§ that St. Gall, born about the year 550, was promoted to the presbyterate after the year 580, and indeed in the monastery of Bangor, that is, before the departure into Gaul: therefore St. Columban could not have set sail from Ireland except after the year 580. It is true indeed that Le Cointe Annales Francorum at the year 568, § XI and following, volume II, page 105. says that St. Gall was then, namely in the year 568, in the thirty-eighth year of his age; but this is false from this very fact, that, since he brings St. Columban into Gaul in his twentieth year of age, he openly contradicts each writer of the Life of St. Gall, who asserts that the latter as a boy was offered by his parents to Columban, certainly an adult, for the sake of education.

[48] others in the year 568, To confirm this epoch Le Cointe cites in the same place, as a guarantor of his opinion, Jean Ruyr, canon of the Church of Saint-Dié (St. Dié, département of the Vosges), who collected into one the sacred antiquities of the Vosges and published them in the French idiom in the year 1633. But the praised author has altogether the contrary Les Sacrées Antiquités des Vosges, page 1.: Ancient authors worthy of credence have left in writing that St. Columban entered the Vosges already in the five hundred and ninety-seventh year, although it then presented the aspect of a horrid and uninhabited desert. I gladly confess that a printer's error more probably underlies this here; since it is agreed among all that Luxeuil was founded about the year 590. But this remains certain, that Jean Ruyr assigned the time of the coming of St. Columban in no other place, and therefore that there is no reason why Le Cointe should try to drag the cited author into his opinion, rejected by almost all the learned.

[49] or at least For the rest, that the opinion of those who think the coming of St. Columban is to be referred to the reign of Sigebert on account of the authority of Jonas, a nearly contemporary writer of the Acts of the same Saint, may be more fully refuted, it will be helpful to have noted that other writers of nearly the same age have bound the same coming to the rule of Childebert II, who ruled Austrasia from the year 575, and Burgundy too from the year 593 to the year 596. First of all, in the Life of St. Salaberga, abbess, at the 22nd of September Volume VI of September, page 521, number 2., although the anonymous author cites the Life of St. Columban written by Jonas and therefore says that it is not necessary for his work to weave the deeds (of Columban), since they have been composed and published by the most eloquent man Jonas, nevertheless he writes: Columban, a man praiseworthy in fame and powerful in holiness, coming as a pilgrim from Ireland, built the monastery of Luxeuil with the utmost zeal and labour out of the munificence of King Childebert. The error of Jonas seems therefore to have been corrected by an anonymous author more skilled in Gallic affairs. Similarly the nearly contemporary anonymous author of the Life of St. Agilus, abbot of Rebais, at the 30th of August Volume VI of August, page 575., begins his narrative: While Hildebert, son of King Sigebert, was holding the sceptres, who governed Burgundy and Austrasia with the flower of youth and the grace of wisdom… At that time the man revered for religion, Columban, had come from Ireland into Gaul, desiring to obtain from the serenity of the aforesaid king a place in which to build a monastery. Behold two writers almost contemporary, who write that the coming of St. Columban happened in the time of Childebert II, therefore after the year 575.

[50] under Sigebert, It will be worth while here to add what our men wrote on the Life of St. Agilus Ibid., page 576, under the note.: It can with difficulty be believed that these two writers were ignorant of the one from whom St. Columban received the place for founding so celebrated a monastery. There is added that the place was obtained through the intervention of Agnoald, who was a counsellor of Childebert, not of Guntram, as Mabillon himself calls him Volume I of the Annals, page 279, book XI, § XIII.. Yet Mabillon will have it that the place was obtained from Guntram, because he believed Luxeuil to have been in the dominion of Guntram, not of Childebert. But although it is certain that it is situated in the present county of Burgundy near the borders of Lorraine, I reckon that it is not equally certainly established about the boundaries of the ancient kingdoms of Burgundy and Austrasia, nor would I dare, against the authority of both writers, to attribute the donation of the place to Guntram rather than to Childebert. Our Stilting rightly placed Luxeuil on the borders of both kingdoms. But that at that time too it belonged to the kingdom of Burgundy is evident from the fact that it is established from Jonas, number 31 Acta SS. of the Order of St. Benedict, second century, page 17., that Theodoric, to whom Burgundy had fallen, congratulated himself because he had Blessed Columban within the boundary of his kingdom. And lest we ascribe this to some error of Jonas, the series of the whole history forbids, which shows Theodoric, king of Burgundy, as the persecutor of the Saint.

[51] king of Austrasia, There remains therefore the difficulty which also moved Le Cointe Volume II, page 101 and following. to adopt the opinion that Childebert by no means reigned in Burgundy when St. Columban landed in Gaul, inasmuch as he was enlarged with that dominion only after the death of Guntram, in the year 593. This difficulty is certainly not to be despised: but in my judgment it can be removed, since Childebert, before the death of Guntram, was in some manner associated in the kingdom, so that the donation of Luxeuil, although situated within Burgundy, can truly be ascribed to his munificence. For St. Gregory of Tours writes these things of the two kings in his History Dom Bouquet, Recueil des Historiens de France, volume II, page 306.: Guntchramn, having given a spear into the hand of King Childebert,

said: "This is a token that I have handed over to you my whole kingdom. From this time go now and subject all my cities, as your own, under the lordship of your right. For, our sins causing it, nothing has remained of my stock except you alone, who are my brother's son. For do you succeed as heir in my whole kingdom, the others being made disinherited…" Then King Guntchramn restored to him all things which his father Sigebert had had. Although these last words seem to look only to the administration of the Austrasian kingdom, committed to Childebert in the year 585 when he came of age; nevertheless Guntram's speech indicates not only an adoption, such as Gregory had described in book V, chapter XVIII Ibid., page 299., but also a certain fellowship in the kingdom. From these things, therefore, it can be explained how certain writers could call Childebert king of Burgundy before the death of his uncle Guntram, and ascribe to him the donation of Luxeuil made to St. Columban.

[52] but wrongly determine: Finally, that every prejudice may be removed which could be brought into the chronology from the name of Sigebert thrust in, even by those to whom what has been said so far is not approved, the words of Jean Mabillon Annales, book VIII, § X, volume I, page 192. must be well attended to, saying: The occasion of error for Jonas, a foreigner (he was from Susa among the Subalpines) and not practised in our homeland's history, was this, that he falsely supposed that the principate of Burgundy had come into Childebert's power by paternal inheritance, which is established to have come to him from the death of his uncle, that is, of Guntchramn. And in truth, to one considering the text of Jonas, it becomes manifest that this is so. For in the Acts of St. Columban, number 31 Acta SS. of the Order of St. Benedict, second century, page 17., he seems to ascribe the whole inheritance of Theodoric to his grandfather Sigebert as founder: The fame of the holy man had now grown everywhere into all the provinces of Gaul and Germany, and he was venerable in the reverence of all, praiseworthy in report, so much so that King Theodoric, who was reigning at that time, often came to him, and with all humility asked the suffrage of his prayers. For Sigebert, of whom we made mention above, was slain at Victoriacum (Vitry), a public estate which is situated in the suburbs of the city of Arras, by the guile of his brother Hilperic, who was then at the town of Tournai, whom Sigebert was pursuing to death. Sigebert therefore having been slain, Hildebert his son took up the sceptre of the kingdom, his mother Brunechild assenting. Hildebert then having died within the years of youth, the two sons of Hildebert, Theodebert and Theoderic, reigned with their grandmother Brunechild: Theoderic obtained the kingdom of the Burgundians, and Theodebert took up the kingdom of the Austrasians to rule. Here Jonas openly describes the inheritance of both kingdoms, of Burgundy and of Austrasia, as derived through Sigebert to his grandsons, no mention being made of Guntram: and if he slipped so gravely regarding the king of Burgundy, who would wonder that the same man was also ignorant of the year of Sigebert's death?

[53] better Since the Sigebertian epoch can by no means be sustained, as we have seen, the more recent learned men have sought another, and have deduced it from the words of Jonas, who says in the Life of St. Columban, number 38: The holy man therefore went out with his men in the twentieth year after his dwelling in that wilderness. In the life of St. Agilus also Volume VI of August, page 577, number 7. one reads: Blessed Columban, in the twentieth year from that in which he had begun to establish the monastery, harassed by the driving of King Theoderic and the guile of the most wicked Brunechild, is urgently compelled to return to his native soil, and Eustasius, a man proved by experience of all religion, is appointed his successor against his will. From these words it is clear that St. Columban inhabited Luxeuil about twenty years: for that discourse is here held about the monastery of Luxeuil is evident from this alone, that St. Eustasius, who is said to have been appointed in his place, is read to have presided over this monastery.

[54] others Further, this expulsion of St. Columban happened in the year 610, Pagi in the Critica of Baronius At the year 612, § VI., Mabillon Annales Benedictini, book X, § XLVI, volume I, page 266., our men in the Life of St. Agilus Volume VI of August, page 572, number 16., Le Cointe At the year 590, § XXXVI, volume II, page 370., and others agreeing. Someone might perhaps think that the holy man's exile is rather to be referred to the year 609: for, as Fredegar in the Chronicle Dom Bouquet, Recueil, volume II, page 425. and Aimoin, book III, chapter XCIV Ibid., volume III, page 113., relate, he was thrown out of the monastery in the 14th year of Theoderic, which coincides with the year 609, since the beginning of his reign is to be placed at the beginning of the year 596, as Pagi proves in the Critica of Baronius At the year 596, § XIII.. Going back, however, from the year 609, the twentieth year of St. Columban's dwelling falls in the year 590. But there are stronger reasons which persuade that the Saint's exile is to be put back to the year 610: the blessed man, namely, foretold to Ragamund, one of the tribunes to whom his custody had been committed until he should be driven from the kingdom, number 39: Chlotar, whom you now despise, you will have as lord within three years. Now it is admitted among all that Clothaire obtained the kingdom of the whole of Francia in the year 613, and therefore that the exile of St. Columban is not to be moved from the year 610, from which we can come to the year 590. Pagi, in the place cited, reconciles both opinions by saying that the exile was indeed imposed in the year 609, but only put into execution in 610.

[55] in the year 590, These things being laid down, namely that the monastery of Luxeuil was founded in the year 590, the learned go off into two opinions. Some, among whom Dom Ceillier Histoire des Auteurs ecclésiastiques, volume XVII, page 463. and John Lanigan History of Ireland, volume II, page 265., judge that St. Columban came into Gaul in the year 590; to which opinion Jean Mabillon seems to agree Annales Benedictini, book VIII, § X, volume I, page 192.. The chief reason is because, by the testimony of Jonas, number 36 Acta SS. of the Order of St. Benedict, second century, page 20., he was expelled in the twentieth year after his dwelling in that wilderness, that is, as they indeed interpret it, in the twentieth year after he began to inhabit the Vosges, which happened immediately after the blessed man's coming. But, with the leave of such great men I should say, by the wilderness of which Jonas speaks are to be understood here not any deserts of the Vosges whatever, but the solitude of Luxeuil, of which he had spoken immediately before. Behold the words: Among whom (those left behind by St. Columban) the venerable man who afterwards was Father in the same monastery (at any rate of Luxeuil), Eustasius, disciple and minister of the holy man, is violently torn away, his uncle Mietius, who was pontiff of the Church of Langres, taking charge over him. The holy man therefore went out with his men in the twentieth year after his dwelling in that wilderness. Certainly the dwelling in the wilderness suits Luxeuil quite aptly, so that it should not be extended to the whole of the Vosges: all the more because from the Life of St. Agilus also, above at number 49, that twenty-year period is circumscribed by the foundation of the monastery of Luxeuil.

[56] or more accurately And this argument must be insisted on all the more strongly because the narrative of Jonas himself persuades that an interval of some years is to be interposed between the Saint's coming and the foundation of the monastery of Luxeuil. For, kindly received by the king, whether Childebert or Guntram, he first dwelt in the fortress of Annegray, as Jonas narrates at number 12. In the following passages he then sets forth how the Saint lay hidden there, so that Caramtocus, abbot of the monastery of Saulcy (le Sancys, département of the Vosges), distant only three leagues from Annegray Mabillon, Annales, book XIII, § IX, volume I, page 191., had to be instructed by God about his stay in the desert, and, as Jonas has it at number 14, the cellarer of Saulcy could by no means find a way to open the road for himself… The horses tread the unknown road with their hoofs, and by a straight road arrive before the doors of Blessed Columban at Annegray… From then the throng of the people and bands of the sick began to frequent him in order to restore their health. Jonas then proceeds at number 16 in narrating the kind of life which St. Columban kept in the solitude of Annegray:

[57] about the year 585, At which time, while he was leading a solitary life in the same hollow of the rock, as was his custom, that when the coming of the Lord's feasts or of the sacred solemnity of any Saints whatever was approaching, separated from the fellowship of others and withdrawn into hidden places, he sought out the secrets of the wilderness even for a longer space, that with a firm mind and without the disquiet of cares he might be free alone for prayer, and strive for religion with every effort, he was so thinned by food that he was scarcely believed to live. This habit of life, which runs through the various feasts of the Lord and solemnities of the Saints, customary with St. Columban, sufficiently demonstrates that he made a longer stay in the desert of Annegray than that his coming into Gaul could coalesce with the foundation of Luxeuil. But he who for some time lay hidden unknown, his fame gradually increasing, at length drew to himself a great multitude of men who longed to profess the monastic life under his mastership. And this was the cause why he began to establish Luxeuil: When now, continues Jonas at number 17, he was thronged with the fellowship of many monks, he began to consider seeking a better place in the same wilderness in which to build a monastery. And he found a fortress which had formerly been cultivated with very strong fortification, distant from the aforesaid place (Annegray) more or less eight miles, which former times called Luxovium.

[58] under Childebert From this series of deeds it manifestly appears that an interval of some years is to be set from the coming of St. Columban to the founding of Luxeuil. Wherefore what Jean Mabillon thinks Annales Benedictini, book VIII, § X, volume I, page 192. seems not to be admitted, that the monastery of Annegray was first built by St. Columban by hasty work, then, as the number of disciples grew, that of Luxeuil, as though he wished to infer that already from his entry into the Vosges there was question of founding another monastery: so that it would thence be easy to judge that both were instituted within an interval of a few months. The monks at Annegray were poor; but yet in such a way that men given to every kind of penance were not weary of such a dwelling. John Lanigan also, a man of more accurate criticism in investigating Irish antiquities, writes History of Ireland, volume II, page 266. that various circumstances and epochs of the life of St. Columban can scarcely be reconciled with the opinion of those who place the Saint's coming some years before the year 590, who namely think that the Saint reached the Burgundian kingdom about the year 585. Nothing, however, is found in the Saint's Life, whether we look at what precedes or what follows, which does not in every respect, so far as I at least can grasp, agree most aptly with the chronology of those who place the Saint's arrival about the year 585.

[59] the son of Sigebert; That the coming of St. Columban therefore preceded the foundation of Luxeuil by some years, with full right

Pagi on Baronius At the year 585, § VI., Dom Bouquet Recueil des Historiens, volume III, page L., Alban Butler in the Life of St. Columban at the 21st of November, and many others have judged; among whom, however, I do not number Adrien de Valois Volume II of the Res Francicæ, page 542., who fixes the Saint's coming to the year 587 or the following for this reason, that he wrongly determined that he was cast out in the year 608. To the opinion of the learned men is added a positive record, which shows that the coming of St. Columban is to be placed in the year 585. Jean Mabillon cites [Acta SS. of the Order of St. Benedict, third century, part II, page 451; Annales Benedictini, book XI, § XLVI, volume I, page 298; De Re diplomatica, book V, plate VIII.] an excerpt from a codex, formerly of St. Peter of Beauvais, containing nine homilies of St. Augustine on the Epistle of St. John, at the end of which one reads in uncial letters:

Explicitū opus favente Dn̄o apud Lussovium anno duodecimo regis Chlotacharii indictione tertia decima an xlsimo pīs nī fēl. pacto

[The work is finished, the Lord favouring, at Luxeuil, in the twelfth year of King Chlotachar, in the thirteenth indiction, in the fortieth year of our father, happily done]:

that is, in the fortieth year of our Father Columban; who therefore, continues Mabillon in the Annals, must be said to have come into the Vosges in the five hundred and eighty-fifth year; since the twelfth year of King Chlotar II reigning in Burgundy and the thirteenth indiction, which two agree with the present year (namely 625), cannot agree with Chlotar III.

[60] but of the Burgundian crown And that Mabillon did not say these things rashly, as John Lanigan suspects History of Ireland, volume II, page 265., is evident from the fact that he asserts that this opinion agrees with what he had written about the coming of St. Columban about the year 590 in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, in the place cited: The time at which Columban began to inhabit the Vosges I have marked as a little before the five hundred and ninetieth year. This reckoning seems to be confirmed by a certain clause which is had at the end of the exposition of St. Augustine, etc.; he then brings forward the clause cited above. From this text of Mabillon it is established in what sense his words are to be understood, that St. Columban landed in Gaul about the year 590; namely, that an interval of about five years is safely to be set between his coming and the foundation of the monastery of Luxeuil. Conjectures and records therefore concur that we should say that St. Columban reached the kingdoms of Gaul about the year 585.

[61] under Guntram One thing perhaps might be opposed to this argumentation, namely that it is established from the Life of St. Agilus praised above that Luxeuil was handed over to St. Columban within a short interval after his coming. For these things are read in the Life of St. Agilus Le Cointe, Annales Francorum at the year 568, § XVII, volume II, page 103.: While therefore he (Columban) was diligently meditating and inquiring with himself which of the courtiers of the palace he should approach, who might present him to the king, and disclose his desire to the highness of his clemency, if at any time he might obtain what he desired with fervour of faith, having heard of the vehement zeal of the aforesaid prince Agnoald (father of St. Agilus), he resolves to approach him, and commends himself and his prayer to him. He at once, receiving the secret of such a desire as though divinely committed to him, as quickly as possible makes it known opportunely to the king, and renders the same Columban acceptable to him, and also humbly begs that he would hear his desirable prayer. And the king, rejoicing in the modesty of magnanimity over speech of this kind, most willingly grants what was asked, and moreover magnificently promises to bestow things not yet asked.

[62] his uncle For a fortress amid the vast enclosures of the wilderness which is called the Vosges had formerly been dedicated to the worship of the fanatics, but was then destroyed to the ground, which the inhabitants of this forest, though with unknowing presage, named Luxovium. Agnoald indeed, considering that it could be restored more swiftly, and seeing the situation of the place fit for a band of monks, nay understanding, illumined by the prerogative of faith and wisdom, that the same place ought to be consecrated to God, and that where of old the ancients worshipped shrines with profane rite, there the altars of Christ should be fixed and the standards raised and the mysteries celebrated, obtained by his prayers from the sublimity of the king that by a series of writing it should be assigned in perpetuity as a dwelling for those soldiering for God. These words manifestly declare that St. Columban, immediately after his access to the Burgundian court, obtained Luxeuil, and established a monastery there within a short interval of time. But from the Acts of St. Agilus at the 30th of August it is established that his Life was interpolated in several places; and our men mark this very place as to be struck out Volume VI of August, page 576, letter p.. Behold the genuine text, number 3:

[63] with full power While he was diligently meditating and inquiring with himself which of the courtiers of the palace he should approach, that he might disclose his desire to the royal highness, having heard of the vehement zeal of the aforesaid prince Agnoald, he resolves to commend himself and his prayer to him. At once Agnoald, receiving the secret of such a desire as though divinely committed to him, as quickly as possible intimates it more opportunely to the king, and renders the same Columban acceptable to him, and obtains from the King a fortress in the vast wilderness which is called the Vosges, formerly dedicated to the worship of the fanatics, but now destroyed to the ground, that by a series of writing it should be assigned in perpetuity to those soldiering for God. Here no mention occurs of the monastery of Luxeuil; but on the contrary the description of the place granted agrees excellently with Annegray, which is designated by Jonas at number 12 as a ruined fortress in the vast wilderness of the Vosges.

[64] heir, Nevertheless I confess that the author of the Life of St. Agilus, even purged of interpolations, yet infers Luxeuil: for after the words just cited one reads, chapter II: Then the longed-for day had come, on which the pious father should offer his dear offspring at the sacred altars in the aforesaid monastery. But the monastery in which St. Agilus was offered as a boy by his father Agnoald is certainly that of Luxeuil; whence it can scarcely be doubted that the Anonymous was speaking of the same in the preceding words: the difficulty would therefore return, still to be solved. But since the authority of Jonas remains unshaken, on which the Anonymous also relies, he is to be explained here as though the monasteries of Annegray, Luxeuil, and Fontaines had constituted one and the same monastery, inasmuch as they were ruled by one abbot, St. Columban. And this very thing Jonas says at number 17: He gave to his various monasteries provosts as governors, of whose religion he had no doubt. These bodies of monks, therefore, having been established in these places, he himself was present with all by turns, and, filled with the Holy Spirit, composed the rule which they should keep.

§ VI. The Alemannic journey.

St. Gall The time of the coming of St. Columban into Gaul having been established about the year 585, there is no reason for us to dwell on what each writer of the Life of St. Gall narrates about the things done in Gaul and the causes of the exile of St. Columban, to whose Life, to be given at the 21st of November, these things chiefly belong. We have already seen above at number 54 that St. Columban was expelled in the year 610; his companions, newcomers from Ireland, obtained the same penalty. Jonas insinuates this at number 37: for when all the monks wished to follow their exiled father, the royal guards said that they would by no means permit others to follow him except those whom the land of his birth had given, or who had followed him from the British soil; that the rest, who were born of another soil, should remain there by royal commands. The writer of the Life of St. Deicolus at the 18th of January Volume II of January, page 202, number 11. declares more clearly that the Scots were compelled to exile: among whom also the venerable brothers Gall and Deicolus … following the footsteps of their father, each, willing or unwilling, suffered by divine judgment the loss of the journey proposed. From these things it becomes manifest that, the Scots being driven to exile, others were hindered by royal commands. And this perhaps was the cause of this distinction: since grave questions were being agitated between Columban and the bishops of Gaul, as may be seen in his letter to the bishops Bibliotheca Maxima Patrum, volume XII, page 25, Lyon edition., it was hoped that they would be more easily settled in the absence of the Scots, who, on account of love of their homeland, were more tenacious of their own rites.

[66] his master Columban Hence it is also deduced that an error crept into Johannes Müller in the History of Switzerland, when he writes [Geschichte der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft, volume I, page 203, Frankenthal edition.]: that the Abbacy (of Luxeuil) was offered to Gall; but that he preferred to suffer misfortune with his friend. Gall sollte die Abtey bekommen, er wollte aber lieber mit seinem Freunde Ungemach leiden. Since it was not in the choice of Columban or Gall to remain in the monastery, that historical conjecture already collapses. Moreover it is not to be admitted on this head also, that nothing similar occurs in the Acts of either: nay, St. Columban insinuates the contrary in Epistle III to his monks Bibliotheca Patrum, volume XII, page 27.. For, no mention being made of St. Gall, he says that before the administration of the monastery of Luxeuil was committed with vicarious power to St. Eustasius, the headship was offered to St. Attala and Wandolenus; but all these were sprung from Gaul: as is established of Saints Eustasius and Attala from their Life Acta SS. of the Order of St. Benedict, second century, pages 116 and 123. and of Wandolenus from Jean Mabillon Annales Benedictini, book X, § LIII, volume I, page 270.. The writer of the Life of St. Deicolus at the 18th of January also Volume II of January, page 202, number 10., although wonderfully poured out in the praises of St. Gall, brings forward nothing by which the offered dignity may be in any way established; but simply says that St. Columban handed over to Eustasius, a most approved man, the place of the paternal name and at the same time of the office, and substituted him as his vicar for cherishing the flock of the Lord: and he himself, with a few who had undertaken pilgrimage with him for Christ, his face full of tears, Christ going before, made for other places.

[67] in exile In the Life of St. Columban, Jonas at number 38 and following describes at length his journey from Luxeuil to Nantes, and into Alemannia; whither at length, at the request of Theodebert, king of Austrasia and brother of Theoderic, he went, yet so that, says Jonas at number 49, through the kingdom of Theodebert, if he could, crossing the ridges of the Alps, he might arrive in Italy. St. Columban says the same openly to King Theodebert, who was promising many things that he might stay within the bounds of his kingdom, in the same place, number 51: If you will furnish the support of your promise, and finally will not oppose the harm of falsehood, know that I shall stay for a little while, and shall test whether I shall be able to sow faith in the hearts of the neighbouring nations. Jonas reveals by no indication how long the blessed man persevered in Alemannia. Each author of the Life of St. Gall, the Anonymous at number 7 and Walafrid in chapter VI, determines that he remained in Alemannia for three years: which can by no means agree with his Acts. For St. Columban, driven into exile not earlier than the year 610, after travelling over a great part of Gaul, having stayed at the court of King Clothaire, could not have reached Alemannia except when this same year was already well advanced: since moreover it is established from Jonas, number 59, that Columban, having heard of the victory of Theoderic over

Theodebert, reported in the year 612, entered Italy: he could scarcely have remained more than two years in Alemannia.

[68] having followed, The foundations which the holy man had made in Alemannia were, according to his plan, improvised and destined to last for a short interval: but God disposed otherwise. For that seed of the divine word, sown as it were in passing, grew into a most ample harvest and bore fruits enduring for ages. For the Alemanni, who were also called Suevi, were to be converted by the work of St. Gall and his companions to the faith, which some of them who had followed it before had defiled with mad superstitions. The origin of the nation is described by Agathias, who flourished in the sixth century, in Book I of the deeds of the Emperor Justinian Byzantine History, Agathias, page 27, Bonn edition.:

[69] into Alemannia, by Agathias, The Alemanni, however (I use Vulcanius' Latin translation), if we believe Asinius Quadratus, an Italian, who wrote accurately of German affairs, are a collection of newcomers and a mixture, which the very name also sufficiently indicates. These Theodoric, king of the Goths, when he also possessed all Italy, had formerly made tributaries, and had subdued this whole nation. But as soon as he departed from the living, and a most atrocious war had blazed up between Justinian, emperor of the Romans, and the Goths, then the Goths, fawning on the Franks and conciliating their friendship and goodwill to themselves by whatever means they could, both were driven out of many other places and let the Alemannic nation go. For they thought at that time that their forces must be gathered from every side, and that as many subjects as seemed superfluous and not very opportune must be dismissed, inasmuch as they would no longer contend for principate and glory, but would now incur danger for Italy itself, lest they be utterly destroyed. Wherefore, since they had anticipated and foreseen the future danger in their minds, they joined their will to necessity. In this manner, therefore, Theodibert also brought into his power the nation of the Alemanni, let go by the Goths: on whose death, as was said above, these too passed, together with the remaining subjects, to Theodibald his son.

[70] an author of the sixth century, These also have certain native institutions; but in the administration of the commonwealth they follow the polity of the Franks; only in those things which pertain to God do they vary in opinion. For they worship certain trees, and the courses of rivers, and hills and glens, and to these, as though doing what is right, they sacrifice horses and very many other things, their heads cut off. Further, the intercourse which they have with the Franks is of advantage to them, transferring them to better things and in some manner drawing the more sensible along: and in a short time, as I hope, it will prevail in this very thing among all. These things surely explain accurately the condition of the Alemanni about the time at which St. Gall began to inhabit Alemannia: for it would be beside our purpose to inquire into the first origin of the nation, which may be seen in the Alemannic Antiquities in Schoepflin Commentarius Historicus et Criticus, page 171.: let it suffice here to have observed that the Theodebert of whom Agathias speaks is the son of Theoderic, who ruled the Austrasian or Metz dominion from the year 534 to 548.

[71] described, subject not to Ostrogothia, From the text of Agathias just brought forward it seems to follow that all the Alemanni obeyed the Ostrogoths, who occupied Italy: for he says that Theodoric, king of the Goths, when he also possessed all Italy, made (the Alemanni) tributaries and subdued this whole nation. Agathias, being namely a Greek, did not know that from the times of Clovis I the greatest part of Alemannia was of Frankish right, as St. Gregory of Tours testifies [History of the Franks, book II, chapter XXX; in Dom Bouquet, volume II, page 177.]; whom Rorico De Gestis Francorum, book III, ibid., volume III, page 9. and Aimoin Book I, chapter XV, ibid., volume III, page 39. follow. Nay, Theodoric himself congratulates Clovis on the Alemannic victory, and admonishes him to rule the vanquished moderately In Dom Bouquet, volume IV, page 3.. That a fairly great multitude of the Alemanni took refuge with Theodoric, however, is demonstrated by his panegyrical oration, written by St. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, of whom it was treated at the 17th of July. He speaks out in these words Sirmond, Works, volume I, column 1610.: What of the fact that the generality of Alemannia was enclosed by you within the bounds of Italy without detriment to Roman possession? To which it befell to have a king after it had deserved to lose one. It has been made the guardian of the Latin (Latin) empire, having always raged with the plundering of our people. To which it fell out happily to have fled, for thus it has obtained the opulence of our soil. That many thousands of the Alemanni therefore went to Theodoric may be conjectured even from the word generality, although we shall readily concede that the word itself is hyperbolic.

[72] but to the Kings of Austrasia For the rest, this very part of the Alemanni, fugitive from the Franks, was not so long afterwards brought under their power, as Agathias testifies in the place cited: The Goths, fawning on the Franks … both were driven out of many other places and let the Alemannic nation go. Here indeed the more recent writers stick, as our Father Daniel observes in the History of France Histoire de France, volume I, page 161, Amsterdam edition of the year 1742., and he refutes them in this way: The translator of Agathias, I render Father Daniel's words into Latin, Adrien de Valois and other more recent writers explain Agathias as if the Goths had compelled the Alemanni, leaving the Alps, to return to their ancient homeland, and there to live under Theodebert with their fellow-countrymen. Father Daniel himself, however, judges that Vitiges, king of the Goths, in order to attract the Franks to himself, ceded the region itself, namely the Rhætian Alps, to the Frank. This controversy, as foreign to our purpose, we leave to others to settle. But this is certain, that the Franks occupied Rhætia about these times, namely about the year 540. Procopius insinuates this in the Gothic War, saying Book IV, chapter XXIV, volume II, page 587.: Θευδίβερτος, ὁ Φράγγων ἀρχηγὸς, ὀυ πολλῷ ἔμπροσθεν ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἠφάνιστο νόσῳ, Λιγουρίας τε χωρία ἄττα, καὶ Ἄλπεις Κουτίας, καὶ Βενετιῶν τὰ πολλὰ ὀυδενὶ πόνῳ ἐς ἀπαγωγὴν φόρου ὑποτελῆ ποιησάμενος. A little before, Theodebert, king of the Franks, had died of disease, having made tributary to himself without any trouble some places of Liguria, the Cottian Alps, and the greatest part of the Venetian territory. Which, says Ambros Eichhorn, Benedictine of St. Blasien, in the Episcopatus Curiensis Page 10., would scarcely have been possible unless he had first subdued the nearer Alpine Rhætia.

[73] subject, From that time all Alemannia was tributary to the kingdom of Austrasia under the first Merovingian stock. Hence St. Columban, staying in Alemannia under the protection of Theodebert II, was able to escape the wrath of his brother Theoderic, king of Burgundy, until the latter, having gained possession of Austrasia in the year 612, compelled the holy man to go into exile in Italy. Pagi, in his critique of Baronius At the year 612, § VIII., says: Then, with his (Theodebert's) assent, he chose for the time a station within the bounds of Germany, in a ruined town on the Rhine named Brigantium: wandering about which he both effects many wonderful things and brings over very many Barbarians to the faith of Christ: Columban therefore went to the dominions which Theodebert had recently taken from his brother Theoderic on this side of the Rhine, on which matter Fredegar is to be read in the Chronicle, chapter XXXVII, speaking of the deeds of Theoderic in the year X. Here a typesetters' error may have crept in, for Fredegar refers these things to the fifteenth year of Theoderic. But there are other errors of Pagi: for he places Brigantium on the Rhine, whereas it is about four leagues distant from the river. Next, Brigantium is situated not on this side but beyond the Rhine: whence, if Theodebert took anything from Theoderic on this side of the Rhine, Brigantium nevertheless belonged to the ancient possession of the Austrasian kings.

[74] came. Moreover the cited place of Fredegar is quite obscure In Dom Bouquet, volume II, page 427.: In the fifteenth year of the reign of Theuderic, while he was holding the Alesaciones (the Alsatians), where he had been brought up, by the command of his father Childebert, he is invaded by Theudebert in barbarous fashion. Whence the two kings appoint a placitum, that it might be ended by the judgment of the Franks, at the fortress of Saloissa (Seltz, a town of Alsace Compare Adrien de Valois, Notitia Galliarum, page 495.): and Theuderic came there with only ten thousand scariti (soldiers). But Theudebert, with a great army of the Austrasians, comes on there wishing (thus) to join battle; and since Theuderic was surrounded on every side by the army of Theudebert, Theuderic, constrained and compelled, terrified with fear, confirmed the Alsatians to Theudebert by the bond of a compact, and was seen to have lost also the Suggentenses and the Turenses and the Campanenses, whom he often reclaimed. Dom Bouquet, in the place cited, interprets the Suggentenses as the inhabitants of the Sundgau in present-day Alsace, the Turenses as the people of the Thurgau in Switzerland, and the Campanenses finally as a certain people still unknown, yet neighbouring on the former Compare Schoepflin, Alsatia Illustrata, volume I, page 640.. From the words of Fredegar it cannot be certainly deduced that Alemannia was wrested by force from Theoderic by Theodebert, especially since, apart from the Alsatians, it is not in every respect certain what peoples precisely Fredegar meant by the Suggentenses, etc.

§ VII. The deeds of St. Gall in Alemannia.

In Alemannia Saints Columban and Gall Old Alemannia was formerly bounded by the Rhine, the Danube, and the Main. But as the Western empire grew old, when its borders lay open on every side to the incursions of nations, the Alemanni too, besides other regions occupied by war, having crossed the Rhine, extended their dominion toward the south through Switzerland as far as the lake Lemannus, as appears from St. Isidore of Seville, Origins, book IX Compare Schoepflin, Commentarius de Alemannicis Antiquitatibus, page 172.. At the time when St. Columban began to inhabit Alemannia, namely about the year 610, these peoples, by the testimony of Fredegar, chapter XXXVIII, cited above, attack the district of Avenches among the Transjurans in hostile fashion, plunder everything, lead an exceeding multitude of very many men thence into captivity, and, returning with booty, proceed to their own homes. Theuderic, on account of these injuries, thereafter entered upon counsel with entire assiduity as to how he might overwhelm Theudebert. This, therefore, was the state of Alemannia which St. Gall undertook to cultivate, first with St. Columban, then alone; civil war was raging until Clothaire gained possession of the kingdom of all the Gauls. Thereafter a more tranquil age flowed on, which profited very much the propagation and confirmation of the Christian religion in that nation.

[76] first St. Columban first determined to dwell around the lake of Zürich, by the testimony of Walafrid in the Life of St. Gall, chapter IV: Having received, therefore, from the king (Theodebert) leave to choose a place wherever they wished, when they had surveyed very many places, they came down into the parts of Alemannia to the river which is called Lindimacus. Going up beside it they came to the lake of Zürich. And when, walking along the shore, they had come to the head of that lake, to the place which is called Tucconia, the quality of the place pleased them for dwelling. The Lindimacus is a river (called today by the people die Limmat, die Linth) which flows from the district of Glarus into the lake of Zürich and thence into the Arola (die Aar). At the mouth of the Lindimacus, and therefore at the head of the lake, is situated Tucconia, today Tuggen. Wrongly therefore

Jean Mabillon, in the place cited and in his Annals Book X, § LI, volume I, page 269., interprets Tucconia as Tugium, Zug. He cites indeed Goldast as author of his opinion Rerum Alamannicarum, volume I, page 250., but Goldast himself seems to doubt, since it is uncertain to him whether the Lindimacus is the same river which is today called the Limmat. However that may be, the Tugium of which Mabillon speaks is a town adjacent to the lake of the same name; but our Tucconia, as we said above, is situated on the lake of Zürich (Lac de Zurich).

[77] around the lake of Zürich, Muratori, in the Italian Antiquities of the middle age Volume I, page 277, Milan edition 1773., while he tries to correct Jean Mabillon, falls into another error: The most distinguished Mabillon thinks, he says, that by the name of the lake of Zürich is to be understood that which is now called Lago di Zurigo; but that Tucconia, or Tuggen, is no other region than that which is now called Zug, relying on the authority of Goldast, who writes the like. But whether these things are right it will be for those to observe who know more intimately the chorography and learning of Switzerland. For neither is Zug situated on the lake of Turegum or Zurigum; and, contrary to what Goldast judged, the word Tucconia seems rather to show the land of Toggenburg, for which a few years ago a sharp war blazed up between the Zürich republic and the abbot of St. Gall; nay, as Martin Gerbert more truly has it in his History of the Black Forest Volume II, page 466., between the Catholic and Protestant cantons, on account of the Protestant subjects of the County of Toggenburg who were rebels against the abbot of St. Gall. But to return to our matter, no mention of the county of Toggenburg occurs to me about these times; nor does this seem surprising, if the conjecture of Ildefons von Arx in the History of the District of St. Gallen Geschichte des Cantons St. Gallen, volume I, page 245. is approved; namely that that name is derived from a man called Tocho, so that it should be called Tocho's burg: just as in the Codex Diplomaticus Alemanniæ of Trudpert Neugart Charter CXXXI, page 114. there occurs Tachinwillare, or Tocho's dwelling, today Toggweil in the district of Zürich.

[78] they dwell at Wangen, But the Charter itself, written barbarously, and brought forward by Muratori Antiquitates, volume I, page 276., which Trudpert Neugart also has Charter CCCVI, page 251. under the year 844, while Muratori brings it forward at the year 880, settles the whole matter. In it St. Columban is said once to have dwelt at Wangæ, which place, today Wangen, adjoins the present rural parish of Tuggen. Behold the words of the diploma: I, in the name of God, Wolfarth, it has pleased me in my mind that I ought to give something of my goods for the remedy of my soul and of my parents, which also I have so done. That is, in the district of Thurgau, in the place which is called Wangas, near the march (Neugart: marca) of Rætia, a Basilica built, where St. Columban once wished to dwell with his men, now, God helping, grants us to have Relics of his holy body… Moreover I will add (I will add) whatever came to me from Riker in the march of Tuccunnia, with all its entirety… Done publicly in the place which is called Wangas, where the church itself is built in honour of St. Columban, in the presence of those whose signs are contained here… In the fifth year of the reign of King Louis, and under Count Ato, on the eighth day before the Ides of August. I, the unworthy Cunpert, priest, wrote and subscribed. No doubt therefore can remain that the Tucconia which is treated of in each Life of St. Gall is the place called by the present name Tuggen, at the head of the lake of Zürich, where the Lindimacus flows in, and bordering on Wangen, the dwelling of St. Columban.

[79] then The dwelling of the holy men in Tucconia was not long; for when they tried to recall the inhabitants of this place from the worship of idols, they were forced to depart. They therefore go to the Fortress of Arbon, called by the ancients Arbor Felix, and placed on the southern edge of the lake Potamicus (today of Constance), received by Willimar, priest of the place: by whom they are directed to Brigantium, a certain ruined city near those places toward the east. The abbot Columban, says Walafrid in the Life of St. Gall, chapter VI, asked the priest whether he knew any place in the solitude in which a little cell could be made, somewhat suitable for regular observances. The host of the Saints answered this inquiry: "In this solitude there is a certain place preserving among its ruins traces of ancient building, where the soil is rich and fit for fruitful yields, mountains lofty round about, a vast wilderness overhanging the town, an abundant plain does not deny the fruit of labour to those seeking sustenance." When therefore they desired to go there, the priest prepared a small boat and put rowers in it. And the venerable abbot, embarking on the ship with his companions Gall and a certain deacon, having invoked the name of the Lord, came by a straight course to the desired place.

[80] at Brigantium Having gone out of the boat they found an oratory built in honour of St. Aurelia, which Blessed Columban afterwards restored to its former honour. After prayer, when they had surveyed everything round about, the quality and situation of the places pleased them. Then, prayer having been offered first, they made for themselves little dwellings around the oratory. I have preferred to cite these things from Walafrid because they can be compared with the Life of the Anonymous to be published below. They seem, however, unable to stand with what Jonas narrates in the Life of St. Columban, number 53; for he says: Then they come to a place which the man of God, travelling over it, said did not please his mind, but yet he pledged that he would stay there a little while for the sake of sowing faith in them. This place Jean Mabillon Acta SS. of the Order of St. Benedict, second century, page 26. interprets as Tucconia, as, he says, is mentioned from Walafrid Strabo below in the Life of St. Gall, chapter IV. But, with the leave of the most learned man I should say, what Jonas narrates in what follows about the same place cannot suit Tucconia. For in Tucconia Columban laboured without any fruit, while the preaching at Brigantium brought forth abundant fruits.

[81] with greater fruit That the evangelical mission in Tucconia was sterile Walafrid demonstrates in the Life of St. Gall, chapter IV, where, after he had narrated that the shrines were destroyed and the offerings sunk in the lake, he continues: Moved by which cause, the gentiles pursued the saints with anger and envy, and by common counsel wished to kill Gall, and to drive Columban, beaten with scourges and treated with insults, from their borders… After this, not terrified by fear of persecution, but persuaded by love of spiritual gain, he left the sterile crowd of the contumacious, lest he should vainly water dry hearts any longer, he who might meanwhile very greatly profit well-disposed minds. Going on thence, therefore, with his men, he came to the fortress which is called Arbon. These things abundantly prove that all the labours of St. Columban in Tucconia were in vain. But Jonas, in the place cited, after he had said that the place did not please the man of God, nevertheless adds: Many of them therefore were then, through the persuasion of the blessed man, converted to the teaching and to the faith of Christ and obtained baptism, and others also, whom, though already washed in the laver, profane error was holding back, he, as a good shepherd of the church, brought back by his admonitions to the worship of the evangelical teaching, the seeds having been scattered… While Columban, therefore, was occupied with his men near the city of Brigantia, a time of hard want came upon them. The place, therefore, which the man of God said did not please his mind is Brigantium, from which he brought back an ample harvest. And so Claude Fleury, who in his Ecclesiastical History Histoire de l'Église, book XXXVII, § VII. mentions the people of Tucconia converted by the preaching of St. Columban, openly contradicts Walafrid and the Anonymous author of the Life of St. Gall.

[82] the gospel But if Jonas must be understood of the dwelling at Brigantium, another difficulty emerges, namely how Walafrid says that the quality and situation of the places pleased them, which Jonas, as we have seen, asserts displeased him. But these things are easily composed if we consider the text of Walafrid and the Anonymous. For all who have written of the Alemannic journey of St. Columban agree in this, that he by no means wished to remain there. Walafrid sets out the matter accurately, chapter III: And when he asked him (Theodebert) that by his command he might be conducted through Alemannia to Agilulf, king of the Lombards, the king, taking ill the departure of such men, promised them that he would find within the bounds of his kingdom charming places, which would be both convenient for the servants of God to inhabit and opportune for instructing the surrounding nations with the word of truth. The man of God, desiring to plant the seed of the word in the hearts of the nations, promised that he would stay a little while. These last words Jonas also has, number 51: If you will furnish the support of your promise … know that I shall stay for a little while, and shall test whether I shall be able to sow faith in the hearts of the neighbouring nations.

[83] they preach, But with this promise there stood unmoved in St. Columban the plan of going to Agilulf in Italy: this our Anonymous clearly demonstrates at number 4, when he says that St. Columban answered Theodebert that he was willing to comply with his petition, but yet, holding firmly to the journey he had determined (into Italy), he was by no means willing to give it up. The dwelling at Brigantium therefore did not please Columban, because he had resolved to go to Italy; but the same also pleased him as an improvised dwelling, to be left shortly, in which nevertheless he could lead the monastic life which he had vowed, and from which he could go out to preach the gospel of Christ to the neighbouring peoples.

[84] and, the idols destroyed, John Lanigan, in the Ecclesiastical History of Ireland History of Ireland, volume I, page 288., carps at Claude Fleury Histoire Ecclésiastique, book XXXVII, § VII. and Jean Mabillon Annales, book X, § LII, volume I, page 269., who think that the oratory of St. Aurelia, around which Columban and his companions made for themselves little dwellings, and the temple in which three gilded images or idols were fixed, were the same building. As far as, he says (I render his English words into Latin), I understand Walafrid, from whom this narrative is taken, that temple was pagan, or at least, when Columban came to Brigantium, assigned to the uses of pagans. It may perhaps once have been a Christian church, to which the oratory of St. Aurelia was adjacent. Walafrid seems to insinuate this, speaking of a sacred altar which, although neglected, was nevertheless found in the temple. Mabillon supposes that the temple was the church dedicated to St. Aurelia, and that it was reconciled by Columban. But if this is so, how does Walafrid say that Columban placed there the Relics of St. Aurelia? Certainly they were already there, if Mabillon's opinion is true. So John Lanigan.

[85] the Relics of St. Aurelia In my judgment, indeed, Fleury and Mabillon interpreted Walafrid rightly. For after he had said that Columban and his companions made little dwellings for themselves around the oratory, he adds: But they found in the temple three gilded bronze images fixed to the wall, which the people, having abandoned the worship of the altar, were adoring. The particle but, by its force, is referred to the oratory of which there had been talk. For the rest, the Anonymous at number 7 removes all doubt, who, narrating the same things, says of the church

of St. Aurelia that its former honour was restored. Behold his words: The brotherly band prepared dwellings for themselves there, and earnestly besought Christ for that place. Now superstitious heathenism worshipped there three bronze and gilded images, to which, rather than to the Creator of the world, it believed it should pay its vows. With the desire, namely, of destroying their superstition, the man of God Columban ordered Gall to recite a discourse to the people, because he excelled among the others in the charm of Latinity, and also knew the idiom of that nation… Therefore, in the sight of all, he (Gall) broke the images, taken down, with stones, and threw them into the depth of the sea (the lake). Then therefore part of the people, confessing their sins, believed, and part, angry and indignant, went away in fury. For the man of God Columban also blessed water, and, sanctifying the contaminated places, restored to the church of St. Aurelia its former honour. What Walafrid therefore narrates of the temple the Anonymous attributes to the oratory of St. Aurelia, so that no doubt remains that they were one and the same.

[86] they replace in the altar: The difficulty, however, which Lanigan raises from the fact that St. Columban is said to have placed the Relics in the temple, and that therefore the temple was one thing, the oratory another, is easy of solution. For Walafrid does not say that the Blessed man brought the Relics of St. Aurelia into the temple, but placed them in the altar, which, formerly neglected, is now restored to its former honour. The manner also deserves to be noted by archæologists and students of liturgical matters in which Walafrid, chapter VI, relates the expiation of the temple, performed by Columban in an almost pontifical manner: But Blessed Columban ordered water to be brought, and blessing it, sprinkled the temple with it, and while they went round singing psalms, he dedicated the church. Then, the name of the Lord having been invoked, he anointed the altar and placed in it the Relics of Blessed Aurelia, and, the altar having been vested, they duly completed the Masses. All things having thus been rightly performed, the people returned to their homes with joy. Of St. Aurelia it is not pertinent to speak; in this very volume VII of October, on the preceding day, our Jacques Bue has accurately collected what pertains to this Saint. What Schoepflin, however, objected Alsatia Illustrata, volume I, page 341., Anselm Berthod learnedly removed in the Life of St. Pantalus at the 12th day of October Volume VI of October, page 65 and following..

[87] this foundation at Brigantium, at first improvised This foundation at Brigantium passed to holy nuns, if credence is to be given to what our Predecessors relate at the 30th day of January in the Life of St. Haberilla Volume II, page 1033.. This monastery, situated in a most pleasant place at the inflow of the river of Brigantium into the lake of Constance, is called here and there White Augia (Weissenau) and Greater Augia (Mehrerau); because there is another White Augia, which for distinction is called Lesser Augia (Minderau). That the monastery of Greater Augia was formerly double, namely of men and of women, our Bolland writes with some doubt, following, as he himself says, Crusius, Annals of Swabia, at the year 1097 Volume II, part II, page 297., and Brusch in the Monastic Chronology Page 10.. Crusius indeed says: In the year 1098, the nuns having been abolished, Udalric, count of the Rhætians and of Brigantia, made it an abbey of monks. Jean Mabillon Annales Benedictini, book LXIX, § LXXXII, volume V, page 363. ascribes the foundation of the monastery to Udalric, as though it had then first begun to be founded, which existed long before this time, as may be seen in the Gallia Christiana Volume V, column 970., in which many abbots are numbered before this year. Franz Petrus in the Suevia Ecclesiastica Page 199. and Brusch in the place cited say that the abbey was renewed by Udalric, not founded. For the rest, that, as Brusch and Crusius will have it, the monastery was common to monks and nuns, I for my part find no argument by which the opinion may be supported. There were, as the catalogues in the Gallia Christiana in the place cited give credence, at the beginning abbesses, afterwards abbots: I see a succession, but by no means a confusion.

[88] under St. Columban, In the History of the literary affairs of the Order of St. Benedict, Oliver Legipont Volume IV, page 539., whom Alban Butler in the Lives of the Saints at the 21st of November seems to approve by his reckoning, makes St. Columban the founder of Greater Augia at Brigantium, and adduces as guarantor of his opinion Apronian Huber, prior of the monastery of Brigantium; who obtained from the Sacred Congregation of Rites that the feast of St. Columban should thenceforth be celebrated in his monastery under the double rite of the first class with an Octave: and moreover Clement XII granted plenary indulgences in perpetuity to those visiting the church of Augia on the feast of the same Saint. I could not procure for myself the writing of Apronian Huber; but in my judgment, from the letter given to Legipont, Apronian proved nothing else than that St. Columban inhabited Brigantium, and that indeed for three years, which we have shown above at number 67 must be narrowed at least to two years. Nor did he obtain anything else from the Sacred Congregation of Rites, which permitted that in the lessons of the second Nocturn on the 24th of November, after the words he settled at the lake of Brigantium, which are had in the monastic breviary, the following should be added: Here, the idols having been cast out, he expiated with solemn rite the church of St. Aurelia, profaned by the worship of vain gods. Thereafter, a cell having been built near the same church, having stayed with his fellow-soldiers almost three years, he removed the superstitions of the heathens throughout those places; thence, compelled by the gentiles to go into exile, he set out into Italy …, etc. These things agree excellently with the history of Saints Columban and Gall: but they by no means ascribe the foundation of the monastery of Augia to St. Columban.

[89] it afterwards became permanent by the work of St. Gall, With stronger right the foundation at Brigantium seems to be ascribed to St. Gall. For the older records of the monastery of Augia point to him, inasmuch as he gave the monastic garment to St. Haberilla or Habrilia, and set her over the others as superior. Our Bolland, at the 30th of January in the place cited, reports an inscription so obliterated by age that it cannot now be read. Those who had read it reported that its sense was this: Blessed Haberilla, hermit, afterwards of the Order of St. Benedict, abbess of her cell, served God with many sacred virgins. She received the habit from the hands of St. Gall, who at that time was staying at Brigantium with other disciples and companions; and, buried here, she is renowned for many miracles. The foundation at Brigantium is also confirmed to St. Gall from the fact that St. Columban never had it in mind, as we saw above at number 83, to remain in Alemannia, nay did not even wish that even one of his comrades should stay there, since only the illness of St. Gall prevented his departure. Since these things are so, who would think that St. Columban, a prudent man, founded a monastery to be shortly abandoned without any consolation or counsel, in the midst of a nation still barbarous and not entirely converted?

[90] to whom therefore the title of founder belongs. These weighty reasons seem to me so strong that they take away all credence from the narrative of Apronian Huber, if indeed he tried to prove the opinion which Franz Petrus brings forward in the Suevia Ecclesiastica in the place cited: that St. Columban put his hand to founding a new monastery, and indeed according to the norm of that of Luxeuil, for establishing a perpetual (as they then thought) dwelling in that place. Nor does the decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, granting the feast, etc., patronize this thesis. For it is certain from Roman practice that the Sacred Congregation by the grant of an Office, and the Roman Pontiff by indulgences, by no means hold as ratified the historical opinions set forth in the prayers presented: as may be seen in Prospero Lambertini, On the Beatification and Canonization of the servants of God Book IV, part II, chapter X, number 18, and chapter XXV, number 54., and in our remarks on the Life of St. Dionysius, Bishop, 9th of October Volume IV of October, page 970, number 73.. For obtaining these graces the piety of the monks of Augia and of the people of Brigantium would have sufficed, which is wont above all to move the Roman Pontiff and the sacred tribunals.

§ VIII. St. Gall inhabits the wilderness, heals Fridiburga, daughter of Duke Cunzo, and refuses the episcopate of Constance.

St. Columban, setting out for Italy, Each Author of the Life of St. Gall writes: When the time of setting out (for Italy) was at hand, I use the words of Walafrid, chapter IX, a sudden fever attacked Blessed Gall. Whence, throwing himself at the feet of his abbot, he indicated that he was labouring under a violent illness, and therefore could not accomplish the proposed journey. But he, thinking that he, detained by love of the place on account of the labours completed there, was shirking the labour of a longer journey, says to him: "I know, brother, that it is already burdensome to you to be wearied with such labours for me: nevertheless, as I am about to depart, I announce this, that, while I live in the body, you presume not to celebrate Mass." And when he had given him leave to live by himself, he entered upon the way of departing. The Anonymous has the same as to the sense, at number 9; yet St. Columban seems to have mitigated the brevity and so the severity of his answer by the very serenity of his countenance: for the Anonymous has: With cheerfulness of mind he said: "If you do not wish to become a sharer of my labours, you shall not celebrate Mass in my days."

[92] leaves St. Gall, sick and forbidden the Holy Sacrifice, John Lanigan rejects this narrative as fabulous History of Ireland, volume II, page 291., led chiefly by two reasons: because Columban was not one who would easily be deceived, or think ill of so holy and dear a friend; and next because Jonas, older and of far greater authority than Walafrid, narrates nothing of the kind. So Lanigan: whose reasons, however, are not of such weight that we should call into doubt a thing not only narrated by two writers of the Life, of whom one was nearly contemporary, but also recorded in the Life of St. Deicolus at the 18th of January Volume II of January, page 202, number 11.; nay, St. Gall himself alleges this interdict of St. Columban, lest he should be taken up against his will to the see of Constance, as Walafrid, chapter XIX, and the Anonymous, number 19, narrate. First of all, the silence of Jonas proves nothing, because it proves too much. He does not say that St. Gall remained in Alemannia; yet, contrary to the mind of Lanigan himself, it would be concluded that the holy man passed over into Italy. Next, this penalty inflicted by St. Columban, since it touched rather the Acts of St. Gall, is deservedly passed over in silence by Jonas, who for the rest has not many things about him.

[93] in Alemannia: The other reason, by which it is insinuated that St. Columban could not easily have been deceived, is of no great moment: for who, however holy, shrewd, prudent, does not sometimes suffer something human? let the controversy of St. Jerome with St. Augustine be an example to us. That it is not probable, however, that St. Columban thought ill of a dear and holy friend, I shall readily concede that he was convinced by St. Gall in brief words of the true and grave illness, and therefore departed from him in peace and charity: but whoever has saluted even from the threshold the books of the spiritual and monastic life which treat of the virtue of obedience will know that for the trial and merit of obedience the holier

men not rarely have grave penalties imposed on them, even on account of a defect that is not culpable: whence it is not to be wondered at that the penance inflicted by St. Columban persisted even after peace had been restored.

[94] he, his health restored, After the departure, says Walafrid, chapter IX, of his master and companions, Gall, putting his nets and his seine into a ship (for he was occupied with fishing by office in the improvised monastery of Brigantium, chapter VI), came to the priest Willimar, and when he had offered him the nets, amid tears and sighs he unfolded all the things that had been done concerning his brethren. Then, disclosing the causes of his illness, he asked him to deign to take care of him. He, receiving him with every service of charity, granted a house near his church for his need, and commended this solicitude to his two clerics, Magnoald and Theodore, that they should serve his recovery with all diligence. Some days having passed, the Lord, who is the true physician, imparting a remedy, he began to take food, and, strengthened by increments of time, attained perfect health. In the Life of St. Magnus, who is the same as the Magnoald here praised, at the 6th of September Volume II of September, page 700., he is said to be an Irishman of royal blood, and indeed to have crossed over from Ireland with St. Columban already a monk. The Preface of the song on St. Gall asserts the same of St. Magnus and Theodore Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ, volume II, page 33.. These things our men have already refuted in the cited Life of St. Magnus Page 715, number 75.. The Anonymous agrees with Walafrid at number 10, who says that it was ordered by Willimar to the two clerics Maginold and Theodore that they should have the solicitude for him (Gall). If they had been companions of St. Columban, they would rather have been called monks than clerics.

[95] and, with the deacon Hiltebold as guide, Before we come nearer to the dwelling of St. Gall in the wilderness, it will be worth while to put before the eyes the history itself, as it is related by Walafrid, chapter X and following: for it is entangled with many difficulties, so that some things are rejected as fabulous by more recent writers. The deacon, therefore, of the often-mentioned priest (Willemar), named Hiltebold, knew all the paths and retreats of the wilderness; for he was accustomed very often to wander through the solitude for the sake of catching fish and hawks, and to learn the secret places by daily use. When the holy man had granted him the favour of his familiarity, he asked him whether he had ever found in the solitude a place abounding in pure and healthful waters, spread with a plain and suitable for human cultivation. "I burn," he said, "with the desire of a fervent mind, longing to spend in solitude the days granted to this life, according to what the Psalmist pronounces, saying: Lo, I have gone far off flying away, and I abode in the wilderness. I waited for Him that should save me," and the rest. The deacon answered: "This solitude, O Father, is flooded with frequent waters, terrible with roughness, full of very high mountains, winding with narrow valleys, possessed by most savage beasts.

[96] a suitable solitude For besides stags and herds of harmless animals, it breeds very many bears, innumerable boars, wolves exceeding number, singular in ferocity. I fear therefore lest, if I lead you there, you be devoured by enemies of this kind." To these things the holy man said: "It is the sentence of the Apostle: If God be for us, who is against us? And: We know that to them that love God all things work together unto good. He who delivered Daniel from the lions' den can also snatch me from the hand of the beasts." To whom the deacon answered these words: "Put food into your wallet and a very small net, for tomorrow I will lead you into the wilderness; and if you find a place acceptable to you, give thanks to God, and fulfil the rigour of the Lord's command…" Therefore the blessed man remained fasting on that same day, and spent the night in prayers until the dawn of the next day… But when the morning star by its advance had uncovered the hiding-places of the night … the athlete of God, taking with him the things which his guide had mentioned, with the blessing of prayer, he going before, set out on the way. And when they had been travelling the whole day, about the ninth hour the deacon said: "Father, the hour of refreshment is now at hand, let us take a little bread and water." But the man of God would not then take any food, which example of penance the deacon professed that he would imitate.

[97] he seeks and finds: These things having been said, they began to make their way with haste, because the day was already declining… They came to a certain small river which is named the Stemaha (Steinaha): and walking along its course, when they had come to a rock from which it, descending with force, makes a spacious pool, where they saw very many fish, and setting their nets, they caught them. Then, a fire having been kindled, the deacon roasted the fish and placed the bread upon the wallet. But Blessed Gall, while he had separated himself a little from him for the sake of praying, walking among the thick thickets of brambles, and catching his foot, fell to the ground. Seeing which, the deacon ran up to lift up the fallen one. But the man of God, foreknowing things to come, said: "Let me be; this is my rest for ever and ever; here will I dwell, for I have chosen it." And when after prayer he had risen, taking a hazel rod, he made a cross and fixed it in the ground. Now he had hanging from his neck a little box in which were contained Relics of the Blessed Mother of God, Mary, and of the holy Martyrs Maurice and Desiderius. When he had hung this on the cross itself, he called the deacon, and they prostrated themselves together in prayer… The prayer finished … they took food with thanksgiving, and, again giving thanks to God, they laid themselves on the ground that they might rest a little…

[98] but shortly, The night having passed … the deacon said: "My father, what are we to do today?" And he answered: "I beseech you, son, do not take ill what I say. Since the Lord has caused us to find what we sought, let us spend this day also in the place." The day having passed, St. Gall persevered in prayer with the deacon for three days more. On the fourth day, therefore, going out of the wilderness, he revisited the priest's house, and amid the offices of friendly greeting he paid with due praise thanks to God for all the good things which He had shown him. The priest, receiving him with joy, ordered the table to be laid… From that day onward they held him as a prophet and a holy man, measuring daily the greatness of his merits by the harshness of his life and his zeal for virtues. Meanwhile, while they were dwelling together, a messenger came to the priest indicating that the bishop of Constance, named Gaudentius, had departed this life. Having heard this, with unanimous fervour they persisted in prayers and tears for the rest of the deceased Pastor. On the seventh day after this a letter of Duke Gunzo came to the priest, ordering him to come on the twelfth day to the village of Iburningæ, and to bring the man of God with him. For a malignant spirit had invaded his daughter, named Fridiburga, who was his only one, shining with singular beauty… For this cause her father sent messengers to King Sigebert, son of Theoderic, who had her betrothed, to announce to him whatever was happening concerning the girl.

[99] by Duke Gunzo But the king with all haste sent two pontiffs, in whose merits he chiefly trusted, with royal gifts to the girl, that they might heal her by the medicine of prayers from the sickness of mad fury. The priest Willimar, therefore, wishing to come to the duke at the time defined by the letter, said to the most Blessed Gall: "You know the duke's command: let us go to him." And he said: "This journey is yours, not mine. Do you therefore set out. What have I to do with the princes of the world? For I shall return to the wilderness whence I came out." "Do not do so," he said, "but go with me, lest perhaps the duke, who is excessively saddened by the vexation of his daughter, moved by anger, send attendants and cause you to be led there bound." The man full of God answered: "I shall go first to my little cell, that I may provide for the advantage of the brethren who are to serve the Lord there." He said this for this reason, that he might not go to the prince. And rising, the excellent soldier of the Lord made for the place of the dwelling chosen before. On the following day he forbade the brethren who were with him that any of them should indicate to anyone whither he was going. But even if they had been rather curiously questioned by anyone, he ordered that they should say that he had been invited to Italy by a letter of his master. Having said these things, taking with him two of his disciples, he went through the solitude to Rætia of Chur. And when they crossed the nearest mountain, they came into the wilderness which is named Sennia, and thence, going off to the nearest village, which is called Quaradaves, they found there John the deacon, a just man and fearing God: and he received them in hospitality and cherishes them with every service of humanity. For they pretended that they had come from afar, and stayed with him seven days.

[100] is called, though unwilling, Further, when the aforesaid priest, the host of the Saints, had heard that the man of God had departed from his cell, embarking on a ship, he crossed over to the duke, and indicated what had been done concerning the man of God. The duke commanded him to return quickly, and, envoys having been sent after the man of God, to ask him devoutly (he asked?) to come. And adding: "For if," he said, "through his prayer the Lord shall free my daughter from the demon, I will give him the pontificate of the Church of Constance, and moreover will honour him with copious gifts of rewards." He, promising that he would act as he was ordered, if anywhere he could find him who was desired, seeking a raft, returned home. The king meanwhile had sent two bishops, who were able to confer no help by their prayers on the suffering girl. But the priest, when, according to the command of the duke, he had followed the man of God hard on his tracks, found him in a cave, feeding his mind with the consolation of reading: and approaching he greeted him humbly, and said to him: "Do not fear, servant of God, to come to the duke: for under the testimony of an oath he has promised that he will inflict no injury on you: nay, when you shall have placed your hand upon the girl's head, and the unclean spirit shall have departed from her through your prayers, he will raise you to the honour of the pontificate in the see of Constance." St. Gall at length goes to the duke, and after prayer, in the sight of those who were present, there went out of the girl's mouth as it were a very black bird, terrible in its horror. At the same hour she rose up well, and was restored rejoicing by the man of God to her rejoicing mother.

[101] and, the Duke's daughter healed, These things having been thus accomplished, the duke ordered that the gifts which the King had sent to the girl should be offered to him, and moreover asked that he would deign to assume the summit of the grade of the pontificate. To which the blessed man answered thus: "While my Lord and Father Columban lives, I shall not usurp the forbidden office of the altar unless permitted by him. Wherefore I cannot undergo the weight of this government which you offer: but if you desire this to be done without doubt, wait meanwhile until I send a letter to my abbot to make known to him your will: and if I learn of his permission, then at last I shall undertake the offered burden of pastoral care." And the duke said to him: "You have spoken well; let it be according to your word." And he dismissed him in peace. St. Gall, having distributed

the royal gifts of gold and silver to the poor, and a monastery having been built by the work of the prefect of Arbon, sent a letter to John the deacon, asking him to come to him. He, when he had received the letter of his beloved master, brought what he could offer as a blessing… When he asked the holy man about the prosperity of his journey (to Überlingen), he answered: "The divine mercy going before and following us, all things have turned out prosperously. For the prince received us with the utmost gratitude, and God snatched his daughter from the demon, and he himself gave us no small gifts, and moreover offered me the honour of the episcopate: but I did not consent to undertake it before the command of my abbot. Therefore, son, acquiesce in my counsels; be with me, and read the books of divine knowledge, and I will teach you, the grace of God cooperating, the understanding of the Scriptures." The deacon fell at his feet giving thanks, and caused the boys who had come with him to return home; but he himself remained with the venerable man, and he began to lead him into the storerooms of the Scriptures, showing him the hidden things of the new and old Testament. Illumined therefore by heavenly clemency, he profited by the persistence of so great a mastership, so that, nobly learned in the whole breadth of divine scripture, he showed the fruits of the fatherly labour.

[102] the episcopate of Constance Walafrid then narrates how Fridiburga, brought to Sigebert, his consent being added, by the counsel of St. Gall preferred the heavenly spouse to the earthly: At the same time, continues Walafrid, John the deacon, persevering with the venerable father, drank with thirsting zeal the prudence which abounded in him from heaven, at least in the solution of difficult questions of divine Scripture and in the reasoning of the undefiled faith… Illumined by divine grace, whatever he perceived either by sight or by hearing he swiftly set in his deep memory and (if I may so say) in the cupboard of his heart, and he spent three years under the discipline of this mastership with every safeguard of meekness and humility. After this the often-mentioned duke, by his letter, asked the man of God to come to the town of Constance for choosing a prelate who should be set over the same see. He summoned also the bishops of Autun and Verdun with a multitude of clerics. He caused the bishop of Nemidona also, which is called Spira by the moderns, to come; and also, by his messengers and letters, he ordered the priests, deacons, and all the bodies of clerics of all Alemannia generally to come together at Constance on the named day, the Sunday next to Easter: he himself also, with his princes and counts, was present at this assembly.

[103] to John his disciple And when this synod was being celebrated with the attendance of so great a multitude, and it was announced that it would last the space of three days, the most Blessed Gall, full of divine counsel, taking John and Magnoald, raised to the office of the diaconate, went on to the town; and when he had entered the place of the council, the Duke … admonished the Pontiffs and all the clergy that, according to the most wholesome decrees of the Canons, they should provide a ruler for the Church. And all the clerics began to say to one another: "This Gall has a good testimony from all who have known his life: in the divine Scriptures he holds the summit of knowledge, and in all honesty of life he shines with the light of wisdom; to justice of life he joins chastity of body, he possesses meekness with humility, and to saving continence he joins patience. He is a giver of alms, a father of orphans, eager in the consolation of widows. It is fitting that this follower of all virtues be the shepherd of the peoples." Having heard these things, the duke said to him: "Do you hear what these are saying and affirming?" The holy Father answered: "They speak well indeed; would that what they profess were true. But when they discuss such things among themselves, they do not know that it is forbidden in the Canons that any, migrating from their own places, be easily ordained in other places. But there is with me a certain deacon named John, a native of the neighbouring places, to whom the testimony which these have given me can deservedly be fitted. Believing him chosen by divine judgment, I offer him to you to be promoted."

[104] transfers. And when by this attestation the most holy man stirred up the love of all toward John (for they could believe nothing else of him than what the man dear to God asserted), the duke caused the deacon to come into the midst. "Are you," he said, "John the deacon?" And he answered: "I am indeed." "Whence," he said, "do you draw the offshoot of your race?" And he said: "In Rætia of Chur I was begotten of a middling dignity of birth." And the duke said to him: "Can you undergo the weight of the pontifical mitre?" Then the venerable Gall promised that he would answer for his son. And while they were discussing these things in a mutual commerce of speeches, the deacon withdrew himself, and, fleeing, sought a hiding-place in the church of St. Stephen the Martyr, which is outside the town. But the priests with the people followed, and, having seized him, bathed in happy tears, though resisting, they dragged him into the presence of the pontiffs and the duke, and all lifted up their voice together, saying: "The Lord has chosen John for Himself as pontiff today." And all the people answered: "Amen." The bishops therefore led him to the altar and ordained him prelate with the solemn office of benediction. Walafrid then relates that St. Gall made a speech to the crowded clergy and people, John the bishop interpreting in the vernacular, and at length concludes a rather long narrative with these words: The master with fatherly solicitude cherished his disciple with prayers and wholesome counsel, and he relieved his teacher with fatherly honour and every aid of his necessities. And so the sacred fellowship of the pious grew with increased honour and was commended by multiplied love.

[105] the nuptials of Fridiburga, There are not a few things in this history which savour of something fabulous, or can with difficulty be reconciled with chronology and history. Therefore it was needful to put the series of facts before the eyes; and it will be helpful to compare it with the narrative of the Anonymous, which differs not much from Walafrid. First of all the learned banish to the fables the nuptials of Fridiburga with Sigebert, son of Theoderic, too young to take a wife. Next, from Walafrid's narrative it would follow that the see of Constance was vacant at least for three years; for St. Gall, fleeing into Rætia, lest he be compelled to go to the court of Gunzo, who had promised the episcopate if he should cure his daughter, meets John the deacon, whom, instructed for three years, he proposes for promotion to the episcopal dignity. All these things are so entangled that not even the most distinguished men, says Trudpert Neugart Episcopatus Constantiensis, page 34., Valois, Mabillon, Le Cointe, Schoepflin, Gerbert, could reduce them to order. So it was permissible to think freely so long as Walafrid was believed to be the author of the narrative; for since he was two centuries distant from St. Gall, anyone could easily persuade himself that the history of St. Gall had been sprinkled with certain fables. But since the Anonymous, a hundred years older, reports the same facts, they are not to be denied; but rather it must be tried that they be reduced to that order which can be reconciled with the rest of history.

[106] two of the same name being excluded, The greatest difficulty is in the nuptials of Sigebert with Fridiburga, daughter of Gunzo. Of these nuptials Pseudo-Theodore in the Life of St. Magnus Volume II of September, page 741, number 19. says nothing at all; but only narrates that Fridiburga, the only daughter of Gunzo, was freed when possessed. This silence of the Acts would solve the tangled question excellently, were it not that they swarm with such foul faults whenever they desert Walafrid as guide. One must therefore adhere to this writer and the Anonymous, unless they lead us into manifest error. Further, there were about this time three royal princes distinguished with the name of Sigebert: yet the learned reckon that the things narrated by Walafrid can suit none of them. Mabillon, in the notes to the Life of St. Gall Second century, page 238, note b., prefers that Fridiburga was to marry Sigebert, son of Dagobert. But since these things happened before the death of St. Columban, namely before the year 615, as is evident from the answer of St. Gall refusing the episcopate, they cannot be attributed to Sigebert, son of Dagobert. If therefore the age of twelve stands in the way for Sigebert, son of Theoderic, the fact that Sigebert, son of Dagobert, was not yet born ought to stand in the way more: for by the testimony of Fredegar in the Chronicle, chapter LIX In Dom Bouquet, volume II, page 437., this Sigebert was brought to light in the eighth year of his father's reign, that is, in the year 629 or 630. Meurisse, Bishop of Madaura, in the History of the bishops of Metz Histoire des Évêques de Metz, page 104., says indeed that the betrothed of Fridiburga was Sigebert, son of Dagobert; that all the Diplomas of the Monastery of St. Martin designate him: but besides the reasons brought above he cites no diploma from which one could rightly judge. There was then in Gaul another Sigebert, afterwards, in the year 631, king of the East Angles, a man, says Bede Ecclesiastical History of the English, book III, chapter XVIII., good and religious, who long before, while he was in exile in Gaul fleeing the enmities of Redwald, received the laver of baptism, and, having returned to his homeland, etc. But, to say nothing of the age of this Sigebert, who, being younger by birth, succeeded his brother Eorpwald, who died in the flower of youth in the year 631, as king of the East Angles [Compare John Lingard, Histoire d'Angleterre, chapter II, volume I, page 104, Louvain edition.], what Walafrid relates also stands in the way: namely that the betrothed of Fridiburga was king of Austrasia, inasmuch as, having heard of her wonderful healing, he ordered, chapter XXI, a written confirmation to be made, that the holy man might hold by royal authority the place which he inhabited: similar things are had in other places, which point out that the betrothed of the virgin ruled over the Austrasians. But Sigebert the Englishman was an exile and fugitive.

[107] can stand These two Sigeberts being excluded, the third remains, the son of Theoderic. But to this one also his age of eleven or twelve years creates a prejudice, inasmuch as he, by the testimony of Fredegar in the Chronicle, chapter XXI Dom Bouquet, volume II, page 421., was born in the sixth or seventh year of his father's reign, that is, in the year 601 or 602. This age would indeed stand in the way of the consummation of marriage, but by no means of consent, which alone suffices that it be held a true, legitimate, and ratified marriage. Carlo Sebastiano Berardi says indeed in his Commentaries on Ecclesiastical Law Volume III, page 81. that the marriages of those below puberty began to be validated only about the end of the twelfth century: but the text of Nicholas I which is cited in the Decretals, chapter II, On the betrothal of those below puberty (IV 2), seems to have been corrupted, a final clause having been added: We more strictly forbid that any, of whom both or one have not reached the age determined by the laws or canons, be joined: unless perhaps, some most urgent necessity intervening, as for the good of peace, such a joining be tolerated. It is not of our purpose to inquire what weight there is in the reasons brought by the most learned Berardi, both in the place cited and in Gratian's Canons, chapter LXXVII. For they seem to be negative, unless that be brought forward as a positive argument which he says in his Commentaries in the place cited: By the law of nature all those are prohibited from contracting marriage who on account of age … cannot unite or give assent. He then asserts that for those below puberty, whether because true and perfect consent is lacking to them or the power of generating, an impediment stands in the way, which, since it is referred to the substance of marriage, is the cause that the marriage … is to be held wholly void.

[108] with Sigebert, son of Theoderic; These things seem to prove too much: for it would follow that not even today could the Church dispense in an impediment of this kind, inasmuch as it would pertain to the essence of the thing, and therefore to natural law: since therefore in present-day law nuptials contracted by those below puberty, whose age is such that they can give valid consent, are approved, it follows that this kind of impediment is to be referred to positive law, which the Church can change according to the opportuneness of times, places, and persons [Compare the Canonists passim; Schmalzgrueber, book IV of Ecclesiastical Law, title II, number 49.]. Certainly St. Augustine himself did not judge the marriage of one below puberty impossible, since, writing, as it seems, to Benenatus, a bishop, he says indeed in epistle CCLIV, otherwise CCXXXIII Works, volume II, page 881, Paris edition 1679., that the girl who was being sought in marriage was of such an age that, if she had the will to marry, she ought not yet to be given or promised to anyone; but he then adds other things, for example that it is not known whether she wishes to marry, that the girl has a maternal aunt whom it was needful to consult, finally that perhaps the mother too would appear, whose will in giving her daughter nature, as I judge, sets before all. By which last words he seems to insinuate that if the mother consented to the marriage, the marriage of the daughter below the years of puberty could be ratified.

[109] nor does the bridegroom's age of twelve stand in the way of these; An example of a marriage or betrothal of this kind also occurs in the contemporary Life of St. Gertrude, abbess of Nivelles, at the 17th of March Volume II of March, page 594, number 2.: This, says the biographer, was the first beginning of her election in the service of Christ, as we have learned through a just and truthful man who was present there: that when Pippin (of Landen), her father, had invited King Dagobert to a noble banquet in his house, there came there a pestilent man, son of a duke of the Austrasians, who asked of the king and of the girl's parents that the girl herself should be promised to him in marriage according to the custom of the world. (Another copy has: should be joined according to the dignity of the world.) For earthly ambition and mutual friendship it pleased the king; and he persuaded the girl's father that she should be called into his presence with her mother. And while they did not know for what cause the king was calling the child, she is asked by the king amid the feast whether she wished to have that boy, fashioned in gold and clothed in silks, as her betrothed. But she, as though filled with fury, rejected him with an oath and said: "That I wish to have neither him nor any other earthly one as betrothed, but Christ the Lord"; so that the king himself and his nobles greatly wondered at these things which had been said by a small girl by God's command. But that boy withdrew confounded, full of anger. St. Gertrude did these things at ten years of age Volume II, page 595, note c.; and therefore the twelve-year age of Sigebert seems not to stand in the way of his marriage contracted with Fridiburga. Nay, the canonists teach that there are cases in which malice supplies for age Chapter XIV, On the betrothal of those below puberty (IV. 2)., and that eleven years suffice for someone to be judged sometimes fit for marriage [Ferraris, Bibliotheca Canonica, at the word matrimonium, article II, number 22 and following, and number 35 and following; Schmalzgrueber, in the place cited, 52.].

[110] or of civil wars But besides the prejudice of age, Adrien de Valois heaps up other arguments against the nuptials of Sigebert Res Francicæ, volume II, page 571.: And even if, he says, we should gratuitously concede that he was of age, yet he could not have thought so quietly and securely of contracting marriage, attacked by Chlotar immediately after the death of his father Theoderic, sent by his great-grandmother Brunichild into Germany to the Thuringians, etc. These and the rest, which we shall examine afterwards, are not of such weight that they should lift away the authority of the Anonymous; especially if we consider in what state the affairs of Sigebert the Austrasian then were. From the Chronicle of Fredegar, chapter XXXIX Dom Bouquet, volume II, page 429., we have: Brunichild, Theoderic having died at Metz, strives to establish Sigebert in his father's kingdom. She sends envoys to Clotaire that he should withdraw from the kingdom of Theoderic; Clotaire answers that the controversy is to be settled by the judgment of the Franks. What wonder therefore that in these factions Brunechild and Sigebert sought patrons for themselves? that he sought as wife the daughter of Gunzo, duke of the Alemanni, a most warlike people? since by these nuptials he would have prepared for himself help and refuge. Certainly this case occurs, foreseen in canon law Chapter II, On the betrothal of those below puberty (IV. 2).: Some most urgent necessity intervening, … let such a joining be tolerated. The very uncertain state of Sigebert could have brought about nuptials which, in peaceful and tranquil affairs, ought to have been put off to another time.

[111] the present calamity. Valois objects another thing, that Gunzo, duke of Alemannia, sent his daughter Fridiburga to the king by the hands of counts. As though he were reluctant to bring her to his prince and lord, whose father-in-law he was to be: or as though the father, detained at home by no war, disdained to set out to Divodurum of the Mediomatrici and to be present at the nuptials of his daughter, so great and so illustrious, the affinity of the king being, if not despised, certainly not made much of… Valois amplifies these and other similar things: but he refutes himself when he says that Gunzo could not excuse his absence because he was detained at home by no war; for, as is established from Fredegar in the place cited, the whole controversy between Sigebert and Clotaire looked to arms: deservedly therefore Duke Gunzo was preparing war in Alemannia. Valois finally adds: But surely Sigebert, even if he had been of age, had to think of war and so of death rather than of marriage. If Sigebert had foreseen death very nearly at hand, perhaps he would not have thought of marriage: but who, I ask, is the king who, involved in war and about to join battle, foresees with certainty the slaughter of his army and so a bloody death? Certainly a warrior of this kind would place all the art of arms in avoiding battle. For the rest, although war was imminent, peace was still hoped to be confirmed by the judgment of the Franks. These are the things which Adrien de Valois opposed to the nuptials of Sigebert, son of Theoderic, with Fridiburga; and which, as they seem to me, have been conveniently refuted.

[112] John the bishop For the rest, I am not one to defend the whole series of the narrative of Walafrid and the Anonymous: for there are some things which cannot stand with historical truth. First of all each has that the mitre of Constance was promised to St. Gall if he should heal Fridiburga. But the episcopal see first fell vacant after three years. For the holy man, fleeing into Rætia lest he be compelled to go to the court of Gunzo, then first meets John the deacon, afterwards bishop of Constance, whom he prepared for the pastoral office for about three years. This promise therefore could not have been made by Gunzo: but since the Anonymous knew by tradition that the healing of Fridiburga afforded the occasion for St. Gall to be promoted to the episcopal see, inasmuch as he became known to Gunzo by this miracle; hence the fable of the promise was born. In the same way I think Walafrid erred when he says that Fridiburga was set over the monastery of St. Peter at Metz by her betrothed Sigebert, over which perhaps St. Waldrada still presided Compare Acta SS., volume II of May, page 51..

[113] about the year, as it seems, 615 These difficulties having been dispatched as far as possible, another question comes up, about the election of John to the chair of Constance: first of all it must be examined at what time both St. Gall refused the episcopate of Constance and John his disciple was promoted. Joseph Hartzheim in the Councils of Germany Volume I, page 24. marks the year 616, Crusius in the Annals of Swabia Book X, part I, chapter VI. the year 650; Le Cointe at the year 614; finally Trudpert Neugart refers the election of John Episcopatus Constantiensis, page 34. to the year 615. The praised Neugart and Hartzheim indeed cite Eckhart, as though he had bound the beginning of John's episcopate to the year 622 De rebus Franciæ Orientalis, volume I, book XI, number XVIII.: but wrongly, since he has nothing of the kind, but presents in one view the series of the life of St. Gall without any distinction of years. Crusius, in the place cited, does in fact have that John was made bishop in the year 650; but it is rather a fault of the typesetter than of the author: for he says that St. Gall died about the year 640; therefore John would have undertaken to rule the church ten years after the death of his master. Which altogether conflicts with history. It remains therefore that this election was made in the fourteenth, fifteenth, or sixteenth year of the seventh century. No suitable reason, however, occurs to me why I should prefer one of these years to another, except that the year 14 seems unable to stand with the three years which John spent in hearing St. Gall. If we could so insist on the narrative of the Anonymous and Walafrid that the several circumstances of the fact constituted historical weight, we should deservedly with Joseph Hartzheim attribute the consecration of John the bishop to the year 616. For St. Gall, who had first excused himself from undertaking the pontifical dignity on account of the interdict of his father Columban, then in the council of Constance refuses the offered mitre for this reason, that it was forbidden by the sacred Canons that strangers should be taken up as bishops, no mention being made of the interdict; whence it would be deservedly permissible to conclude that John was ordained bishop in the year 616, on the first Sunday after Easter, as Walafrid has it, that is, on the 18th of April. But these things seem by no means able to be admitted: for from Walafrid himself, chapter XXVI, it is clearly established that St. Columban met his last day after the election of John, and the Anonymous insinuates the same at number 28. Wherefore the synod of Constance is better bound to the year 615, and therefore to the 6th of April.

[114] was consecrated by three bishops, Nor is the very manner of election, by which John was raised to the chair of Constance, without its tangles: Walafrid, in the place cited above, notes that three bishops were present at the election, of Autun, of Speyer, and of Verdun, of which last the Anonymous has nothing. This also is worthy of observation, that the three bishops were assigned to three provinces, since the one of Autun belonged to the metropolis of Lyon, the one of Speyer to that of Mainz, and the one of Verdun finally to that of Trier: nay, no mention is made of the metropolitan bishop of Besançon, to whom indeed at that time, as is established from the notices of the Gauls Dom Bouquet, volume II, page 2., the see of Vindonissa or of Constance was subject: and yet by the decree of Boniface I, in the letter to Hilary, bishop of Narbonne, it had been provided Labbe, volume II of the Councils, column 1585. that in the place of a departing bishop another should not be ordained, the metropolitan having been passed over, against the rules of the fathers. Which indeed is confirmed by canon VIII of the third Council of Paris, held in the year 557, by which it is enacted Ibid., volume V, column 817. that no bishop be ordained against the will of the citizens, except him whom the election of the people and of the clergy has sought with the fullest will: let him not be thrust in by the command of the prince, nor by any condition whatever, against the will of the metropolitan or of the comprovincial bishops. So that Emerius, bishop of Saintes, as St. Gregory narrates,

of Tours [Book IV of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter XXVI; in Dom Bouquet, volume II, page 215.], was driven from the episcopate because he had had a decree of King Chlothachar that he should be consecrated without the counsel of the metropolitan, who was not present.

[115] among whom the one of Augst or Basel. Yet at the election of John neither the metropolitan of Besançon nor any of the comprovincial bishops seems to have been present. But I think that all who have written of this election, if you except the distinguished Binterim in the Synodal History of Germany Pragmatische Geschichte der deutschen Concilien, volume I, pages 28 and 405., stumbled when they interpreted Augustodunum either as the Frankish city of the Province of Lyon, Autun, or as the German one in Vindelicia, Augsburg. Here, however, it seems to signify Augusta of the Rauraci, whose chair was transferred to Basel about the middle of the fifth century, as Anselm Berthod shows in the Life of St. Pantalus at the 12th day of October Volume VI of October, page 73, § III.: yet so that it retained the title of the Rauraci until the middle of the eighth century. That Augustodunum, moreover, is put here for Augusta of the Rauraci is given credence by a fragment of the Life of St. Eustasius cited by Berthod Ibid., page 80, number 64.: For his (Eustasius', abbot of Luxeuil) zeal was that he might instruct many by his eloquence. For many of them afterwards became prelates of churches; whose names are these… Rachnarius, bishop of Augustodunum and Basel. Nor can it be a prejudice that Berthod, at number 69 and following, ascribes to the fault of copyists that Augustodunum crept into the text for Augusta: for the corruption which would have befallen the Life of Eustasius could also have touched our text. These things being thus laid down, since we have one comprovincial bishop, who is also named first and seems to have performed the principal parts, and since it is established from each writer of the consent of the clergy and people, there is nothing which can be objected against the canonicity of the election of Constance, unless perhaps the absence of the bishops of Besançon, the metropolitan, and of Lausanne, who could have been hindered or whose sees could then have been vacant.

§ IX. After the death of St. Eustasius, St. Gall refuses the government of the monastery of Luxeuil: he dies.

St. Eustasius having died St. Gall, having returned from Constance after the election of his disciple John, applied himself wholly thereafter to forming his companion monks to every perfection of the monastic life: and with the help of Duke Gunzo and John the bishop he built an oratory and workshops fit for the brethren. While he was wholly in these things, the Abbot of the monastery, says Walafrid, chapter XXVIII, which is called Luxeuil, named Eustasius, whom Columban of good memory set over the same place, passed from the exile of this life to the heavenly homeland. The brethren therefore established in the same monastery took counsel to recall the venerable Gall, and to hand themselves over by submitting to his government. But Blessed Gall would not undergo so great a burden, and, having offered the kiss of peace, dismissed them, and they, armed with the blessing of so great a father, returned to their own. Our men treat of St. Eustasius at the 29th day of March Volume III of March, page 784., and say that he died in the year 625: Pagi, however Critica of Baronius at the year 627, § XXVII., binds his death to the year 627. Since the time of the death of St. Gall depends on the death of St. Eustasius, as we shall see below, it will not be useless to call to criticism the year of St. Eustasius' death.

[117] about the year 627, The whole controversy lies in this, in what year St. Eustasius undertook the headship of the monastery of Luxeuil: for from the Life of St. Salaberga at the 22nd of September Volume VI of September, page 522. it is established that the holy man, having completed a blessed life, passed to the Lord when he had ruled the care of the brethren after the departure of his master (Columban) not much less than three lustra. As, therefore, we arrange the beginning of the government from the year 610 or 612, so the fifteenth year of the headship will reach the year 625 or 627. Pagi At the year 613, § VI. says that St. Eustasius did not enter upon possession of the monastery of Luxeuil before the thirteenth year of the seventh century, because after the departure of St. Columban, says the author of the Life of St. Walaric at the 1st of April Volume I of April, page 18, number 7., several shepherds had come together to dwell there, and Blessed Walaric, returning from a certain cell, the seculars having been expelled according to the power of the Lord, began to rebuild that holy place. Meanwhile Blessed Austasius (Eustasius) had been destined by Blessed Columban to rule this very monastery, while certain seculars at any rate still possessed in some part the bounds of that monastery. From these words Pagi concludes that St. Eustasius did not occupy the monastery before the year 612 or 613. Certainly this passage from the Life of St. Walaric persuades that some interval of time is to be set between the expulsion of St. Columban and the headship of St. Eustasius: but it does not at once follow that two years had to be spent both on the usurpation and on the expulsion of the seculars, since a space of some months suffices for these things to be accomplished.

[118] St. Gall dies What Pagi adds in the same place, however: Eustasius does not seem to have entered upon possession of his headship or of the abbacy of Luxeuil before the present year (613), in which we shall show in the following year that Clotaire obtained the whole monarchy of the Franks — these things openly contradict Jonas in the Life of St. Columban, number 61, saying: Meanwhile the said king Clothaire, seeing that the effect of the man of God's prophecy had been fulfilled in himself, orders the venerable Eustasius, who in his place was ruling the monastery of Luxeuil, to come to him; whom he then asks to go after Columban and persuade him to return to Gaul. These things show most clearly that Eustasius had already entered upon possession of his headship before Clotaire obtained the monarchy of the whole kingdom. For the rest, Jonas has in the Life of Columban, number 54, that the holy man lived for some time at Brigantium under the obedience of his master Columban: For we learned this (miracle) from the report of Eustasius, who at that time was held attached among the rest under the obedience of the man of God. By which words it is surely indicated that he led his life at Brigantium not as a guest but as a resident monk. Which dwelling he would then have left when St. Columban, fleeing Theoderic, set him over Luxeuil; and therefore with Pagi I judge that the beginning of his headship is to be ascribed to the year 612 and consequently his death to the year 627.

[119] after a short interval: That St. Gall did not long survive Eustasius Walafrid narrates in his Life, chapter XXIX: Nor long after (the headship of the monastery of Luxeuil having been offered), when now the author and propagator of all good things willed to adorn perpetually with the laurels of rewards His athlete taken away from the contest of the world. From these words of Walafrid Le Cointe Annales Francorum, volume II, pages 105 and 747., our men in the Life of St. Magnus at the 6th of September Volume II of September, page 709, number 43., and Pagi in the Critica of Baronius At the year 627, § XXX. determined that St. Gall met his last day in the same year as St. Eustasius or the following, namely in the year 625 or the following, or, as pleased Pagi, in the year 627 or 628. Jean Mabillon altogether rejects this opinion [Acta SS. of the Order of St. Benedict, second century, page 247; Annales Benedictini, book XIII, § XXII, volume I, page 360.], whom Alban Butler in the Lives of the Saints at the 16th of October, John Lanigan in the History of Ireland History of Ireland, volume II, page 437., and others afterwards followed. It will therefore be worth while to adduce the critical reasons by which Mabillon strives to confirm his opinion, by which he determines the year of St. Gall's death as 645 or 646. To this reckoning, namely of those who refer the death of St. Gall to the year 625, many things stand in the way, he says in the place cited of the Annals; first of all the age of St. Gall, ninety-five years, which Walafrid attributes to him. For who would persuade himself that it came into the minds of the monks of Luxeuil, Eustasius having died, to judge that so aged and decrepit an old man should be substituted? Next, how could it have been that a man so very old should have accomplished within the last ten years of his life so many labours as Walafrid is the author that Gall endured in Rætia of Chur and other neighbouring districts? To pass over that Talto, an illustrious man, Chamberlain of King Dagobert, is said in Ratpert to have venerated Gall while still living.

[120] the reasons of Mabillon and others, All these things seem to require that we put off the death of St. Gall later, although his certain year cannot be defined. Mabillon here deliberately abstains from that opinion by which in the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, in the place cited, he says that it is clear from chapter XV that St. Gall survived Dagobert, inasmuch as his son married Fridiburga, healed by the Saint's prayers. Compare above at number 106, where we showed that these nuptials cannot be attributed to the son of Dagobert; as Mabillon himself afterwards confessed Annales Benedictini, book XI, § VIII, volume I, page 277.. Nor can this narrative (of the nuptials of Fridiburga) be attributed to Sigebert, son of Dagobert, who was not fit for entering marriage while Gall was living. These reasons of Mabillon would not lack their weight, were it not that the chronology of the bishops of Constance stood in the way: for from Walafrid, chapter XXX, and the Anonymous, book II, number 35, it is established that John the bishop, the holy man's disciple, paid the funeral rites to his master. Now it is established that John the bishop died before Dagobert, for his successor Martianus obtained from Dagobert that the bounds of the episcopate of Constance should be defined, as one reads in the Diploma of the Emperor Frederick I, on the 5th day before the Kalends of December (27 November) in the year 1155 [Trudpert Neugart, Codex Diplomaticus Alemanniæ, Charter DCCCLXVI, volume II, page 86.]: We, by the privilege of the present writing, fortify and corroborate by imperial authority, first of all distinguishing the bounds of the parish between the bishopric of Constance and the others adjacent, as we have found them distinguished by our predecessor of happy memory, King Dagobert, in the time of Marcianus, bishop of Constance.

[121] of those who set the year of death at 640, are refuted, Sigismund Calles of the Society of Jesus, in his Annals of the Church of Germany Volume II, page 4., doubts whether some error has not crept in in the names of Dagobert and Marcianus, because the bounds between the bishopric of Constance and that of Würzburg, which had not yet been erected under Dagobert I, are distinguished in this diploma. In fact Æmilian Ussermann proves in the book on the Bishopric of Würzburg Page 2. that the bishopric of Würzburg was erected in the year 741. This anachronism would surely tell against the cited Diploma if it were attributed to Dagobert, but in the time of Frederick I, the diocese of Würzburg existing, it was needful not only to hold ratified the bounds as they had been determined by Dagobert I, but moreover to define them more accurately between the more recent bishoprics, which the emperor Frederick did. When, further, the same diploma treats of the abbey of St. Udalric, who died in the year 973, no one will induce himself to think that all these things are to be drawn back to the times of some Dagobert. The Dagobert of whom the diploma treats is the first of this name, who reigned from the year 622 to the year 638. Marcianus, however,

bishop of Constance, whom some call Martinus, others Marianus, occupied the see until the year 642 Neugart, Episcopatus Constantiensis, page 42.. I do not deny, however, that in the series of the bishops of Constance there is great variety among the learned. The Gallia Christiana Volume V, column 892., praising for its opinion Jacob Manlius in the Chronicle of Constance In Pistorius, Rerum Germanicarum Scriptores, volume III, page 702., puts Martianus before John, but altogether wrongly, since John, elected about the year 615 (see above, 113), must have preceded Martianus, under whom, by the testimony of the same Manlius (in the place cited), about the year VI, c. XXXV (635), the bishopric of Constance was bounded by Dagobert the Great, king of the Franks, as is contained in the golden bull of Frederick the first. Le Cointe indeed puts John before Martianus, but wishes Boso to be inserted between the two, who committed the body of St. Gall to burial in a worthy sarcophagus between the altar and the wall. In the Acts of St. Magnus, chapter IV, at the 6th of September Volume II of September, page 745, number 30., these things are said to have happened three years after the death of St. Gall: hence Le Cointe concluded rightly enough that Martianus could not have been in the middle between John and Boso. But Walafrid, book II, chapter I, and the Anonymous, number 40, say that this translation by Boso was made forty years after the passing of St. Gall. Hence a wide space appears for Martianus, under whom the bounds of the bishopric of Constance were defined by Dagobert I, to come between John and Boso.

[122] both from the Diploma of Frederick I, This determination of the bounds, moreover, must have been made before Dagobert ceded the kingdom of Austrasia to his son Sigebert, which happened in the year 632 or 634: whence it follows that John the bishop met his last day about the year 630, and therefore that St. Gall, whom the said John buried, did not survive until the year 645; but rather, adhering to the narrative of Walafrid, that St. Gall died in the same year as St. Eustasius, or the following, in the year 627 or 628. As to the reasons alleged by Mabillon and his followers, our men refuted them as best they could in the Life of St. Magnus at the 6th of September Volume II of September, page 709.. But to confess what is the case, St. Gall, dying before the thirtieth year of the seventh century, could not have come to so decrepit an old age, as we shall now show in a few words.

[123] and from the epoch We saw above at number 24 and following that St. Gall could scarcely have looked upon this mortal light earlier than the year 550; since therefore he died about the year 627, he could have reached at most seventy-seven years of age. But against this opinion stands the unanimous voice of the writers treating of our Saint, who all ascribe to him an age of ninety-five years. But it is known to all who have handled ancient codices how frail is a testimony which rests on arithmetical notes, especially Roman ones, when historical facts from elsewhere constrain us to call notes of this kind into doubt Compare Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, volume III, page 524.. If it be laid down that St. Gall reached the age of more or less seventy-five years, all the things that Mabillon and others objected in order to protract his death to the year 645 collapse of themselves. He will then have been at least ten years younger than St. Columban, to whom as a boy he was offered by his parents for the sake of education; it will not be wonderful that the episcopate of Constance was offered by the clergy and people to a man sixty-five years old, and eleven or thirteen years afterwards the government of the monastery of Luxeuil was offered by the monks, to whom it was of the greatest importance to establish as abbot for themselves him who had drunk most deeply of all the precepts of the monastic discipline instituted by St. Columban.

[124] of his birth. That I should not attribute so decrepit an age to our Saint the narrative of Walafrid, chapter XXIX, and of the Anonymous, number 33, about the last preaching of the Servant of God also makes, in my judgment. If St. Gall had truly been ninety-five years old, he would most aptly have answered that the labour of preaching was now forbidden him by age, that death was now at hand, and things similar to these; but the man of God puts forward none of these; in the Anonymous he only answers that he no longer had the habit of going out of his cell, but rather ought henceforth most urgently to enjoy his accustomed labour. An answer of this kind certainly designates a man accustomed to the solitary life, who is weary of going out into a popular assembly; but by no means a decrepit old man who could no longer bear so great a labour.

[125] A brief chronology of his whole life. From what has been said so far the chronology of the life of St. Gall is deduced. Namely, born about the year 550, or rather, that he might be offered as a boy by his parents in the monastery of Bangor, brought into the light in the year 554, he is brought to the said monastery about the year 562 or 564. Ordained priest at the competent age about the year 584, he lands in Gaul about the year 590 with his master St. Columban. Then in the year 610, expelled from Gaul by Theoderic, he is left alone in Alemannia in the year 612. In the year 614, having healed Fridiburga, the betrothed of Sigebert son of Theoderic, he refuses the episcopate of Constance. In the same year he builds a cell for himself and his brethren, and in the year 615 is present at the council of Constance, and shortly after, restored to the priestly ministry by the death of St. Columban, he thereafter placed his chief care in forming monks to every perfection of the Christian life. The fame of his holiness spreading more widely, after the death of St. Eustasius, which, as it seems, happened on the 29th of March in the year 627, the headship of the monastery of Luxeuil is offered to St. Gall, which having been refused, the servant of God dies on the 16th of October of the same or the following year.

§ X. The burial of St. Gall, the violation of his body, his Relics.

The tomb, When, says Walafrid, chapter XXX, John, prelate of the Church of Constance, had heard that Blessed Gall was ill at Arbon, embarking on a little boat, he took with him those kinds of drinks and foods which he knew to be suitable for one labouring with illness; that, namely, he might refresh his most faithful friend by his visit. And when he was approaching the harbour, he heard that a great lamentation was being made in the priest's house over the funeral of the man of God, and he asked what was the cause of so great weeping. And hearing that the venerable Gall, the most steadfast keeper of his friendship, had departed from the perils of this world, he threw himself into the water (for he could not, on account of his excessive grief, wait until the little boat touched the shore), and, going down with those who had come with him, he entered the priest's house, intimating the sorrow of his heart with mournful voice and gesture of body. And he found the body of the holy man wrapped and placed in a coffin: and, opening the sarcophagus and looking upon the lifeless corpse of his friend, he shed more bitter tears… Meanwhile the priest admonished him to rise, that he might pray the Lord more earnestly for the rest of the deceased. They entered the church, therefore, and the bishop offered saving victims for his dearest one.

[127] in which St. Gall had been laid by John of Constance The service of fraternal commemoration being finished, looking behind his back, he saw the grave in which they wished to bury the holy body. And having taken the cross and those things which are displayed at funerals, they entered the house, wishing to bring the treasure of the precious body to the place of the tomb. And when they tried to carry the chest by which the corpse was enclosed, placed on a bier, to the grave of burial, it could not be moved anywhere by any strength. While they were discussing this kind of new miracle with mutual and wondering conversation, John the bishop said: "In truth I recognize that this seat of the tomb does not please my Father Gall." And he ordered the priest to find two untamed horses and cause them to be brought in… The bishop went up to the bier, and, lifting it on one side, the priest raising it on the other, placed it on the horses, and said to those standing by: "Take the bridles off their heads, that, liberty being granted, they may go whither the Lord shall will." Having taken, therefore, the cross and candles, singing psalms and melodies, they began to make their way. And the horses, turning aside to neither side, went by a straight road to the cell of the man of God. When they had arrived there, the bier was set down before the oratory. And his disciples, raising the Relics of their pious teacher, brought them in and placed them before the altar. Then, making prayer for him together with the bishop, they made the grave of the tomb between the wall and the altar, and there, prayers suitable to this matter having been offered first, they buried him: and all things having been duly completed, the multitude which had flocked to the funeral of so great a man, fortified by the blessing of the bishop, went off to their homes.

[128] had been laid, St. Gall, These things I wished to cite here according to custom, so that Walafrid can be compared with the Anonymous, and the more willingly because we find the Catholic rite of burying expressed exactly. The merits of the most Blessed Gall, continues Walafrid, book II, chapter I, shining daily through the signs of miracles … when now forty years had rolled by after his passing, there came Otwin, endowed with power in those same parts, with a great army, and, roused with intolerable anger, he laid waste no small part of the district which from the river flowing through it is named "Turgowe," and began to depopulate also the territory of Constance and the borders of the district of Arbon and to set them on fire… The people of Arbon, therefore, compelled by the enormity of this terror, fled with all that they had into the solitude and betook themselves to the cell of the man of God. Then, a pit having been made in the field, they hid there whatever they had, and, covering the excavation with earth, lest their secret be detected, they sprinkled flax seed over it. And when the enemies had now desolated the district of Arbon, following the tracks of the fugitives they came to the cell of the holy Father, and led away bound the fugitives whom they found, and sent their young men into captivity. Erchonald, however, the deputy of the prefect, since he inhabited places near the solitude, knew the affairs of that same little cell very well. Erchonald inquires of a beggar where the treasures were hidden, and, the hiding-place having been dug out, divides the riches found with his companions. These things having been done, thinking that something of the kind was hidden here and there, they ran about the several places, carefully exploring them with certain signs. For the same purpose Erchonald, taking seven boys with him, entered the oratory.

[129] is violated some years And when, the doors having been shut, they were striking the level of the pavement, in the hope namely of finding money, one of them, coming behind the altar, struck the pavement, and hearing a sound given back from the hollow of the tomb, said: "Here is what you greatly desire." The hostile undertakers, therefore, running up, began to dig; and when they had come to the coffin, they brought it out, saying: "Since these Rætians abound in natural cunning, let us see lest anything hidden remain under the chest." An immense horror seized those serving this sacrilege. Who, turned to flight, while each strove to be first at the door of the oratory, driven by madness, with swords drawn cut one another down. But Erchonald, the author of this crime, wishing, under the compulsion of fear, to leap out through the door, dashed his head against the lintel, and, falling to the ground, lay out of his mind. And when he was led home by his men, he began to be pressed by excessive illness and new pains. Throughout the whole course of that year, therefore, wasted by most severe troubles, stripped of the honour of his hair and of the surface of his skin, he also lost the nails of his fingers. And that the signs of the vengeance divinely inflicted on him might be evident to all for a long time, he was notable with this deformity all the days of his life.

[130] after his death: The prelate of the Church of Constance, named Boso, hearing that the tomb of the most Blessed Gall had been violated by enemies, and that no one had remained in the little cell except the two brothers Magnoald and Theodore, who could have restored the Relics of the sacred body to the tomb, came there with his clerics, and found the little cell desolated, the body of the holy Father thrown out of the tomb, the altars stripped, and the two brothers who had remained lying despoiled in the oratory, and protesting the greatness of the calamity with groans and tears. And, moved with mercy, he began to console them with many words, repeating that sentence of the Psalmist in which he says: In tribulation I called upon the Lord and He heard me in a large place. The Lord is my helper, I will not fear what man can do to me. These things having been said, taking the coffin in which the holy body was, he placed it above the ground between the wall and the altar, and over it, as is the custom, built a higher chest, and filled up the pit with earth. Of his own he also bestowed garments on the brethren, and, arranging whence they might be fed, returned to his episcopal residence. So Walafrid, with whom the Anonymous agrees excellently.

[131] but what in the Life of St. Magnus All these things, however, are related to have happened three years after the death of St. Gall in the Life of St. Magnus, celebrated under the name of Theodore Volume II of September, page 745, number 30.: Therefore after three years (from the death of St. Gall), that the prophecy of the most holy Columban might be fulfilled, which he had foretold before to Blessed Magnoald, that one would come as it were in vengeance for him concerning the tomb of Blessed Gall, Otwin, a most wicked duke, and Erchonald, his like, yet a prefect, having gathered a multitude of people, surrounded the monastery itself with drawn swords… And also, having entered the oratory, they broke the tomb of Blessed Gall, thinking that a great treasure was laid up there. But when they found nothing in it, leaving the bones of Blessed Gall unburied, they killed all whom they found, except Blessed Magnoald and Theodore, whom also, scourged and wounded and despoiled, they left lying in the court. Boso by name, prelate of the holy Church of Constance, hearing this, that it had been violated, and the rest, in the same elements of words as Walafrid. The greatest discrepancy between the two narratives is as to the time at which this violation of the tomb happened; for, it being laid down that St. Gall died in the year 627, the devastation of the district of Arbon is to be attached, according to Walafrid and the Anonymous, to the year 667, according to Pseudo-Theodore to the year 630.

[132] is said to have happened three years Since it is agreed among all that St. Magnoald and Theodore, when the barbarians burst in, were still inhabitants of the cell of St. Gall, as we saw above, the lapse of forty years is too long to be reconciled with the chronology of St. Magnus, since he would have had to survive St. Gall for sixty-six years, and therefore, even if we should concede that St. Gall died in the year 625, St. Magnus would yet reach the year 691. These things, however, seem altogether improbable, inasmuch as they would attribute to St. Magnus a hundred-year age, of which none of the older writers has ever spoken. For in the year 612, by the testimony of the Anonymous, number 11, Maginold or Magnus, already a cleric, was given by the priest Willimar as helper to St. Gall, to minister to him in the places near the church, which office supposes a young man of at least twenty years, especially since in the year 615 he is destined by St. Gall for Italy, already a deacon, that is, of the age of twenty-five years, according to the discipline then in force. Compare above, number 43. These things altogether persuade that the time of the dwelling of St. Magnus after the death of St. Gall is not to be prolonged to forty years.

[133] after the holy man's death, Led by these weighty reasons, our predecessors preferred to follow the Life of St. Magnus, which restricts to three years the interval between the death of St. Gall and the violation of his tomb. This opinion indeed greatly favours the chronology of St. Magnus as they arranged it; inasmuch as it contracts the dwelling of St. Magnus at the cell of St. Gall: but it is opposed by the fact that Boso could scarcely have entered upon the episcopate of Constance before the year 633, since Martianus, bishop of the same see, obtained the Dagobertian diploma about the same year. Next, it does not seem probable that, in the reign of Dagobert I, whom all historians proclaim most vigorous, a devastation of this kind happened: next, Fredegar, who in his Chronicle accurately pursues the deeds of Dagobert, touches with no word on a depopulation of the district of Arbon, or even of the Alemannic region. Mabillon, for his part Annales Benedictini, book XVI, § LXI, volume I, page 539., reports that these things happened about the year 687; and, more probably, since he narrates that Maginald and Theodore survived the disaster, he suspected that they were not the same who were given by the priest Willimar as helpers to St. Gall in the year 612: otherwise an age of one hundred and thirteen years would have to be ascribed to St. Magnus, since after the disaster he lived at least twenty-six years in the monastery of Füssen Volume II, page 708, number 40.. Walafrid and the Anonymous seem always to speak of the same persons: for those whom they had adduced before as witnesses of the deeds they narrate were sharers of the devastation: whence I judge that this must altogether be retained, in which the ancient writers agree, namely that the disaster cannot be separated from the dwelling of St. Magnus.

[134] cannot be reconciled These things having been thus established, there is no doubt that some error crept into the numerical note set down by each writer, and that it must be corrected to the extent that the narrative of the event can be composed with the dwelling of St. Magnus at the cell of St. Gall and with the episcopate of Boso of Constance. I should prefer, therefore, that in each text be read: after fifteen years (XV); so that the plundering of Arbon would fluctuate between the fortieth and the forty-second years of Christ. Nor is the conjecture altogether arbitrary (for I confess it a conjecture), inasmuch as it has some foundation in the very form of the Roman numeral L (fifty), whose stroke sometimes rises so as to make an acute angle V, and therefore can easily be confused with the other Roman numeral note five (V) Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, volume II, page 224.. It is also known that the same form L in older centuries was not much unlike the figure I; whence also, as Ildefons von Arx will have it, one may read after eleven years. One correction or the other is to be adopted, according as one judges that the death of St. Gall is to be bound to the year 625 or 627 above six hundred. If he is said to have met his last day in the year 625, fifteen years will run on to the year 640: if on the contrary the year of death 627 is determined, after eleven years we shall come to the year 638 or even the following; about which times it will be shown below at number 136 that the Thurgau was disturbed. Those fifteen or eleven years being laid down, St. Magnus could have been present at the devastation, who, as was said above at number 133, spent the last twenty-six years of his life in founding the monastery of Füssen. Our men indeed, in the preliminary Commentary on St. Magnus at the 6th of September Volume II of September, page 708, number 41., determine that he died in the year 655; which indeed they do from conjecture, since they suppose that he left the cell of St. Gall about the year 629: whence they were in some manner compelled to define his death at the fifty-fifth year above six hundred: just as Mabillon also prolongs the life of the Saint later, since he makes him survive his master St. Gall by twenty-five years, whose death, as we saw above at number 119, he joins with 646: whence our men rightly observed that, for Mabillon to be consistent with himself, the death of St. Magnus would have to be attached at least to the year 671, whereas on the contrary he writes that he died about the year 665 Acta SS. of the Order of St. Benedict, second century, page 505.. But we have a positive argument by which the last day of St. Magnus is proved to have fallen in the year 666. For Ildefons von Arx Geschichte des Cantons St. Gallen, volume I, page 21. cites a manuscript Martyrology of Ado in codex number 455 of St. Gallen, in which the death of the Saint is noted at this year: and I believe that, other proofs being lacking, we can use this instrument, though not very ancient, until we are taught more certain things. But then indeed it will be permissible for us to delay the stay of St. Magnus at the cell of St. Gall until the year 640, since twenty-six years still remain until his death, and therefore it will not be so difficult to find fifteen years between the burial of St. Gall and the plundering of the district of Arbon.

[135] with the chronology As to Boso, it is sufficiently established among the learned that he occupied the see of Constance after Martianus (or Martialis or Martinus), who ruled the same Church in the time of Dagobert I, and therefore between the years 628 and 638, if credence, namely, is to be given to the diploma of the Emperor Frederick I, given at Constance in the year of the Lord's incarnation 1155, indiction IV, on the 5th day before the Kalends of December, in the reign of the lord Frederick, Emperor of the Romans, Augustus, in the fourth year of his reign, but the first of his empire Neugart, Codex Diplomaticus Alemanniæ, Charter DCCCLXVI, volume II, page 86.. In that diploma, moreover, it is said: Distinguishing the bounds of the parish between the bishopric of Constance and the others adjacent, as we have found them distinguished by our predecessor of happy memory, King Dagobert, in the time of Marcianus, bishop of Constance, namely, etc. For the rest, you will find the authenticity of the Fredericianum diploma vindicated in the cited Trudpert Neugart (Episcopatus Constantiensis, Prolegomena, Dissertation II). Our men indeed, on the Life of St. Trudpert at the 26th day of April Volume III of April, page 426, note d., prolonged the life of Martianus to the year 642, in which he is said to have consecrated the oratory built by the aforesaid Trudpert in honour of Saints Peter and Paul; but the age of this Saint is altogether uncertain Compare Martin Gerbert, Historia Nigræ Silvæ, volume I, page 49.: and Marquard Herrgott Genealogia Domus Habsburgicæ, volume I, page 179 and following. shows clearly enough in my opinion that St. Trudpert belonged rather to the eighth than to the seventh century: whence it follows of itself that the name of Martianus was wrongly interpolated in his Acts, and that, where other documents are not present, his episcopate cannot be extended beyond the reign of Dagobert I.

[136] and history Since therefore about the year 640 two facts concur, namely the presence of St. Magnus at the cell of St. Gall and the episcopate of Boso, it remains to be inquired what disaster at the same time could have afflicted the district of Arbon, and so the wilderness of St. Gall. Trudpert Neugart happily composes the difficulty, so far as is permitted Episcopatus Constantiensis, page 26 and following.: Walafrid says that the Thurgau was laid waste by Otwin in the fortieth year from the departure of St. Gall; on the contrary Theodore (above, number 131) testifies that it happened three years after the death of the same Saint. But in the six hundred and thirtieth year, which in our opinion is the third from the death of St. Gall, neither palm nor trace of civil war or hostile incursion is detected in the older authors. Of Otwin, whether duke or prefect, and of Erchonald his deputy, count of the Thurgau, as

Goldast will have it, the older records are likewise silent. But that Erchinoald, a kinsman of King Dagobert, Ega having died, was appointed mayor of the palace in Neustria in the third year of Clovis II, the six hundred and fortieth of the common era, is testified, besides Fredegar Chapter LXXXIII; in Dom Bouquet, volume II, page 445. and Aimoin Book IV, chapter XXXVI; ibid., volume III, page 136., by the Chronicle of Moissac (in Dom Bouquet, volume II, page 652), at which time also Otto, begotten of his father Bero, hoped that he could become count of the palace, or rather mayor of the palace in Austrasia, because he had ruled the infancy of Sigebert II. Grimoald, son of Pippin of Landen, who died in the year 639, having scented out the plan, busied himself to claim the dignity for himself from his father's merits. He obtained the desired honours in the tenth year of Sigebert, the six hundred and forty-second of Jesus Christ, Otto having already been killed by the duke Leuthar, whom he had roused as a rival. I think therefore that Walafrid and Theodore looked to the series of this fact when they mentioned Otwin and Erchonald. For although neither the dignity of prefect of a province or duke suits Otto, nor the office of deputy suits Erchinoald, yet most critics will not unwillingly admit that one can more easily stray from the truth about circumstances of this kind than that the proper names of persons can be obliterated. But Otwin differs little from Otto, and Erchonald from Erchinoald, and I should think that the mayor of the palace of Clovis II led soldiers out of Burgundy into the Thurgau about the year 642, yet, having experienced adverse fortune, was cut down and killed by Leuthar II, duke of the Alemanni, to whose administration the Thurgau belonged. So far the praised Trudpert Neugart. These things solve the tangled question as far as possible; for they can be reconciled with the dwelling of St. Magnus in the cell of St. Gall and with the epoch of Boso. It is very probable that the contention over the mayoralty of the palace between Otto and Grimoald under a twelve-year-old king was not settled without war: for Fredegar in the Chronicle Chapter LXXXVI; ibid., volume II, page 446. says: A certain Otto, son of Uro (Bero) the domestic, who had been the tutor of Sigebert from his youth, swelling with pride against Grimoald, and harbouring jealousy, was trying to despise him: Grimoald, binding himself in friendship with Chunibert the Pontiff, had begun to consider by what means Otto might be cast out of the palace, and Grimoald might assume his father's rank.

[137] of these times, To this purpose also is that Otto was killed by Leuthar, duke of the Alemanni, in the year 642, as the same Fredegar has it Ibid., page 447.; which affords some indication that Otto was then engaged in Alemannia, and poured out his life for the faction of Grimoald. One thing in the historical conjecture of Trudpert Neugart I cannot approve; namely that the Erchanold of whom the Life of St. Gall treats is the same as Erchinoald, who was mayor of the palace in Neustria under Clovis II. Certainly the name suits most aptly, since the mayor of the palace of Neustria is called Erchanold in the Breviarium Regum Francorum of Erchanbert Works of St. Gregory of Tours, Ruinart's edition, column 1353.. But the character of the two by no means agrees: for the Erchanold who is shown by Walafrid, the plunderer of the sanctuary of St. Gallen, is altogether far from his namesake, who, as Fredegar says in the Chronicle Chapter LXXXIV; in Dom Bouquet, volume II, page 445., was a patient man, full of goodness; since he was patient and cautious, with humility and kindly will toward the priests, answering all patiently and kindly, and swelling with no pride, nor did he rage with covetousness: so much did he follow peace in his time that he was pleasing to God. He was wise, but above all with the greatest simplicity, enriched in things in measure, he was loved by all. These things altogether differ from what is said of Erchanold, so that it is impossible to confuse two such men into one.

[138] The Relics of St. Gall in various places. That St. Gall was buried in the oratory of his cell the Anonymous and Walafrid testify; and that his body remained there the constant tradition of his monastery stands surety, confirmed by a continued series of diplomas. Nevertheless a tomb of St. Gall is shown also at Fulda, at Borvicum, in a place in Gaul unknown to me, and at Wangen Von Arx, Geschichte des Cantons St. Gallen, volume I, page 20.. But tombs of this kind either contain a Saint of the same name, as perhaps in Gaul, in which two holy bishops of Clermont of this name are found, or rather indicate Relics of the holy abbot than the entire body, as more probably was the case at Fulda and Wangen. In the twenty-ninth year of the sixteenth century, on the 24th day of February, the body of St. Gall, taken out of its shrine, was destroyed by the Zwinglian faction, which was dominant in the city of St. Gallen. There remained at Prague in Bohemia the head and arm of the Saint (compare above, number 10), but when the monks of St. Gallen asked for some part of the Relics of their holy Patron, the answer was, as my papers report, that nothing of the kind was found. Yet in the Diary of the Holy Relics which are preserved in the Metropolitan Church of Prague, written by Thomas Pessina of Czechorod, dean of the same church, these words are had under the 16th day of October: Of St. Gall, abbot, the greater part of the head, an arm, and a rib, brought by Charles from the monastery of St. Gall, diocese of Constance, in the year 1354. The same Emperor had given the head, surrounded with silver and gold, to the parish church of St. Gall in the old city, which was lost in the time of heresy: the arm and rib he had given to the church of Prague, which remain intact today. There is also in the church of Prague a part of the jaw of the same Saint without any tooth. Johann Jung, in his Lipsanographia, or Treasury of the Relics of the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover 1782), says that Relics … of St. Gall, Confessor, are covered with a fine woven wrapping marked with golden letters; but he doubts whether St. Gall, bishop of Clermont Volume I of July, page 103., is here designated, or our holy abbot. But since most of the Relics contained in the treasury have either a Roman or a German origin, they seem rather to belong to St. Gall the abbot. There is no doubt that other particles of Relics lie hidden in various places, especially in churches and altars dedicated under his invocation, which, however, suitable documents being lacking, we may not enumerate. On the Cambutta or staff sent to St. Gall by Blessed Columban compare Walafrid, chapter XXV, and the Anonymous, number 28, and our men treat of it at length in the preliminary Commentary to the Life of St. Magnus Volume II, page 723, number 121.. We now subjoin the Acts of St. Gall often praised under the name of the Anonymous; for the reason why we discourse nothing in this place about the abbey of St. Gall, built at his tomb, is that this rather belongs to the Life of St. Othmar, its founder, of whom it will be spoken at length at the 16th day of November.

LIFE OF ST. GALL,

by an anonymous monk of St. Gallen, eighth century.

From the Historical Monuments of Germany of Georg Heinrich Pertz, volume II, page 3.

Gall, abbot, in Alemannia. (S.)

BHL Number: 3246, 3249

BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.

BOOK ONE.

Chapter I. The birth of St. Gall, his monastic life in the monastery of Bangor, his coming into Gaul and Alemannia.

St. Gall, a monk in the monastery of Bangor, There was a man powerful in nobility ^a, and shining still more in good conduct, whom paternal reverence has handed down to us to call Gall ^b. He, drawing his first flower in the island of Ireland, since from his very boyhood he had clung to God, and had bound himself to the studies of the liberal arts, was commended by the will of his parents to the venerable man Columban, who, holding the rule of life by the examples of the fathers, and holding out the track of humility to all, opportunely handed on honey-flowing doctrine to those living with him. Among whom the aforesaid boy excelled in humility and vigour, following his master in divine studies, now rejecting the perishable things of the world, and showing to the brethren everywhere the entrance to the eternal kingdom. For, Christ being propitious, coming to the age, by the exhortations of the spiritual brethren, the aforesaid father compelling him, humbly refusing, yet obedient after the example of Christ, he went up to the grade of the priesthood; in which he excelled in advancement, since he burned with the assiduous sacrifice to Christ, in which beginnings also clear miracles are reported. When, therefore, the arbiter of the world had disposed that the light should shine forth from the remote parts of the world to our people ^c, the aforesaid man, despising earthly things and seeking heavenly ones, with the aforesaid brethren, who were a certain choice of the Scottish ^d nation, having left all their possessions , followed Christ, unmindful of father and mother or kinsfolk with their various possessions, that he might merit to obtain the hundredfold reward of heaven.

[2] into Gaul For, a plan having been begun, they left the Irish harbour, and, with prosperous breezes following, touched the British bays; which having been travelled through, they at length entered the longed-for fields of Gaul, where the helm of the kingdom of Sigebert ^e then subdued divers nations; and at once, trusting in the love of Christ, they went to the court of his government. He received them kindly, and ordered all things fitting to be prepared for them with diligence; and he began to inquire the cause of their journey, and to delight his mind with their honey-flowing doctrines; which having been set out in order, and the custom ^f toward pilgrims having been diligently performed, they are called to the address of the royal clemency. There, therefore, they are questioned about the order of their origin or conduct, which being known, the royal petition approached them that they should choose a place for their conduct within the bounds of Gaul, and no longer weary themselves with the length of the journey, the royal clemency then thereafter to comply with their will in all things. The man of God, Columban, therefore answered: "All things whatsoever I had I have left for the name of the Lord, and if I now desire the riches of others, I am perhaps a prevaricator of the gospel, in the desire of which I have soldiered hitherto; for it is not fitting for us to pant after the gains of this perishable life, but with the whole affection of the mind to desire the precept of Christ, in which He says: 'He that will come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me.' How do we deny ourselves if we do not let go * our outward things for Christ, or how do we take up His cross if we gape after earthly care by seeking it?" To him objecting such things the royal answer came: "If, following Christ, you desire to take up His cross, choose the secrets of the wilderness, in which you may provide both for the increase of your reward and for what is opportune for our salvation, only do not, leaving our dominion, pass over to other nations."

[3] with St. Columban The king's petition therefore prevailed, and that band of brethren chose the hidden places of the wilderness. Which having been determined, they entered the wilderness which common opinion names the Vosges ^g. Searching for a place fit for the dwellings of the servants of God, they at length found an ancient ruined dwelling, delighting the minds of those coming by the warmth of its waters, which ancient buildings of walls surrounded, and the inhabitants of that region called it Luxovium ^h. There indeed the brotherly band had built for itself an oratory in honour of St. Peter, prince of the apostolic summit, and workshops fit for dwelling . When therefore they had dwelt there for some time, and had prepared things fit for the cenobites , many of the nation of the Burgundians, and also of the Franks ⁱ, came to them through desire of the eternal kingdom, and there the observance of the regular life grew in wonderful manner

beginning. While a multitude of nobles was leaving the wave-tossed world, Christ be praised! their reputation had grown everywhere in the borders of Gaul and Germany. For the maturity of their life did not escape King Theoderic ^k, who often came to them and asked the aids of their prayer. To whom the holy man Columban imparted his sweet-flowing doctrine, and also vehemently reproved him for the concubines to whom he indiscreetly clung, exhorting him rather to use lawful wedlock, so that the hope of the kingdom should not be left destitute by his incaution, but be kept for the advantage of the people in the future.

[4] having set out, He therefore did many things at his admonitions, but, the enemy of the human race instigating, he rejected the useful counsel of the man of God for the loss of prostitution ^m of the mind of Brunnihild ^l, his grandmother. For as Jezebel destroyed the kingdom of Ahab, so she too deceived this man by turning him away from lawful wedlock and condemning his life to brothels. So much, through fear for her honour and dignity in the royal palace, if a lawful wife should dwell under the noble sceptre, did envy increase against the man of God, so much that the aforesaid daughter of the devil obtained from the king that the man of God should no longer dwell under the dominion of his rule. For an embassy also was sent that he should be expelled from the kingdom; and he, moving thence, as is read in his deeds ⁿ, came to King Clothaire ^o, and when he had been kindly received by him, and had instructed him divinely, he requested that, supported by companions, he might come to Theodebert [p], king of the Austrasians. The petition of the man of God is at length consented to, and with all things fit for him he is sent across to the king of the Austrasians, by whom he is received with great joys, and, teaching him divinely, he remains there not a few days. Then therefore he sought a way or protection through High Germany [q] to Italy, in which at that same time Egilolf [r] reigned. But the aforesaid king besought the man of God to remain in his kingdom, promising that he would find charming places and suitable for the servants of God, in which, if they began to dwell, gain of souls could be brought thence. In which promises the man of God held the balance of moderation, saying that he was willing to comply with his petition, but yet, holding firmly to the journey he had determined, he was by no means willing to give it up.

[5] thence he came into Alemannia: Choice was therefore given him by the king, if he should find a fit place anywhere; in which search they came to the river Lindimacus [s], following which they went to the stronghold called Turegum [t]. From thence they went to the village commonly called Tucconia [v], which is situated at the head of the lake of Zürich itself. That place pleased them, but the depraved usage of the inhabitants displeased them. Cruelty and malice reigned in them, for they also gaped after the superstition of the gentiles. The servants of God, therefore, when they had begun to dwell among them, taught them to adore the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For Gall, to search out * whose miracles, Christ being propitious, we fix our works, following the man of God Columban, as has already been said, from the beginning of his conversion, and sharing his labours, began there to burn the shrines of the gentiles, and to sink in the lake the things consecrated to the gods [w]. When therefore they saw their shrines burned, they took up against them the arms of envy, which so seized their hearts that, counsel having been taken, they wished to kill the man of God Gall, and to drive Columban with insults out of their borders. But St. Columban, hearing these things, prayed: "God, ruler of heaven, in whose judgment the whole world runs its course, make this generation into a reproach, that what they wickedly devise for His servants they may feel on their own heads. Let their children be unto destruction; so that when they reach middle age, stupor and madness may seize them, so that, oppressed by another's money, they may, converted, acknowledge their ignominy; let the prophecy of the psalmist be fulfilled in them, saying: His sorrow shall be turned on his own head, and his iniquity shall come down upon his crown [x]."

[6] where, in evangelical preaching, After these things, therefore, by withdrawing he fulfilled the apostolic precept in which he says: Give place to wrath, and with his pupils hastening to the praise of Christ he came to the stronghold of Arbon [y], where they found a certain priest Willimar [z]. He, having seen them, is said to have said for joy: "Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord; the Lord is God, and He has shone upon us"; and the answer met him: "The Lord has gathered us from the regions." He at once, having taken his hand, led them to prayer. For when they had prayed together, and had entered the house, and had reclined at a banquet of spiritual gladness, Gall, the elect of God, is said at his master's command to have recited the divine utterances, and to have roused the minds of the hearers to the love of the heavenly homeland; hearing which the aforesaid priest was astonished, moistening his face with tears. They were therefore there to the praise of Christ for seven days, glad in divine conferences. Which having been accomplished, they learned from the same priest that there was a certain ruined city near those places, Pregentia, the richness of whose land and the nearness of the sea [aa] could become an opportunity for the servants of God. Having heard this, they desired it with their whole mind. For the man of God Columban, together with Gall, his most apt disciple, * or another deacon, embarking on a ship, went to the city for the sake of exploring. The brotherly band therefore prepared dwellings for themselves there, and earnestly besought Christ for that place. Now superstitious heathenism worshipped there three bronze and gilded images, to which, rather than to the creator of the world, it believed it should pay its vows [bb].

[7] the idols destroyed, With the desire, namely, of destroying their superstition, the man of God Columban ordered Gall to recite a discourse to the people, because he excelled among the others in the charm of Latinity, and also knew the idiom of that nation [cc]. For an assembly of the people was made for the accustomed festival of the temple, more struck by the spectacle of the strangers than devoted by reverence for divine worship. When they were gathered, Gall, the elect of God, watered their hearts with honey-flowing words, exhorting them to be converted to their creator Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who opened to the human race, growing lukewarm in filth, the entrance of the heavenly kingdom. Therefore, in the sight of all, he broke the images, taken down, with stones, and threw them into the depth of the sea. Then therefore part of the people, confessing their sins, believed, and part, angry and indignant, went away in fury. For the man of God Columban also blessed water, and, sanctifying the contaminated places, restored to the church of St. Aurelia [dd] its former honour, and there, having gone forth , the athlete of Christ remained with the pupils who were his clients for three years [ee]. Who, after the manner of the very small mother bee, exercised their skill in divers arts; among whom Gall, the elect of God, to set snares for the scaly flock, and often, Christ granting it, gladdened the brethren, since he diligently furnished them with suitable things.

[8] and in the duties of the monastic life As the course of time rolled on, Gall, the elect of God, was letting down his nets in the water in the silence of the night, but meanwhile he heard a demon from the summit of the mountain calling to his fellow [ff], who was in the hidden depths of the sea. When he answered: "Here I am!" the mountain one in turn said: "Rise to my help! Behold, strangers have come, who have cast me out of the temple; (for they were breaking the gods which these inhabitants worshipped; moreover they were also converting them to themselves) [gg] come, come, help us to drive them out of the lands." The sea demon answered [hh]: "Behold, one of them is on the deep, whom I shall never be able to harm. For I wished to damage his nets, but prove that I lament being conquered. He is always shut in by the sign of prayer, nor ever overcome by sleep." But Gall the elect, hearing these things, fortified himself on every side with the sign of the cross, and said to them: "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to depart from these places, and not to presume to harm anyone here!" and with haste he returned to the shore, and recited to his abbot what he had heard. Hearing which, the man of God Columban called the brethren together into the church, sounding the accustomed signal [ii]. O wonderful madness of the devil! a phantasmal voice snatched away the voices of the servants of God, when the wailing and howling of a dreadful voice was heard through the summits . The envy of the demon, therefore, grieving, departed, when the prayer of the brethren went up suppliantly to the Lord.

[9] he exercises himself. Christ, to be worshipped with praise, was then more and more praised, since He deigned to drive away from them the terror of the demons. But those who despised their preachings tried to afflict them on account of the breaking of their gods. For they went to Cunzo [kk], duke of those parts, bringing accusing falsehoods, a spirit of deceptions being joined to them, and saying that on account of those strangers the public hunting grounds in those places had been made desolate. He is said to have sent a messenger to them, by whom they are ordered to depart. For, that it might be added to the injuries of the servants of God, their cow, taken away by theft, was led into the hidden places of the wilderness; going in search of which two brothers came to the robbers themselves; where then murder is joined to theft, when the servants of Christ are killed by them, and their booty is plundered. The crime having therefore been accomplished, they are long sought in the solitude, yet at some time found lifeless, they were lamentably brought back to the cell. Then St. Columban, compelled by the assiduity of those expelling them, and struck by the grief of the brotherly funerals, said to the brethren: "We have found here a golden bowl, but full of serpents. But do not be saddened; for God, whom we serve, will send His angel, who will lead us to the king of Italy, and will make him placable, that he may grant us a peaceful place." From which journey of the athletes of Christ the vexation of fevers held back Gall, the elect of God. For at the very moment of departure, throwing himself at the feet of his abbot, he professed that he could not *, compelled by illness. But the holy man, for the sake of keeping him with him, said with cheerfulness of mind [ll]: "If you do not wish to become a sharer of my labours, you shall not celebrate mass in my days." He was therefore then left to his own will, who had long been instructed under the mastership of others.

ANNOTATA.

p. Theodebert II, king of Austrasia, killed by his brother Theoderic at the instigation of Brunechild in the year 612.

q. The author calls High Germany that part of Germany which the Alemanni inhabited at the beginning of the seventh century. To this place Walafrid alludes in the Preface, when he designates the author whom he was chiefly going to follow: Further, when I was some time ago reading through that work, I found that the land which we Alemanni or Suevi inhabit is often named Altimannia by the author of that composition; but seeking the origin of the name itself, I found mention of it in none of the writers whose knowledge has as yet sprinkled us. For, unless I am deceived, the same word was invented from the high situation of the province. What Walafrid calls Altimannia our author calls High Germany: perhaps by the diligence of a copyist interpreting Altimannia.

r. Egilolf, better Flavius Agilulf or also Ago, having married in the year 590 Theodelinda, widow of King Authari, king of the Lombards, reigned twenty-five years. He called himself king of all Italy, as is established from the inscription of the golden crown which he offered at Monza: AGILULF. GRAT. DI. VIR GLOR. REX TOTIUS ITAL. OFFERT. SCO. JOHANNI. BAPTISTÆ. IN. ECLA. MODICIA [Agilulf, by the grace of God, glorious man, king of all Italy, offers to St. John the Baptist in the church at Monza] Frisi, Memorie della chiesa Monzese, Dissertation I, page 42..

s. The Lindimacus, today die Limmat (a name compounded from Lint and Mag, torrents), flows into the eastern part of the Lake of Zürich.

t. Turegum, today Zürich, one of the principal cities of present-day Switzerland, situated on the lake of the same name.

v. Tucconia, today Tuggen, a rural parish in the deanery of Rapperswil, about which see the preliminary Commentary, number 76.

w. Prospero Lambertini, afterwards Pope Benedict XIV, in the Work On the Canonization of the Saints Book III, chapter XVII, number 9 and following., sets out at length the cases in which the overthrow of shrines and things like these can be excused. It was already at that time the law of the kingdom that the Christian religion should hold the principate: whence St. Columban, as his biographer has it at number 51, had come among the Suevi with royal mandates, and the Suevi themselves had already in great part been initiated by the baptism of the Catholic faith, as the same biographer testifies at number 53; wherefore they are accused not so much of heathenism as of impious superstition. All of which bring it about, according to Prospero Lambertini, that the deed of St. Columban can be excused.

x. Concerning the words of malediction uttered by St. Columban, attention must be paid to what St. Thomas says, II-II, question LXXVI, article 1: If anyone commands or wishes the evil of another inasmuch as it is evil, as it were intending the evil itself, then to curse in either way will be unlawful, and this is to curse speaking properly. But if anyone commands or wishes the evil of another under the aspect of good, so it is lawful, nor will it be a curse speaking properly, but accidentally, because the principal intention of the one speaking is not borne to evil but to good. Now it happens that some evil is commanded or wished under the aspect of a twofold good, sometimes indeed under the aspect of the just. And so a judge lawfully curses him on whom he commands a just penalty to be inflicted. And so also the Church curses by anathematizing, just as the prophets in the Scriptures sometimes imprecate evils on sinners, as it were conforming their will to the divine justice: although imprecations of this kind can also be understood by way of foretelling. But sometimes some evil is spoken under the aspect of the useful; for example, when someone wishes that some sinner suffer some sickness or some impediment, either that he himself may be made better, or that at least he may cease from harming others. In the malediction of St. Columban both probably concur, that, foreknowing the future, he announced the evils to come, and wished them as fit for curing the blindness of the gentiles, which the latter words clearly insinuate: that, oppressed by another's money, they may, converted, acknowledge their ignominy. St. Augustine Against Faustus, book XVI, chapter XXII, volume VIII of his Works, column 296. excuses curses: when they are spoken from prophecy, they are not of the evil wish of one imprecating, but of the foreknowing spirit of one announcing. For those which are of evil wish are forbidden when it is said: "Bless, and curse not." But these are often found in the speech of the Saints.

y. Arbon, says the Chronicle of Göttweig Volume II, page 547., is a town and district of the Duchy of Alemannia, comprised under the greater district of Durgowe, and through it in the more principal district of Turegum or Zürichgau … it is situated on the lake Acronius on the left, between two smaller rivers, the Salinsach and the Steinach, in which is the most celebrated and most ancient monastery of St. Gall. The town of Arbon was called by the ancients Arbor Felix, as is established from the Itinerary of Antoninus Dom Bouquet, volume I, page 102. and from the Peutinger Table Ibid., page 112..

z. Willimar, whom Walafrid in chapter V calls a priest conspicuous for goodness, was more probably the parish priest of that tract under Gaudentius, bishop of Constance. For he remained there until the death of St. Gall in the year 625 or 627; at his invitation our Saint made his last speech to the people of Arbon: all of which designate a priest who was set over the people for the sake of instruction and sacraments.

aa. Pregentia, by the confusion of B and P familiar to the Germans, today Bregenz, called by the ancients Brigantium, is a town situated toward the East on the lake and river of the same name. Today it belongs to the county of Tyrol, the circle of Vorarlberg. The lake of Brigantium, which our author a little below calls a sea, is also called Potamicus, or of Constance, by the Germans Bodensee: from it differs the lake Acronius, or Cellensis, and it is a little below Constance, by the testimony of Cluverius: today, however, the lakes Acronius and Potamicus are commonly confused by most.

bb. The gentiles of whom the author treats were not all lacking the grace of baptism, although given to idolatrous superstitions, as Jonas clearly shows in the Life of St. Columban, number 53: Many of them therefore, through the persuasion of the blessed man, converted to the teaching and the faith of Christ, obtained baptism, and others also, whom, though already washed in the laver, profane error held back, he, as a good shepherd of the Church, brought back by his admonitions to the worship of the evangelical teaching, the seeds having been scattered. About the same times a similar corruption was infecting the Franks, as is established from the letter of St. Gregory the Great to Queen Brunechild Book IX, epistle XI, volume II of his Works, column 938.: This also we likewise exhort, that you ought to restrain your other subjects too under the moderation of discipline, that they do not sacrifice to idols, do not become worshippers of trees, do not offer sacrilegious sacrifices of the heads of animals; because it has come to us that many of the Christians both run to the churches, and, what is wicked to say, do not withdraw from the worships of demons.

cc. St. Gall, by his long stay at Luxeuil, at Tuggen, and now at Brigantium, could easily have learned the German tongue.

dd. Concerning the expiation of the temple of St. Aurelia see the preliminary Commentary, number 85 and following.

ee. Concerning the three-year stay of St. Columban see the preliminary Commentary, number 67.

ff. Par indicates a companion and at the same time a sharer of the same condition.

gg. Pertz, editor of the Monumenta Germaniæ, holds the words enclosed in brackets as a gloss.

hh. Here a more frequent Rhythm is heard, showing an older source, more probably some rhapsody.

ii. Signum tangere Ildefons von Arx calls a Teutonism. For rühren, to touch, formerly signified to move, to throw.

kk. Of Duke Gunzo scarcely anything else is known than what we have from the biographers of St. Gall. The duchy of Alemannia, over which Gunzo presided, is described by Schoepflin Alsatia Illustrata, volume I, page 626 and following..

ll. Concerning the interdict imposed by St. Columban on St. Gall, see the preliminary Commentary, number 92 and following.

that is, immolabat* he was sacrificing

cunctis possessionibus*

that is, relinquimus*

officinas aptas*

Cœnobitis*

ipsi necessariis*

commeatum*

recensenda*

et*

ingressus*

add: consueverat* had been accustomed

that is, prævenit* forestalled

add: montium* of the mountains

that is, comminutiones* breakings

rogatur*

conjungitur*

tandem*

nequiret*

Chapter II. Left in Alemannia, he inhabits the wilderness of Arbon, and frees Fridiburga, daughter of Duke Gunzo, from a demon.

Left in Alemannia Which we believe was done by divine providence, that Gall, the elect of God, might be kept for that nation for eternal gain. For, the separation having been accomplished ^a, the aforesaid host, the priest Willimar, is visited by the servant of God Gall together with nets and ship, and there the anxiety of grief is renewed when the order of the separation is searched into, while the sustenance of hospitality and the relief of illness are asked for there. He being received with joy, and the zeal of piety fulfilled, it was ordered to two clerics, Maginold and Theodore ^b, that they should have the care of him, and minister to him in the places near the church: which things having been diligently performed, Christ being propitious, he was made well for greater exercise. After this a certain Hiltibod ^c, a deacon, a faithful companion of the aforesaid priest, since he excelled before others in the knowledge of that wilderness, was approached by Gall, the elect of God, with these words: "Son! have you ever found in the hidden places of this wilderness a fit place for building an oratory and a suitable dwelling? With desire my soul has desired to remain in my days in solitude, the psalmist admonishing us, saying: Lo, I have gone far off flying away, and I abode in the wilderness, and I waited for Him that should save me." The deacon, answering, said to him: "My father, this wilderness is rough and watery, having high mountains, and narrow valleys, and divers beasts, very many bears, and herds of wolves and of swine. I fear, if I lead you there, lest perchance they rush upon you."

[11] the solitude, But the man of God answered: "If God be for us, who is against us? He who delivered Daniel from the lions' den is Himself able to deliver me from the hand of the beasts." The aforesaid Levite, seeing his constancy, said: "Tomorrow let us penetrate the secrets of the woods, if perchance we may find a fit place. For I trust in the clemency of our Creator, that He will deign to direct for us the forerunner of Tobias." In the accustomed manner, therefore, the man of God persisted in prayer that same day without taking food. Morning therefore having come, they took to the road with prayer. When indeed the ninth hour of the day had been completed, the Levite asks whether the man of God wished to refresh himself; from whom he heard that he would not taste before, Christ being propitious, a place should be shown him for dwelling. Their now weary limbs are therefore driven on, and at length they come to the little river called Petrosa ^d. There, therefore, the rest of the night is shown, when the crowd of the scaly flock is seen. For they come to the course of the little river from the mountain, where its bed is hollowed in the rock ^e, the net that had been brought is let down, and no few little fish are caught, fire is struck from flint by the Levite, and refreshment is prepared. Meanwhile the man of God, seeking his accustomed prayer, fell, striking his foot in a bramble; and the deacon, striving to lift him up, heard: "Let me be; this is my rest for ever and ever; here will I dwell, for I have chosen it."

[12] with the deacon Hiltibod as guide, And when he had risen from prayer, he made a cross of a hazel rod, on which he hung a little box ^f in which were Relics of the holy Virgin of virgins, and of St. Desiderius ^g and of the loving commander Maurice ^h. Where the prayers of both are renewed again. For the man of God said suppliantly: "Lord Jesus Christ, creator of the world, who didst come to the help of the human race by the trophy of the cross, grant, in honour of Thine elect, that this place be habitable for Thy praise." The prayer is prolonged to sunset, and food is taken with thanksgiving. For when they had given their limbs to rest, and the man of God, rising silently, had exercised himself in prayers before the same box, his fellow-traveller was secretly watching. Meanwhile a bear came from the mountain, and picked up the fragments, to which it was said by Gall, the elect of God: "Beast, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ I command you, take a log and throw it on the fire." And it, at once returning, brought a very stout log, and put it on the fire; to which, as the wage of its work, bread is offered by the man of God, but yet in this manner, and it is commanded: "In the name of my Lord Jesus Christ, depart from this valley. Let the mountains and hills be common to you, but do not harm cattle or men here." Having seen these things, his fellow-traveller rising and throwing himself on his knees, said: "Now I know that the Lord is with you, since the beasts of the wilderness obey you." Who at once heard: "Take care not to tell this to anyone until you see the glory of God."

[13] he seeks When morning had come, the deacon said to him: "Father, what do you wish us to do today?" And he said: "I beseech you, son, be not angry at my words; let us remain here this day also. Take the nets and go to the pool, I will come after you quickly; perhaps the Lord will show us His accustomed mercy, that we may have something to offer to our host for the blessing of this place." The Levite said to him: "What you say pleases me," and at once he rose and went to the pool. Where, when he was striving to let down the net, two demons appeared to him in the form of women standing naked at the shore, as though wishing to enter the bath, and showing him the shamefulness of their body, and moreover throwing stones at him, they said: "You have led this man into this wilderness, a wicked and envious man, who always prevails against us in evils." Having heard which, he returns with neighbouring foot, and the thing done is announced to the man of God. Which having been heard, the prayer of both is poured out to Christ. For the Saint said: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, do not reckon it by my merits, but command these demons to depart from this place, that it may be sanctified in the honour of Thy name." And when they had risen from prayer and had come to the pool, the demons were turned to flight along the course of the river as far as the top of the mountain. And the man of God said: "Phantasms, I command you by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that you depart from this place into the deserts, and enter here no more." Then indeed, letting down the net, they caught scaly flocks. Where again the guile of the ancient enemy is renewed: while they were still drawing the fish to themselves, they heard from the top of the mountain voices as of two women weeping over their dead, who searched out these words: "What are we doing, or whither are we going! It is not permitted us, on account of this stranger, to dwell either among men or in the deserts." But afterwards, when the deacon himself had laboured three times with the desire of catching hawks, he heard from the mountain which is called Himilinberc ⁱ the demons asking with a shout whether Gall was still in the wilderness or had departed *.

[14] and finds. These things having been done, they surveyed the valley and the mountain, they saw between two streams ^k a wood, and a desirable plain, and a delightful place for building a cell. After the example of holy Jacob, foreknowing his future dwelling, Gall, the elect of God, said: "Truly the Lord is in this place." There and then a miracle was renewed: whereas a multitude of serpents swarmed there, from that day it did not appear. The Creator of angelic power is more and more adored, and thanksgivings are rendered to Him. For a conversation was being held between them about going out of the wilderness, but the Levite was entreated by the man of God to go out, and a truce until the third day was asked of him; which his fellow-traveller took hard, repeating that he would not dare to see the face of their host without his presence. But the word of the man of God prevailed, and the Levite went back ^l. The Saint therefore then exercised himself, and for these three suns kept himself without bodily sustenance. On the fourth day, therefore, he goes out, and the priest of Arbon is visited by him with thanksgiving, by whom he is received with joy, and every kindness is prepared for him; they rendered praise to Christ, and sat down for the sake of refreshment, where, among other kinds of gladness, the Levite said: "If the bear were present, perhaps Gall would have offered it a blessing." When therefore the origin of the remark was inquired of by the priest, it was recited by the Levite, as it had been done. Thenceforth he was held by them as one of the ancient fathers; for his life was hard, and consumed with dryness *.

[15] At the persuasion of the priest Willimar, While they were there together, a messenger came to the priest Willimar, saying that Gaudentius ^m, bishop of the city of Constance, had departed; for whose rest both laboured in prayer. After this, on the seventh day, a letter was sent to the aforesaid priest, in which it was contained that he should be present with the man of God after twelve nights with Duke Cunzo in the village named Iburninga ⁿ. This was done because his daughter Fridiburga was despaired of; whom a wicked spirit, having entered, was tormenting with passions incredible to anyone. She took little food, rolling on the ground she foamed, nor could any but four hold her; which kind of demon was dumb until the thirtieth day; thereafter it began to speak. For she had been betrothed to Sigebert ^o, son of Theoderic. To whom her father made these things known with haste by messengers, for which aid two most exalted pontiffs were sent. Willimar, therefore, wishing to come to the appointed placitum , exhorted the man of God to go with him. From whom he received such an answer: "This journey is not mine, but yours. Do you go, father; what have I to do with the prince of this world? But I will return to my cell." To whom the priest said: "By no means let it be so, but go with me for the consolation of the sadness of the judge *, and lest perchance you be led to him unwilling." But the effort of him who fled worldly honour prevailed.

[16] by Duke Cunzo In haste he revisited his little cell, namely that he might the more hide himself from human inquiry; in the morning he told the brethren that no one should point out a certain place where he could be sought, but if they were more urgently pressed, they should testify that a letter of his abbot Columban had come to him, that he should come to him more quickly into Italy [p]; and so he committed himself with two pupils to the hidden places of the wilderness. Having therefore crossed the Alp, he came into the forest called Sennius [q], where also was the nearest village, Quaradaves [r]; in which they found a deacon named John, serving the Lord in justice and fear: who then brought them in, and also for seven days ministered to them as to pilgrims from far away, they pretending that they were from afar. When the priest learned of the withdrawal of the man of God, he sailed to the duke, and recited the outcome of the flight. To whom the duke said: "Quickly send an embassy for him, and persuade him to come to me; if therefore God shall free my daughter through him, I will enrich him with gifts, and will give him the episcopate * of the city of Constance." In which effort the priest returned. When, therefore, the pontiffs sent by the royal dignity had arrived, great sadness of the parents was being displayed; who nevertheless were presenting the royal gifts to the girl, but she, shaking herself, snatched the sword from the one holding her, and

wished to kill them.

[17] though unwilling, And from her the demon also spoke to one of them: "You promised the king that you would cast me out of this little vessel; why did you not bring your daughter, whom you made in that a holy nun?" To the other also he said: "And you have committed fornication with three women belonging to others. By your command I shall never go out; but there is a man named Gall, who drove me out of Tuccinia, where I dwelt a long time, and destroyed all my houses there, and again found me at Pergentia , and thence likewise cast me out, whom this duke expelled from that place, for which vengeance I entered into this girl. Unless he himself comes, I shall not go out hence." And one of the pontiffs gave her a slap, saying: "Be dumb, Satan." He, hearing her name Gall, supposed that a cockerel [s] was spoken of. But the insolence against the royal envoys did not cease, as the garrulity of words lifted itself up. They remained there three days, and returned to the palace, and also recited the order of the matter to the king. The priest, however, fulfilling the command, and finding the man of God reading in a cave, spoke consoling words to him: "Do not fear, father, to come to the duke, for he swore to me by oath that he would do you no evil, but only that, praying, you should place your hand on the girl's head. For if Christ should help her through you, he will give you the see of Constance." They were still speaking, and behold John the deacon was there, who offered him for a blessing unleavened loaves and a flask of wine, oil and butter with honey and roasted fish . Thanks are rendered to Christ, and the feast is begun.

[18] he goes to, The man of God therefore promised that he would set out on the morrow, and the aforesaid Levite wished to bring him his mule with a saddle [t] for the sake of carrying him; but he, as he was wont, fleeing all pomp, affirmed that he must visit the brethren in his cell, and so come as quickly as possible to the stronghold *. Whom, however, the priest bound by oath to the agreement. John returned with a blessing, and the man of God entered his cell by the way he had come. Where, the space of the night having passed, he went to the stronghold with two pupils; where also he found another messenger directed by the duke with the priest, who urged them to hasten, saying that the girl had now been three days without food. The ship is boarded, and that night they reach the duke. When morning had come, the duke entered the bedchamber with them, where the mother was holding her daughter with closed eyes as though dead, from whose mouth as it were a sulphurous odour went out, where also a multitude of the household was present, waiting for what was to be. The Saint therefore laid himself down in prayer, and said with tears: "Lord Jesus Christ, who, coming into this world, didst deign to be born of a virgin, and who didst command the winds and the sea, and didst bid Satan go back behind, and also by Thy passion didst redeem the human race, command this most unclean spirit to go out of this girl." And when he had risen from prayer, having taken her right hand, he lifted her up. For the wicked spirit tore her.

[19] and heals his daughter: But he, placing his hand on her head, said: "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ, unclean spirit, that you go out and depart from this creature of God [v]." When he had said these things, she, her eyes opened, looked upon him, and the unclean spirit spoke to him: "You are Gall, who first cast me out, but I entered here because my father, with your companions, cast you out; if you now cast me out, where shall I go?" The man of God answered: "Where the Lord plunged you, into the abyss." For at once, in their sight, there went out of her mouth as it were a most foul bird, black and horrible. Immediately made whole, the girl rose up, whom the man of God restored to her mother. And the father is gladdened with his friends, and offered him the gifts sent to the girl by the dignity of the king. And he handed over to him the aforesaid episcopate, which the man of God refused with these words: "While my teacher Columban lives I shall not celebrate mass; if therefore you wish to raise me to this, let my letters go to my teacher, by whom if I am absolved, I shall be found obedient to you." To whom the duke said: "Let it be according to your word." The elect of God returned with the gifts with which he had been honoured. It was, however, commanded by the duke to the tribune of Arbon [x] that he should help him with all those country people for the building of the cell. The man of God enters the stronghold of Arbon, and a multitude of the poor and needy is gathered, to whom the gifts given by the duke were wholly distributed. But Maginald, his minister, wishing to keep one silver vessel, precious with engravings, for * the use of the priestly ministry, asking his master about this, heard the example of the key-bearer of heaven: "Silver and gold I have none; but do you give it away." These things having been done, he returned to his beloved solitude, and also exercised himself in wonderful manner in the warfare of the heavenly king.

[20] presented with many things, which he gives to the poor, Then indeed a letter is directed by the man of God to John the deacon, in which it is requested of him to come to him as quickly as possible. Reading which, and desiring to fulfil the command, he went hastening with blessed gifts, and went to his cell, whom the brotherly band received honourably. And he, received kindly by the man of God, inquiring after the prosperity of his journey, heard from him of the honour of the prince's reception; therefore there was added also the rescue of the girl, and the gifts given, and also the offering of the episcopate. "Which," said the man of God, "I did not wish before the command of my abbot, but do you, son, capable of my counsel, begin with me to give attention to the divine law, which, gathering in the secrets of your heart, you will perhaps be a help to more ." The Levite, hearing this, throws himself on his knees, giving thanks. And he quickly sent back his companions, and gave himself to his mastership. With whom he went to the spring of mother philosophy; since he plucked minutely the knowledge of the divine law. Nor was he made unlike * the evangelical scribe, since he searched out from his heart old things and new. But King Sigebert, when he had heard that health had been restored to the girl, ordered her father to send her to him. He brought her with all ceremony as far as the Rhine, and thence sent her to the king by counts with great honour [y]. She, received with gratitude, was asked about the recovery of her health, which the prelates of the royal court had been unable to confer.

[21] he persuades Fridiburga to virginity, By her it was answered that there was there a Scot named Gall in the wilderness, through whom miracles were wrought by the Lord. "He," she said, "when your handmaid was already at the last extremity, came at my father's request, and, his hand placed upon me, fortified me with the sign of the cross, and also commanded the demon to depart. Which obeying the command, in the sight of those who were with me in the house, went out of my mouth like a black and horrible raven. Thereafter I received the body of the Lord unharmed." These things having been said, she threw herself at the feet of the king, saying: "Permit me, most clement king, to have obtained this alone, that your favour may come to the same man of God for me." And the king asked her, saying: "In what wilderness is his dwelling?" The girl said: "In a forest joined to the district of Arbon, which is between the lake and the Alps." And the king ordered a letter of confirmation to be written, that by royal authority the man of God might thenceforth hold his little cell, which was sent to the man of God with two pounds of gold and two talents of silver, envoys being sent who came humbly, and more fully commended the royal dignity to his prayer. It was therefore commanded by the king to Duke Cunzo that he should help the man of God with a multitude for the building of the cell. The king therefore made a nuptial banquet, no small crowd of princes being called. And when he had ordered the virgin to be brought into the house, she prostrated herself, saying to the king: "My lord king, your handmaid is still tearful on account of the sickness of my body, and moreover the touch of my limbs is vile. Allow me yet seven days, until I recover my strength." To whom the king said: "Let it be according to your will."

[22] whom, her betrothed consenting, The king entered the palace, she returned to the bedchamber. At the banquet, therefore, many wondered that the queen was not at the king's side. For she concealed the decision of her mind until the seventh day. When it was dawning, she entered the church of the protomartyr, the doors having been shut behind her back; where she took off the royal garments and put on those of a nun. Indeed she took hold of the horn of the altar, and prayed in these words: "St. Stephen, who didst shed thy blood for Christ, be today an intercessor for me, unworthy: that the heart of the king may be turned according to my will, lest this veil be taken from my head." Seeing which, the men who had followed her announced it with haste to the king: who, calling together the priests and princes, sought counsel thereupon; among whom Cyprian [z], prelate of Arles, said: "This girl, when she was held fast by demons, had bound herself by a vow that she would not be turned away from holiness. Beware lest you drag her away from it, and, she suffering worse things than before, you fall into sin."

[23] vows herself to God Which the king, just and fearing God, hearing, and taking the counsel of very many priests, having entered the church where she was, ordered the royal garment to be brought, and the crown which had been prepared for her, and said to her: "Come to me." She, thinking that she was to be * dragged out of the church, held the horn of the altar more urgently. To whom the king said more clearly: "Do not fear to come to me. All things shall be done today according to your will." She then, laying her head on the altar, said: "Behold the Handmaid of Christ, be it done to me according to His will." Whom King Sigebert ordered the priests to remove and to bring to him, and he commanded her to be clothed in the royal garment with the veil and crown, and commended her to the Lord with these words: "As you were prepared for me with ornaments, so I will give you as bride [aa] to my Lord Jesus Christ," and, having taken her right hand, he laid it upon the altar, for which reason he is said to have gone out weeping. But he ordered her to come after him, and in the palace made her recline beside him, whom he honoured with many gifts, and commended her to the monastery of girls built in honour of St. Peter in the city of Metz, where these things were done [bb]. All these things, moreover, which the girl had done had been done through the counsel of the man of God Gall, who had freed her from the demons with the Lord's help.

ANNOTATA.

most distinguished in charge of publishing the monuments of Sardinia, when they refer two diplomas of Bobbio to the year 602 or 603 Historiæ Patriæ Monumenta, volume I, page 1.. At that time Columban was living quietly and securely at Luxeuil, nor was there anything that he should ask of King Agilulf. Nay, the question of Bobbio was then first begun to be treated when the holy man was already staying at Milan, as Jonas has it in his Life, number 60. In order, therefore, that their authority may be reconciled to the cited diplomas, it would first be needful to correct them by adding ten to the numeral notes, in this way: Given at Milan in the palace on the ninth day before the Kalends of August, in the eighth (eighteenth) year of our most happy reign, in the fifth (fifteenth) indiction, happily. The eighteenth year of the reign of Agilulf coincides with the year 612: and about the end of July of this year Columban could conveniently, having crossed the Alps, reach Milan. The other diploma creates more difficulty: it is signed indeed: Done in the Constantinian palace on the 3rd day in the month of November. But in the diploma itself it is said: In the year, God being propitious, IIII of the pontificate of the lord Gregory, Supreme Pontiff and universal pope in the most holy see of Blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, indiction III. These things by no means agree with the chronology: the month of November of the fourth year of the pontificate of St. Gregory the Great coincides with the year 593. At which time Columban had scarcely begun in Gaul, or at least could not have handed over to the power of the Apostolic See the monastery of Bobbio, which he received many years afterwards. If the diploma is genuine, several faults have certainly crept in; first of all Boniface IV would have to be substituted for Gregory, whose fifth year, not fourth, was running in the month of November of the year 612. The indiction also was the fifteenth. These faults more probably crept in because the diploma had to be copied from a copy of the thirteenth century. For the rest, Ughelli has both diplomas Italia sacra, volume IV, column 952..

p. These things seem quite like a lie: yet there is nothing of a lie in the holy man's words, if he really had the intention of withdrawing into Italy in the case that he should be too much pressed to accept some dignity or riches.

q. Commonly Sennwald, in the present canton of St. Gallen, was then a deserted place. Alps, which comes here, is a generic word among the Swiss, signifying a mountain.

r. Today Graps, a village near Sennwald.

s. These things, if they are true, indicate that the name Gallus was already used while the Saint was living: for if he had been called Gallo, Gallunus, he could not have been confused with a cockerel.

t. Stratorium Ildefons von Arx interprets as a servant to whom the care of the beast is committed. And in my judgment, rightly: for although stratorium signifies the bedding of a riding saddle or the cloth with which it is spread (compare Du Cange's Glossary), we better interpret it here as a servant, necessary for the journey and for leading back the horse.

v. These prayers and exorcisms are taken from the prayers and exorcisms of baptism, although I have not found them expressed word for word, as Ildefons von Arx will have it.

x. The governor of Arbon is called in the charters of traditions now tribune, now centenarius, now vicar. Von Arx.

y. From the fact that the betrothed Fridiburga is said to have been sent, and not brought to the king by her father, as fable hints to Adrien de Valois: compare the preliminary Commentary, number 112.

z. There are those who deny that this Cyprian was bishop of Arles: nor is there anything to make one incline to either side. Saxi will have it that St. Virgilius of Arles lived until the year 640, and then there would be no room for Cyprian. But the time of St. Virgilius' episcopate is so uncertain Gallia Christiana, volume I, column 154, and volume I of March, page 400. that nothing occurs by which Cyprian could certainly be rejected.

aa. It is a Teutonism: Zur Ehe geben to give in marriage.

bb. Compare the preliminary Commentary, number 112.

divisione*

oratorium*

ducem or Angelum* guide, or Angel

* the ninth hour, or the third after noon

colurnea*

socius*

hanc*

festino*?

recessisset*.

austeritate*

nota fecit*

diem*

Cunzonis*

episcopatum*

Brigantii*

munere*

Arbonam*

ad præceptorem meum*

adjuvaret*

usum*

excepit*

humaniter*

pluribus*

adibat*

fore* seems to be superfluous

obtineret*

adjuvaret*

debere*

Chapter III. He refuses the episcopate of Constance, builds a cell, dies.

The episcopate of Constance having been refused, John, therefore, the aforesaid pupil of the man of God, persevered with him, and learned manifold prudence, the interpretations of the divine books, and the works of the hands practised by the Man of God ^a. Who was held there as a disciple in many disciplines; since Christ worked in him the gift of His grace, so that what he had seen or heard he at once took into his heart. Where he remained three years ^b, growing in meekness and humility in the Lord. Thereupon the aforesaid duke Cunzo sent a letter to the man of God, that he should come * to Constance, so that with him he might choose a worthy pontiff. And he called the prelate of Augustudunum ^c with clergy and people, and also summoned the one of Speyer for the sake of the election, and fully from the whole of High Germany ^d he called together priests and deacons, clerics and laymen to the same city, that a worthy pontiff might be chosen. The duke himself indeed, with the princes of the Swabians, mediating, the synod was prolonged three days with an infinite multitude of people. The man of God took John and Maginald and went on to the city. And when he had entered the council, the duke went before him, saying: "May God, who willed to become incarnate through Holy Mary, in whose honour this church is dedicated, deign to pour out the Holy Spirit upon us, and give us a pontiff to rule the people and govern His church."

[25] he asks that his disciple John be substituted for himself in it; And he asked the pontiffs that through their canons they should choose whom they wished; where the whole clergy was united, the people together with them crying out: "That this Gall is a man of God, having good fame throughout this whole region, instructed in the scriptures and full of wisdom, just and chaste in body, meek and humble, a giver of alms, continent and patient, a father of orphans and widows; it is fitting that such a one have the pontificate." The duke said to him: "Do you hear what these are saying?" To whom the man of God answered: "They have spoken well; would that it were true. These who say this do not understand that by canonical authority a stranger ought not to be ordained bishop ^e. For here with me is John the deacon of your people ^f, who, Christ being propitious, is endowed with this testimony in all things, on whom the weight of government is fittingly to be enjoined." Therefore he was quickly called into the midst of the synod, and was asked by the duke of what stock he was. When he answered that he had his origin of parents in Rætia, the duke said to him: "Have you the strength for the government of the Church to be undertaken *?" To which Gall, the elect of God, put himself forward in answering, praising the maturity of his life. While these and many other things were being said with the man of God about his election, he humbly withdrew, and fled outside the city into the church of St. Stephen. Whom the crowd of priests and people pursued, and he was led back unwilling and mourning. The voice of the multitude was lifted up, when John was elected prelate, the people agreeing.

[26] he preaches at his consecration; The election having been completed, he was consecrated by the aforesaid bishops. Whom at once all were begging to perform the solemnities of Masses, and the man of God to instruct the people with his sweet-flowing teachings. He, eager to water hearts from the divine spring, holding his pupil by the hand, went to a higher place, and, the prelate interpreting the words of his teacher ^g, the origin of the fabric of heaven and earth, and the expulsion of the first earth-born, with exhortations to seek the heavenly inheritance, were searched out. For the continence of Noah, and the faith of Abraham with the examples of the patriarchs, and also the Mosaic signs were recited, those legal deeds being all reduced to the healing of souls. The fortitude of the Kings was compared to the most valiant athletes of the Christian apprenticeship, who wage unceasing war with virtues against vices. The vision of the Prophets was fully turned by them to the correction of morals and to the stability of right faith, and, the mysteries of the old testament having been passed through, they came at length to the new joy of the clemency of Christ, where it was discoursed the more loftily, the more wholesome are the things found there. The evangelical miracles, therefore, and the sacraments of the passion and resurrection having been recited, the hearers who were present are said to have watered their faces with tears through heavenly desire; and so, glad from divine compunction, they returned to their homes ^h. Gall, therefore, the elect of God, staying with his pupil seven days, poured into him the seeds of divine consolation the more abundantly, the more he

saw that he was more bound to him in taking up divine examples. And now, having received the blessing of his prelate, he revisited the known secrets of the wilderness. Whom the pontiff followed with service, and among other kinds of kindness he ordered his agents with the people to press on eagerly with the building of the cell.

[27] and, having returned to the solitude, Then indeed the Saint, relying on this help, began an oratory and workshops fit for the brethren. He was content, therefore, with only twice six companions dwelling with him. For whom to stray anything outside the path of the rule had been altogether unworthy. For on a certain Sunday, the morning prayers being finished, when they had gone back for the sake of resting, at the first light of day the man of God called Maginald the deacon, saying: "Rise quickly, and prepare for me to celebrate mass." He answered: "What is this, lord? will you celebrate mass?" To whom he said: "After the nocturn ⁱ of this night, it was revealed to me that my teacher Columban has passed away, for whose rest I will offer sacrifice." At once the signal was sounded, and, the brethren having been gathered, prayer was multiplied, when the celebration of masses was held for the soul of Columban. These things having been accomplished, the man of God said to the aforesaid deacon: "Son, let it not be burdensome to you, hastening to Italy, to visit in it the monastery called Bobbio; where, diligently investigating the things which have been done concerning my abbot, noting the day and hour, report to me without delay." At which command the Levite was astonished, since he said that he did not know the way. But the elect of God said: "Go, brother, do not fear, the Lord will direct your steps." A blessing is asked, and the road is quickly taken, the heavenly guide helping him, he at length reached the monastery of Bobbio. Where he found all things according to the revelation of his master, and stayed one night with those brethren. Who sent to Gall, the elect of God, a letter full of the deeds of St. Columban, and his cambutta ^k, saying: "Our teacher, while still living, commanded us that Gall should be absolved by this staff." Christ being propitious, returning on the eighth day, he presented the letter with the cambutta. The matters therefore having been recited, the divine clemency was more urgently besought for the rest of Columban, when the solemnities of masses and the sweetness of psalmody were searched out in common.

[28] he builds a cell. Now it happened one day, while he was working with the brethren and the people on the oratory, that one beam of the wall appeared cut short, four palms shorter than the others, which the carpenters thought of throwing away. But the man of God, trusting in divine help, said: "Cease a little from your work, refreshing your bodies with the food prepared." For a truce was given to the labour for a time, and the commands of the elect of God were obeyed. Then they went into the house with one mind, and also took food with a blessing. The meal therefore having been completed, God being the author, returning eager for the work, they found the aforesaid beam longer than the others by the measure of half a foot. O God wonderful in His Saints! what natural growth had denied, faith had given in the already cut-off growth. Sweet-flowing praise was rendered to the Redeemer of the world, when the element drawn contrary to nature was restored to its place. Nor do I think it should rightly be passed over in silence what miracle the Lord Jesus afterwards showed there. For those who, wearied by perverse humour, are shaken with toothache take medicine from the same beam even to the present day, Christ being propitious, his merits helping, whom the Lord deigned to honour in such a sign.

[29] After these things, however, it happened that the man of God Eustasius ^l, who had succeeded the venerable Columban in the government of the monastery of Luxeuil, left this toilsome exile. St. Eustasius having died, But the brotherly fellowship, not unmindful of his former conduct, was treating of acquiring the mastership of Gall, the elect of God, and with agreeing counsel they directed to him six brethren from among his Irish companions with a letter announcing the election. Who, divine clemency leading, came to the cell, and, kindly received, showed him the letter; in which, when the order of their embassy was attended to, he returned to the accustomed refuge of his secret place. "I," he said, "have left children and estates for Christ, and shall I take again the riches of the world? I had decided, having left my brethren and been made a stranger to the sons of my mother, to become a son of the prophet, and shall I now become the evangelical ploughman who, looking back, is not fit for the kingdom of God? Formerly I willingly obeyed, the dominion of your government moderating me, but now, content with this solitude, I shall spend my days without ambiguity." With these and other sweet-flowing words they were restrained who had supposed that he would be their shepherd. Amid which kinds of conferences he called his pupil to him, from whom he inquired what they had for refreshment. When he answered that he had only a sextarius of flour, it was quickly ordered to hasten bread and vegetables, the man of God making memory of the miracles of Christ by which He fed the peoples in the wilderness.

[30] the headship of the monastery of Luxeuil But meanwhile the nearby pool is visited by him with nets, one disciple with the aforesaid guests accompanying him. Where a miracle is renewed to the praise of Christ, when a huge fish, terrified by two beasts which are called luders ^m, is seen as though a prey to their greed. Without delay, therefore, the net is stretched out, and refreshment for the servants of God is drawn from the river. In wonderful manner its length was found to be twelve palms and its breadth four, whereas there nothing but a small little fish had ever been caught before. The aforesaid little beasts, therefore, as if withdrawing themselves, were waiting, that they might again obey the servants of God in service. Again the net was let down, and, the same beasts threatening the greatness of the scaly ones, the net, now broken, was drawn from the waters; which the elect Athlete of Christ seeing, gave back part of them to their native waters, and ordered part to be prepared for his beloved guests, and added: "Behold," he said, "your merits have appeared, because on account of your coming the miracles of Christ have shone forth." They on the contrary replied that they were not conscious of such merit, but that the Creator of the world had prepared these things for his glory; where humility stood as arbiter, since each party willingly held itself meaner than the other. The Saint therefore returned with his companions to the little cell, and a certain man bringing two skins of wine and three measures of flour met him at the very doors. Which, when they were gathered by the grace of Christ, a banquet mingled with divine conference was begun together, the sweetness of love mediating.

[31] offered, he refuses, For some days thereafter, on account of the fatigue of the journey, a measure of rest having been enjoined, he kept them with him. In which, assiduously, amid various inquiries into the divine law, he recited to them the deeds of the venerable Columban: but, having drunk in fully the distinctions of his miracles, and, among other kinds of kindness, both rushing into the holy kiss, they were dismissed, mourning and rejoicing: — mourning, because they did not obtain the mastership of such a patron: yet rejoicing, because they knew how great a help he was from the Lord. The Blessed one therefore appeased the divine clemency the more, the more secure he saw himself from worldly business. Vigils were renewed, and fasts taken up as in the first apprenticeship. If therefore I should wish to search out the discretion of his rigour, always kept stricter with himself, my days, as I think, my tongue, wearied, seems to me to fail first. But to those who desire only to hear his acts, I will tell how he fulfilled his blessed course, imploring the consolations of his prayers, that the things which have been proved by the testimony of truthful men may not be rejected by the vices of me, most wretched. When, therefore, the fashioner of the ages now wished to show his merits, and many were panting from desire of seeing him, it happened that Willimar, the aforesaid priest of Arbon, came to his little cell on account of their former familiarity.

[32] and at length at Arbon Who, received kindly according to custom, strove to beg the man of God with urgent prayers that he would deign to go to his house for the sake of a visit. Which the elect of God altogether refused, affirming that he no longer had the habit of going out of his cell, but rather ought henceforth most urgently to enjoy his accustomed labour. But he again entreated with urgent prayers, maintaining that he was then forsaken by his fatherly providence, if he did not now merit to have the solace of his teaching. "Have I then," he said, "sinned against you, elect of God, that you do not deign to visit the dwelling of your servant? By Him, by whose help we have been instructed hitherto through your teaching, I pray that you come for the sake of edification, and teach the people with your honey-flowing doctrines, that, from your labour of instructing the panting flock, you may take unfading fruit in the heavenly kingdom." The man of God, therefore, having it fixed no longer in any way to go out into a popular assembly, yet, as he always was wont, considering the advantage of very many, broke in himself what he hoped he could hold firm in his days; the Apostle saying: Charity seeks not the things that are her own.* Not as a greedy plunderer of transitory things, but as a devoted helper of many, he betook himself to the stronghold with the priest. Holy indeed and pleasing to our God was the fellowship between whom nothing reigned but perfect charity. On the longed-for arrival of the servant of God, therefore, a popular assembly is held, and his honey-flowing teachings are most urgently heard. Although therefore he was absent from his cell, he no less pressed on with his accustomed labour, since he joined not a few hearts, made fruitful by the divine seed, to Christ his king. Where he remained two days in the work of God, constrained by force by the priest and also by the people.

[33] he dies on the 16th of October. But on the third day, desiring to revisit his pupils, he was hindered by the vexation of fevers, whose sharpness so thickened in him that he did not take even the least nourishment of food that he was accustomed to. Which I believe was done by divine disposition for no other reason than that his merits might be declared the more quickly, so that, if for the hour the temporal journey was denied him, it might be made manifest to all ages with how great glory the elect of God would come to his place ⁿ. For fourteen days, therefore, the infirmity of his body increased, in which the illustrious athlete of Christ was preparing himself for His sight. And now, the fourteenth day coming ^o, on which we believe the reward of his labours was given back to him, his feeble limbs consumed and wholly failing apart from skin and bones, yet not ceasing from the work of God, but either directing the solaces of prayers to heaven, or pouring forth utterances of edification, unwearied in the service of Christ which he had begun, in the ninety-fifth year of his age [p], on the 16th day of the month of October, he gave back his blessed soul to heaven. The anniversary of which day almost now the mountains and hills and all the trees of the forests with divers creatures resound; since neither the number of the signs shown in him nor of the people flocking in crowds is found. Now it is not hidden from you in part, whoever shall have touched these things in reading, how devout in good and cautious in the world he spent his advanced age. Now, if it pleases, let us come to those things which were shown after his passing for the declaration of his merits, entreating Christ with common prayers, who is wonderful in His Saints, that the few things which we have learned of them may be told by His sense, who said [q]: I will be in thy mouth.*

ANNOTATA.

weight bodily works had among the ancient monks, let St. Augustine On the Work of Monks be consulted Volume VI of his Works, column 475..

p. Concerning the age of ninety-five years which St. Gall is said to have lived, see the preliminary Commentary, number 123 and following.

read venirent… eligerent*

Est tibi vis ad…*

q. Exodus IV, 12.

abnegabat*

communibus*

BOOK TWO.

Chapter I. Of the burial of St. Gall, the violation of his Relics, and some miracles.

John of Constance Report, indeed, rousing the ears of many, brought news of his illness to John, the aforesaid prelate of Constance. Who, not content unless he should visit his master ^a, as though from his help and teaching he had had heavenly and earthly riches, worthy blessed gifts ^b are taken onto the ship, and they hasten to the stronghold of Arbon. When therefore the harbour had been reached, the voice of those lamenting the man of God was heard. And at once it was inquired by the prelate what it was; whose heart was already struck with fear of being bereft of his master. Having heard, therefore, the outcome of the passing, he imitated the key-bearer of heaven, when the pontiff, for grief and love, did not contain himself in the ship, but out of longing for his master threw himself into the water. I know that he came with swiftness to the body, who devotedly gave himself into such danger for him. Where then mourning and grief were renewed, when the groaning of the priest and his companions was raised even to heaven. For the body of the Saint was then already in the coffin, which , unseen, the pontiff could not bear, he opened the chest, and began to weep with these words: "Alas, alas, my father! why did you lead me from my father's house? and now you have left me orphaned and desolate, when all my trust was in you!" Long weeping he lay upon him, with the sight of whom he believed he would never satisfy himself. But at length the priest and the others standing round lifted him up, and * admonished him that he ought rather to pray for him. And at last, the friendly limbs having been left, the prelate entered the church with the clergy, and also ^c set about performing the solemnities of masses for him, all the others lingering in psalmody. And now, so pious a labour having been finished ^d, the standard of the cross with all things fit for the funeral was taken up, and, with melodies imitating the heavenly choir, they went back to the house, so that the body of the elect of God might be laid in the earth there. But when it is considered what the divine counsel did there, it is not doubted that eternal rest at once received him.

[35] the body of St. Gall, dead at Arbon, When therefore the bishop came with the clergy to the body, the hands of many began to raise the coffin, but by divine providence it remained immovable, so that the more urgently it was striven to be carried out, the more human strength was weakened in its raising; where a miracle was renewed, when a wondering inquiry arose thence among all. But among the others the prelate said: "Truly I know that this burial is not acceptable to my lord Gall; behold, the will of the King enthroned on high is to be inquired." At once untamed horses were ordered to be brought. Which the ministers tried most swiftly to draw along. But when they had been presented with excessive labour, yet made ready with greater struggle, they were brought to the body, where the prelate with the clergy and people prayed in this manner: "Lord Jesus Christ, in whose love and honour this man of God left his homeland, following Thy precepts, work for the human race an astonishing miracle, an untamed animal carrying his body whithersoever it may please Thee under the heavenly kingdom." And when all had answered: "Amen," Willimar, the faithful companion of the elect of God, was going round the poor ^e, distributing his garments, among whom he found a certain paralytic named Maurus, who was so contracted in the joining of his limbs and in his sinews that walking on his own was denied him. To whom the gaiters of the man of God with his shoes were held out. And when for joy he had at once put them on, the joints of his frame were loosed; and he leapt up glad, crying with a loud voice in praise of Christ, who deigned to do this for the merits of the man of God.

[36] to the cell Seeing which, the bishop with an infinite crowd of people magnified the name of the Lord Jesus who does wonders, who deigned to show so manifest a power for the honour of His servant ^f. A taper therefore was at once given to him, and he followed the bier with the others as far as the place of burial. Weigh, I pray, O reader! of what merit this man was, at whose funeral one so unaccustomed became a fellow-traveller of the order of those on foot. The bier therefore having been lifted by the pontiff and also by the priest, and placed upon the horses, the bishop said: "Take the bridles from their heads, and let them go where the Lord shall will." The standard of the cross was therefore taken up with lights, and, singing psalms, the horses going before, the way was begun. A wonderful thing, and unwonted in the present age: the horses did not turn aside to the right or to the left, until by a straight path they had arrived at the cell of the man of God. When they stopped there, the band of disciples ran to meet them, raising the coffin of the man of God; and, lifted on their shoulders, they carried it into the oratory. It was therefore placed before the altar, and prayer for him was renewed by the pontiff and by the clergy. Then ^g the tomb was made between the altar and the wall, and, heavenly melodies resounding, the body was laid in the earth; and so the pontiff, having given his blessing, returned with immense exultation, the people rejoicing. In two candles, therefore, which throughout the whole funeral of the man of God did not let go their light, I think the power of Jesus Christ is not to be passed over in silence. One was placed at the head, the other at the feet, but ^h for thirty days the flame was found glowing in them; that there might truly shine forth the unquenchable light which Gall loved without worldly love.

[37] carries solemnly. While these were burning, toothaches were put to flight by the pressing on of that same wax, the bleary-eyed rejoiced that their soreness was taken away, the deaf were gladdened by the coming of their hearing, and many gave thanks that diverse other ailments had been driven out. For whoever afterwards came to his sepulchre sick or feverish, or held fast by any infirmity whatever, if he prayed out of faith, returned whole through the intercession of the Saint of God. For the mighty works of Christ done there, although they cannot be comprehended by human tongue, nevertheless resound through many stretches of the fields to the praise of Christ, who through the merits of his elect shows such wonders to the peoples.

For to those who desire to imitate the life of so great a father, I judge it should be made known by what tokens the harshness of his life was discovered. The Saint of God, then, had a little wooden box, which he kept * under the custody of a key until the end of his life, his disciples not knowing what was inside it. After the passing of the elect of God, therefore, the bishop opened it with the pupils, desiring to know the secret that had lain hidden in it so long. There was found in it a small hair-shirt and a bronze chain steeped in blood. Panting then to be made certain of the matter, they looked at the body of the Saint of God, in which they saw the flesh wounded in four places by the drawing of the girdle, the wound running round in the manner of a belt as far as the inward bones; so that it was proven how secretly the elect of God had sacrificed himself to Christ his king, since this had never appeared even to those who had been with him through all his life. But if you will weigh greater things from the least, you will be able to judge that the Saint of God long afflicted himself with countless torments. The little box with the hair-shirt, then, was hung at the head of the man of God on the bier, and so in the aforesaid funeral procession it was carried as far as the cell. When at length the burial had been duly performed, they hung it at his head on the wall, with the chains and the hair-shirt. There, when the faith of those who sought demanded it, the merits of St. Gall shone with splendid mighty works. All these things were proven by the testimony of ⁱ Meginald and Theodore, deacons of the elect of God, who merited to enjoy his service until he had completed his blessed course; and also of innumerable others, who either observed his life or learned the deeds of the Saint from truthful witnesses.

[38] His sepulchre famous for miracles When he had been buried ^k forty years, Otwin the governor, coming with a great army, inflamed with cruelty, laid waste some part of the district of the Thurgau, set fire to Constance and Arbon; his henchmen butchered a multitude of men at the edge of the sword, they led away the women with their little ones captive, and laid waste countless cattle and crops. Out of that fear a great store of goods was carried off from the district of Arbon and was placed beneath the ground in the territory of the cell of the man of God; and desiring that it lie hidden from the incursion of the enemies, so that there should be no hope of searching it out, they sowed diverse crops over it. At length, when the devastation through the districts had been accomplished, the enemy, coming in pursuit of the tracks of the fleeing people, found no small crowd of both sexes in the cell of the man of God. Seized, they were bound; fettered, they were dragged to dwellings they had not wished for, and their youth was wretchedly led into captivity. These things were betrayed through the diligence of ^l a certain tribune Erchanold, to whom, because of his nearness, all the matters of that hermitage were known. He, knowing the miracles of the Lord shown there, did not give honour to the name of the Saviour Jesus Christ; but with perverse mind he entered the oratory, where he found a certain paralytic known to him, to whom he offered threats and blandishments, saying: Tell me where these men of Arbon have their garments, and the great quantity of gold and silver which they had, for when we found them they kept almost nothing. He answered him: If I, he said, become their betrayer, what reward ought I to hope for? Deceived by greed, he said to him: If you will truly disclose everything, you shall merit to enjoy our fellowship. Without delay they were led to the place, where they found an underground hiding-place, where they discovered money of diverse kinds, which they divided among themselves rejoicing; and, as is the custom, when things coveted are found, they are sought the more anxiously: they roamed through the woods and the meadows * and the fields.

[39] it is violated by Otwin, But Erchanold himself entered the oratory with seven young men, where, with the doors shut, he tried to search out treasure by knocking upon the pavement; and how glorious a thing was held there by the gift of God was shown without delay, the Fashioner of the world working. When, therefore, one of them had knocked upon the sepulchre of the Saint of God, and the sarcophagus had resounded from the force of the blow, he cried out rejoicing: Here is what you are seeking. They, roused, began to dig, and came as far as the coffin of the man of God. They lifted it up, saying: These Romans are ingenious; that is why they hid their goods under a coffin. They tried, then, to search it, but by the divine will they were swiftly checked. For an exceeding dread rushed upon them, on account of which each one decided that flight was his remedy. They seized, then, the doors of the oratory, where they killed one another in mutual slaughter. But Erchanold himself, eager to escape, wishing to leap out, dashed his head against the lintel, whence he fell senseless, when he suffered a fitting penalty. He was then led to his own home, but he was seized with immense pains ^m, so that for that whole year he paid his penalty, losing his hair and skin and nails; nor in all his life could he lose the deformity which he incurred from the offence against the elect of God. It was heard, then, by Boso, bishop of Constance, that the burial-place of the man of God had been destroyed by the enemy, and that none had remained in his cell except Maginald and Theodore, whose scarcity had not sought to put the body back into the earth. Moved by such misery, the bishop came with priests and clergy, devoted to the service of the Saint.

[40] it is restored by Bishop Boso The holy body, then, was beheld by him not laid in a worthy burial, and the bare altars presenting a lamentable sight to those who beheld them, and also the intolerable wailing of the aforesaid brethren lying in the place of the oratory; the comfort of consolation was brought by him, as he said: In tribulation I called upon the Lord, and the Lord heard me in a broad place. The Lord is my helper; I will not fear what man may do to me. These and other exhortations being finished, the clod of the holy body was committed to burial in a worthy sarcophagus between the altar and the wall, and over it ⁿ a memorial befitting the merits of the elect of God was built. There the work of piety was renewed, when the bishop distributed food and clothing to the God-fearing men remaining there. And so, the things which are God's having been accomplished, they returned to their own homes rejoicing on account of the merit of such a patron.

[41] Those who attempt to violate it again are punished. After a long time, ^o Pippin, mayor of the palace, sent his army with all fury and wrath to lay waste Upper Germany, which they encompassed with great straits, so that now the abundance of human blood was not [p] searched out, nor the multitude of captive people led out of it. In that destruction a band of fugitives was gathered into the district of Arbon, of whom very many hastened to the cell of the Saint of God, where they hoped for help from the mercy and veneration of the elect of Christ. The enemy, then, nimbly pursued them, whom he discovered in the territory of the aforesaid cell. Their searching-out having been undertaken more minutely, five of them entered the oratory, where they found certain women with their little ones. When they asked them whence they were, they said * that they were handmaids of that Saint. They on the contrary said: Come out; we do not know your Saint, by whose patronage you believe yourselves helped. Under such contempt, then, of the merits of the venerable father, they led them away captive into Francia. But the divine vengeance did not leave unpunished, in the presence of men, those whom madness had seduced into so reprobate a sense. In the year, therefore, in which these things were done, they were seized by the ancient enemy, at whose impulse they wandered through cities and villages, and cried out with continual voices: Abbot Gall holds us bound. Thus it can be proven how gravely they sinned, since in this they wretchedly finished the end of their life.

[42] Fire does not harm the sepulchre, At that same time, then, there was a certain deacon there, keeper of the church, constant day and night, who one evening brought a wax candle [q] into the basilica, placing it in a candlestick beside the Saint's sepulchre; but, that the merits of Gall might shine the more by Christ renewing his miracles there, an inserted thing was experienced *. The candle fell upon the pall [r] of the sepulchre, which the fire consumed as far as the middle; from which burning the other palls of the sepulchre remained untouched, nor did the fire touch the bed or [s] the staff hanging upon it. This was so seen by all that same night and on the following day. But when, at the time of the next night, the band of brethren had prepared itself for the divine office, and had entered the oratory according to custom, candles were found burning beside the sepulchre, and two young men standing there as if for service, of whom one at the head and the other at the feet held that burnt pall, with which they devoutly covered the sepulchre of the Saint of God. An exceeding fear seized those who beheld it, and sent them back with swift step to their appointed beds. When they had entered, since sleep could not be taken for dread, nor the exercise of the vigils [t] be carried out, they heard the bell of the basilica resounding, which they did not doubt was done by a heavenly touch. But that it might be more certainly affirmed that divine power had shone forth there, two choirs of psalm-singers were straightway heard, sounding heavenly melodies. On that day, then, dread kept them from entering the church; but on the next day they gathered at the door of the oratory, where they lay prostrate in prayer for a very long time. When that was completed they entered trembling, and found the pall whole, which before they had grieved over as consumed by fire. And that it might be more surely believed to have been done by God, its length and breadth appeared three fingers greater. The Saviour of the ages was praised by devout minds, who deigned to show such things through the merits of his servant.

[43] Many things also that were heard have been passed over, while we hasten to those which were proven by sight. In the time, then, of Carloman, mayor of the palace [v], there was a man in Perahtoltes-para [w], poor in goods, nor the pall to be offered to the Saint. who, when he had desired to come to the monastery of St. Gall for the sake of prayer together with his wife, she wove a little pall, so that they should not appear empty-handed, which, in expectation of the journey, she wrapped around a twisted roll of wax, and put it in her chest. But meanwhile, by untoward events, his house took fire, in which the fire devoured everything together with that chest. But by a wonderful judgment of the arbiter of heaven, when the fire had been put out, and the former dwellings were being gone round, the little pall was found unharmed in the ashes together with the wax, of which the fire did not dare to swallow up even the least part, the wax resisting the burning in an unheard-of way, until it should be burned in the service of St. Gall. The miracle is known to many, since the praise of Christ has been spread abroad among the peoples. They, then, according to their vow, went to the monastery of the elect of God, bearing the gift preserved from the destruction. In whose mouth the merits of the elect of Christ [x] were spoken of,

the deed was searched into with the venerable man Audomar [y], abbot, and the brethren *; there being now as many witnesses of the miracle as there were places lying round about to which these things could come.

[44] Those punished who pay a vow Another miracle also is told, done in the time of Pippin, the glorious king [z]. A certain Willimar was troubled with a violent sickness, who vowed that he would give one horse and two oxen to the church of the elect of Christ, if by the mercy of God he received the remedy of health. Recovery followed him from that day; but the vow, which had been made under the compulsion of the calamity, was put off when soundness came. For after this it happened that his temporal lord Pirhtilo [aa] went for the sake of prayer to the church of the elect of Christ, with whom that same Willimar also came, sitting upon that same * vowed horse, under pretext of military service. The suffrages of the saints were implored with suppliant right hand, and receptions were worthily carried out by the brotherly hand. When at length the decision to return had been settled, while they were not far from the church, Willimar's horse stood still, and would not consent to go for its rider; it was bloodied a long while with the spurs, nor, punished with divers blows, did it move from the spot. The eminent man Pirhtilo, seeing this, and those who were with him, wondering what the cause was, began to inquire of him. He, unable to hide his fault, was compelled with confusion to disclose it as it had been done, confessing his sin, that he had not fulfilled his vow concerning the horse. With speed, therefore, they returned, and offered the promised horse to the veneration of the Saint of God. And so, having received a blessing, they went back glorifying God.

[45] badly. Thus also what must now be inserted was done in the fourth year of the reign of Carloman [bb]. There was in that same district called Perahtoltes-para a certain man in the royal fisc of Rotunda villa [cc], who desired to seek the intercession of the Saint of God, but because of poverty had nothing to bring. Having deliberated, then, how he might acquire something to offer to God, at the instigation of the devil he had heaped up a debt for himself. For with perverse mind he entered the lord's courtyard and carried off a swarm of bees by theft. Having shut it up at home, he had killed the bees, and also, having separated the honey, he had made a cake of wax, which he set out, accompanied by a band of neighbours, to bring to the entrances of St. Gall. But the King of kings, whom the elect of Christ served, displayed his power in this, and also brought to light the fraudulence of the seduced man. He entered the church, then, with the others who were praying, and as if about to offer it he drew out the wax; but in his hand it appeared so hard a stone that among natural rocks scarcely its equal in hardness could have been found. He, struck with fear of his guilt, confessed to the one standing by him, of what crime he had suffered the punishment. That man made it known to the keeper of the church, and without delay it became manifest to very many. The praise of the Creator was lifted up with immense rejoicing, who deigned to change the elements there. For in honour of the Saviour that very stone is kept there to this day, so that from the sight of it fear may be engendered in the fraudulent, and also edification in the devout. For Christ showed innumerable things there through his elect, and in the present age, when the faith of those who seek has required it, which if one should begin to recount them all, the day, as I think, will fail him before his discourse. In these few only let the Saviour of the ages be praised and adored, reigning with the Father and the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. The verb rimari which is used here is taken passively, and in the sense of diligent inquiry, among the writers of the Middle Ages; whence it signifies here that the abundance, or outpouring, of human blood was so great that it could not be searched out even by the most diligent.

q. The custom of lighting lamps at the sepulchres and Relics of the Saints recurs, persisting even to our own times.

r. The pall had at that time a manifold use, as Du Cange teaches in his Glossary at this word. For it was used for the adornment of the altar and the church, in which sense you would rightly interpret it as a hanging. The altar pall is the name of a consecrated linen cloth which is placed upon the altar, over which the corporal is spread; indeed it sometimes signifies the corporal itself. There were also sepulchral palls, with which the sepulchres of the Saints and of honoured persons were covered. And that it is of that kind of pall that we are speaking here the text would indicate safely enough, were it not that the text of Walafrid stands in the way, who in chapter 4, having called the sepulchre the altar of the sepulchre, says that the burnt pall lam brought no harm to the other linen cloths spread over the sepulchre. Whence it is rightly inferred that there were several linen cloths on the sepulchre, inasmuch as an altar had been placed upon it for sacrificing. Although, moreover, some Richard, Bibliothèque sacrée, under Nappe refer to the ninth century the use of multiple cloths for the sacrifice, nevertheless this use is far older: for, omitting the decree of Pius I, chapter 27, Distinction II, De Consecratione, it is certain that the same canon is already found in the Capitula of Theodore of Canterbury Berardi, Gratiani Canones, vol. II, p. 71. Moreover, after the elevation of St. Gall made by Boso, it would be surprising to no one that his sepulchre had the use of a sacred altar.

s. On the Cambutta, which Walafrid in the place cited interprets as a staff, it was treated above in note k to chapter 3.

t. What is said here of the exercise of the vigils, compared with the brotherly band praised a little above and many other things, shows sufficiently that the hermitage of St. Gall had even then been brought into the form of a regular monastery; and that it was the zeal of St. Othmar that the Rule of St. Benedict should be introduced among the monks.

v. Carloman, according to note o above, is the son of Charles Martel, brother of King Pippin, who from the year 741 to

747 exercised the supreme power with his brother: he was afterwards made a monk of Monte Cassino. Walafrid, chapter 7, wrongly subjoins that those gifts were kept as a testimony for those to come after, down to the times of Abbot Otmar; since the prodigy is related to have occurred in his time.

w. Perahtoltes-para, otherwise also Beroltisbara, Bertoltisbara, Bertoldesbara, Bara, Para, is a district of the duchy of Alemannia by the Black Forest, near the sources of the Danube. It is, says the Chronicon Gottwicense Vol. I, part II, p. 559, the present Landgraviate of the Baar by the Black Forest and the Danube, where still today the castles and towns of Fürstenberg, Hafingen, Nydingen, Blomberg, Geisingen, Möringen, Lupfenberg, Hohenberg, etc., are situated Compare Neugart, Codex diplomaticus, Charter 96, vol. I, p. 86.

x. Opinabantur in the passive sense for celebrabantur "were celebrated"; Du Cange in the Glossary has: Opinatus, that is, upright, of good fame, celebrated. So in the Life of St. Bonitus, bishop of Clermont, one reads in the same place: He goes to a certain most renowned servant of God.

y. Audomar is put here for St. Othmar: he died in the year 759; he will have to be treated on the 6th before the Kalends of December (26 November).

z. King Pippin, father of Charlemagne, died in the year 768 on the 24th day of September. When the author says that something happened in the time of Pippin, he sufficiently hints that that time had already passed, yet in such a way that he was a contemporary. See the Preliminary Commentary, no. 15.

aa. Pirhtilo, as Ildephons von Arx rightly observes, who is called an eminent man and led mounted vassals with him, is without doubt the count of this name who at this time was over the district of Bertoltespara Ibid., Charter 49, vol. I, p. 49.

bb. The fourth year of Carloman, son of King Pippin, brother of Charlemagne, falls in the year of Christ 771, in which very year he also departed this life: Austrasia had fallen to him, to which Alemannia belonged.

cc. Today Rottweil, formerly an imperial city, now belonging to the kingdom of Württemberg, at the head of the river Neckar: formerly it was called Rotunvilla or Rotunwillare Ibid., Charter 119, vol. I, p. 105. The royal fisc signifies here a royal estate, a demesne property, according to Du Cange in the Glossary, under Fiscus.

* not seen by himself

* satiare

* orari

* lippi

* terrarum

* perhaps observavit?

* sublata

* repererunt

* prata

* namely, the treasure

* Walafrid: Rætiani

* salutem

* paucitas

* Walafrid: ancillas ejusdem loci

* that is: proved the deed that must be inserted

* placentam

* arbitri

* it was diligently inquired

* votivo

* culpam

* to the church

* made known

* quæ si quis

Chap. II. Miracles performed by St. Gall for the preservation of the hermitage which he had inhabited while living.

BY WALAFRID.

Having made a brief preface These things ^a having been written down which the skill of the ancients has transmitted to us in writing concerning the life, end and mighty works of Blessed Gall, we have tried from here to comprise in our pen those things which, indicated by most faithful witnesses, were committed to letters by our dearest brother ^b Gotzpert. In which, first, it is clearly declared how or when the institutions of the regular life began to be kept in the monastery of Blessed Gall ^c; then it is set forth with probability by what miracles the power of that same father shone forth to all, the vouchers of each of the things introduced being likewise recorded. These we have wished to arrange in new placings of words, so that they may have some likeness of expression with the former ones, and, girt with the compendium of brevity, may not become burdensome to fastidious readers ^d: since we pass over the names of those who are or were witnesses of what is to be written, on account of their barbarousness, lest they infect the honour of the Latin tongue, knowing that the faithful are not to doubt the truth of what is said, inasmuch as they know that nothing of these things which we relate is impossible to God, in whom is done whatever is done wonderfully and laudably through the saints. But if anyone desires to know the witnesses of these same things, he will be able to find them in the writing which we follow. We insert also into this work some things which we have learned not by the testimony of writing but by the report of truthful men. In all of which, as far as concerns us, we shall be careful to keep the line of truth, neither inserting anything of our own through love of falsehood, nor concealing anything of set purpose through envy of the truth. And because we follow the writings or sayings of others, to them pertains the truth of the facts, to us the abridgement of the words and the bringing together of the accounts.

[47] the author explains After the glorious deposition of the venerable father, namely Blessed Gall the Confessor, certain religious clerics, kindled either by the memory of their discipleship or by divine love, kept daily watches by the Relics of his sacred body through the courses of many years, namely from about the times of King Dagobert as far as ^e Charles, father of Carloman and Pippin, to the praise of Christ. When, then, the fame of the mighty works which the Lord deigned to show through the merits of his Confessor to those who piously sought, soothed far and wide the ears of the surrounding peoples ^f, they began from all sides to run together with eager devotion to ask the suffrages of so great a father, and to enlarge that same place, on account of the long continuance of his memory, with manifold gifts of substance and possessions. And when the goods brought together by this largess of the faithful seemed able to suffice for a modest congregation of monks ^g, a certain Waltramm, to whose paternal possession the bounds of the vast wilderness in which the man of God had built his cell seemed to belong ^h, seeing the goods brought together disorderly handled by certain presumptuous persons, obtained from Victor ⁱ, then count of the people of Chur, a certain religious priest named Othmar, to whom he might commit the whole of those goods, and commended to him the little cell with all things belonging to it. Afterwards, persuaded by the counsel of a certain duke named ^k Nebi, he hastened with that same duke ^l to the aforesaid prince Charles, and delivered over to him that same cell by right of property, and besought that he would set the priest Othmar over that same place. The prince, assenting to his petition, called Othmar to his presence and commended the place to him, and enjoined that he should be zealous to establish the regular life there. He, returning, at once took up the beginnings of a good pastor, and building on every side, in orderly fashion, dwellings suited to the uses of monks, fitted the state of that holy place to divers needs. But when the said prince had made an end of temporal reigning and living, he left the administration of the kingdom to his two sons Carloman and Pippin.

[48] the donation of the monastery made to St. Othmar; Carloman, therefore, after the course of a few years had rolled by, laid aside the pomp of worldly glory out of love for the heavenly kingdom; and when he was making for Rome for the sake of a quieter life, coming into the neighbourhood of the aforesaid place, he went to that monastery for the sake of prayer, and hearing that that same ^m place was made illustrious by the Lord with constant mighty signs on account of the merits of the blessed man, he is said to have said: "This place is indeed slender in means, but spread abroad by famous report on account of the merits of Blessed Gall." And since he wished to confer upon those dwelling there some comfort of his largess, but reflected that, having separated himself from the business of the kingdom, he could not accomplish what he wished, he wrote back to his brother, that out of regard for his love he would deign to bestow upon that monastery some comfort of royal bounty. When, therefore, Prince Pippin had received the letter presented by Abbot Othmar, assenting to his brother's petition, he delivered to that abbot the little book ⁿ which father Benedict had composed concerning the conversation of cenobites; and imparting other gifts of royal dignity, he enjoined upon him with all diligence that in the place commended to him he should institute the order of the regular life to supply the watches of Blessed Gall; and that he might the better carry out what was commanded, he granted him certain tributaries from that same district, so that with their labour he might build the workshops necessary for the uses of the brethren, and might have, for the sustenance of the brethren, in commemoration of his largess, the dues which they were bound to pay yearly into the royal revenues. Among the other gifts of his munificence also, at the abbot's request, he gave a bell for the adornment of the holy place, which remained in that monastery down to the times of our age in memory of his benefits; and lest the avarice of anyone should stand in the way of the increase of so great a good, he caused a letter of lasting firmness to be written ^o, and, as is the custom, to be strengthened with circumspect precaution, whereby thenceforth both he himself who was present and his successors should hold that monastery by royal authority, and, pressed by the violence of no one, should be subject only to the princes of the realm. Abbot Othmar, endowed with these comforts of royal piety and exalted with honours, returned joyful to the monastery; and from that time the beginning [p] of the monastic life indeed began in the monastery of St. Gall, while its increase and progress do not cease even today to be laudably extended.

[49] then passes to the miracles Having set forth beforehand the narrative in which we believe it is truly enough comprehended how the sacred place merited the privilege of immunity, and at what time it was adorned with cenobitic dignity, we now turn our pen more freely to the commemoration of the miracles of Blessed Gall [q]. Victor, count of Chur in Rætia, of whom we made mention above, when he had learned that countless mighty works were very frequently shown at the tomb of St. Gall through his merits, urged on by envy, grieved sorely that our people should be distinguished by so great a bounty of new mighty works; and, as rumour had then spread abroad, he wished to come upon it secretly through the hidden places of the wilderness, and, if by any means he could, to carry off the treasure of the precious body. This intention of the malicious robber having been discovered, those who dwelt round about the cell of the man of God, guards being appointed by turns in troops, strove with all sagacity to defend that place from hostile incursion, namely lest they should lose the brightness of so dear a pearl *. When, therefore, one night the guards were sitting armed on the summit of the mountain which overhangs the monastery, to guard against suspected incursions, they chanced to see a light come from heaven and flood the walls of the whole church. Wondering, then, at the immensity of the light, they ran together quickly to the church; and while, set there trembling and amazed, they beheld that same splendour, the light, lowered, gathering itself together little by little, was set among the stars. And they, having seen the miracle, giving thanks to the Lord, returned secure to their own homes, believing that the body of the man of God could by no means be carried off by force from that place which the Lord had foreseen for him before the ages, and had adorned in those times with the honour of his illumination. Whence it is given to understand of how great merit with God this man was, the place of whose burial it befell to be illumined from heaven, namely so that the light which his soul perfectly enjoyed in heaven might not be lacking even to his dead body on earth.

[50] of St. Gall The aforesaid count, then, hearing that the guards had departed from the cell of the holy man, desiring to complete his attempts, took a band of men, that he might accomplish by a sudden and secret approach what he had wickedly devised. But because he was contriving this not looking to the profit of his own devotion but envying the advancement of another's happiness, he is known to have been swiftly checked by the will of God. For in the same moment in which he entered upon that journey, he fell from the horse on which he sat, and his hip was broken by that fall, the Lord rewarding the merits of the blessed man in this also, that he should not be carried away from the place which he himself had chosen, whom He had destined from the furthest bounds of Ireland for the salvation of many in Rætia and Germany. And the neighbours indeed showed

the services of their devotion by keeping watch; but God, the guardian of all good things, kept watch to restrain the robber there too, where the solicitude of the alternating peoples was not present; and this indeed he did, as we believe, lest the faithful peoples should be defrauded of the treasure which they courted with fervent zeal, and lest he who wished through malice to lay hands on this glory should obtain the effect of his perversity; and above all taking precaution lest, the Relics of the holy man being carried off, it should happen that the bands of monks who were to serve there in the praises of God should be lacking. And so the count, seized, and carried back home by his servants, was tormented for a long time with excessive pains, that he might understand at least from the penalty how proudly he had devised that which he believed could be accomplished by his own strength.

[51] wrought by the intercession Since, then, by the Lord's keeping, the body of the loving shepherd could not be carried off from the folds of the devoted sheep, it was fitting that, with miracles bearing witness, the power of his merits should shine forth manifestly to all in that same place. For a certain man of the neighbouring territory, when, troubled by a long sickness, he lay upon his bed, a noxious humour creeping upon him, lost the light of his eyes and the sense of his ears. Then, the soles of his feet being twisted back to his buttocks, he was weighed down by so great an infirmity that only in his little breast did signs of fleeting life remain. He, carried by his people to the monastery in a vehicle, when at the request of his friends he had been permitted by the keeper to spend the space of one night in the church of Blessed Gall, and was passing the night there alone, about cock-crow, in a sudden ecstasy of mind, saw four men clad in most white garments enter the oratory. When, approaching the altar, they had sung together for a very long time in the sweet alternation of melodies, one of them, the praises being finished, coming to the litter on which the sick man lay, said: What is the reason, O man, that you pass here alone all night the horror of the darkness? Only believe, and henceforth you will be secure from this infirmity. He, rising forthwith, and with all weakness removed, went out and departed whole to his own people.

[52] for the preservation Abbot Otmar, then, when he had vigorously ruled that monastery for many years, so enlarged the possessions of that place, through the religious * persons dwelling round about, who conferred very many gifts of their largess for the love of the eternal reward, that within a few years, a plenty of outward goods being at hand and the purity of his life shining forth, he became the father of many monks. But certain counts, Warin and Ruodhard [r], who then administered the charge of all Alamannia, while they strove to subject to the dominion of their own property, by their power, no small part of the ecclesiastical goods within the bounds of their jurisdiction, claimed for themselves the greatest part of the possessions of that monastery. For they took away the tributes which Pippin of good memory had granted to those brethren, and by the impudence of their rapacity they withdrew very many other things which had been handed over to that monastery from the donation of certain religious persons. Moreover they also cast the abbot himself into chains, when he had accused them before the prince on this account, and banished him into custody on a certain island of the river Rhine near the place which is called [s] Stain; where, when he had remained for some time under the strictest confinement, he passed from the prison of this life to heavenly joy, having completed not less than forty years of his rule, in which he nobly enlarged and increased the state and glory of that holy place.

[53] of the hermitage, He being thus withdrawn from human affairs, the aforesaid counts, retaining the possessions taken from the holy place, substituted in his place [t] a certain John, a monk * from the nearest monastery; and then, that they might increase the crime of their tyranny, they instigated Sidonius, bishop of the Church of Constance, to be zealous to subject that monastery to the portion of the bishopric. And this they did so that, he favouring their machinations, they might the more freely retain the things which they had unjustly taken away. The bishop, then, gladly giving assent to their persuasions, entered the monastery and set about oppressing the brethren and subjecting that place to the goods of the bishopric. And the brethren, since they did not dare to resist his power, preferred to obey his jurisdiction rather than be entangled in so many adversities. But what follows proves how perversely he acted who through the disease of avarice dared to violate the privilege of the sacred place.

[54] which It is related that this same bishop once ordered provisions to be prepared for him out of the resources of that monastery for a military expedition. And since the brethren did not dare to neglect this, they put the things that had been ordered on a ship and sent them to the bishop's residence by the hands of certain brethren: and when those who had been sent had begun to sail, a certain bird, as these men often testified, appeared before them, and, as if it would render them the office of guidance, went before them in easy flight; and while through the whole vastness of the lake they made use of its unaccustomed guidance, coming at length with prosperous success to the harbour, they wondered what these services of a new guide portended; and as they diligently noted what part it was making for, it entered a certain house adjoining the shore, in which the things suited to the aforesaid journey were being kept. Wonderful to say, presently a flame, seizing that same storehouse, burst forth on high, and utterly consumed all things which had been gathered there, so that nothing whatever of them survived this burning; and it came about by the just judgment of God that he who had seized the goods of others by power was defrauded of his own by heavenly justice.

[55] At another time also, the same bishop, coming to the monastery, when he had tried by a certain violence to subject that place to the bishopric, had inhabited. and to afflict with manifold injuries, as though justly, the monks who did not consent to his tyranny, as rebels [u], a certain Tello, bishop of the Church of Chur, sent to him, humbly beseeching that for love of him, since some of those brethren were joined to him by the bond of kinship, he would cease from injuring them and would inflict no harm on the servants of God. Proudly despising this petition at the dictate of his fury, he sent back word that he would by no means consent to his prayers, but would inflict swift vengeance for their contempt upon those who resisted him. And presently he entered the oratory of Blessed Gall the Confessor as if to pray, and stood before the altar consecrated to his name; and he who did not merit to be heard unto salvation received, with a fitting enough retaliation, the afflictions which he had sworn he would inflict upon others. For his bowels began to boil like a pan set over the fire, and such dire wrenchings of the entrails seized him at once that without the support of others he could by no means have gone out; but, what it shames one to say, the discharge of nature bursting forth with a foul rush, since it oppressed those standing by with an excessive stench, he was without delay cast out of the church and placed, as he had asked, in a vehicle in which he might depart from the monastery. And thus, lacking the usual control of nature through the immoderate flux, sitting upon a vessel into which the discharges might flow, he went out, and was brought to the neighbouring monastery [v] which is called Augia (Reichenau), over which he then also presided: where, the sickness also growing heavier, he became so intolerable, on account of the excessive stench, to those who served him, that now almost no one could render him services in the accustomed way. Punished, then, with such a penalty, with this reward of his factions, after some days he breathed out his spirit from the sewer of his body.

ANNOTATIONS.

to the stars, this place was likewise increased by their successors for love of the Saint, until the times of Charles (Martel). Now the son of Talto was Thiotolt, whose son was Pollo, and Pollo's son was Waldpert, who begot Waldramm. This Waldramm, desiring to increase this place in all things for love of St. Gall, and wishing to institute the regular life there, obtained Otmar, a holy man, from Victor, count of Rhaetian Chur, and commended to him the aforesaid cell with all things belonging to it, and appointed him abbot, as is most fully contained in his Life. Among the other gifts of Waltramm, Ekkehard IV, in the Fortunes of St. Gall, no. 1 Ibid., p. 92, cites mountains given to the monastery which had their name from Waltramm, namely Waltramsberg, today Rosenberg. There is extant also in the Codex Diplomaticus Alemanniae, charter 72, a charter of Waldrada, daughter of Theotun, wife of Waltramm the tribune, given in the eleventh year of the reign of the lord Charles, most glorious king (779)… on the day which made the 2nd day of February. Whether this Waldrada was the wife of the Waltramm of whom Ratpert and Walafrid speak, the rather long space of time makes doubtful between the handing over made to St. Othmar by Waltramm about the year 720 and the donation of the place Rumanishorn (Romanshorn in the Thurgau on Lake Constance) in the year 779: but the interval of time is not so great that it could not be the same person: then too Waltramm could have celebrated a second marriage. Alban Butler, further, erred in the Life of St. Othmar at the 26th of November p. 95, Louvain edition, when he makes Waldrada the daughter of Waltramm, since she herself professes in the charter of donation that she is the daughter of Count Theotun and the wife of Waltramm Neugart, Codex diplomaticus, charter 72, vol. I, p. 67.

p. The beginning of the monastic life here, as I said above in annotation c, is to be understood of the beginnings of the Rule of St. Benedict among the monks of St. Gall.

q. Ildephons von Arx doubts, in the annotations to Walafrid in the Monumenta Germaniae, whether that Victor was truly count of Rhaetia, because older charters are lacking. The lack of charters is not so important that it can render doubtful the entirely clear narrative of Walafrid, who is scarcely a century older. Victor could have been driven to that crime by the hope of the riches flowing in on account of the presence of the body of St. Gall.

r. Warin was count of the Thurgau, as we have from various diplomas in the Codex Diplomaticus Alemanniae, charters 18, 24, 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 42, 58, 62, that is, from the year 754 to 775: he had a son Isanbard, who conferred various things on the monastery of St. Gall on the 4th day before the Kalends of June 806. In the same place, charter 160. Ruodhard, otherwise Ruadhart, appears as count in charter 46; he presided over the Argengau, which district is not to be confused with the Aargau Compare Chronicon Gottwicense, vol. II, pp. 547 and 549. These men seem to have acted at the instigation of Sidonius, bishop of Constance, who, being already lord of Reichenau, was trying to bring the monastery of St. Gall into the power of the bishopric, as Ratpert relates, no. 2 Ibid., p. 315; Serarius 99. Martin Gerbert History of the Black Forest, vol. I, p. 63 discusses at length whether Warin and Ruthard were the founders of the Ghibelline and Guelph families.

s. Stain, today Werth, which the ancients interpreted as an island, is a castle near Schaffhausen, as the geographical map prefixed to the later volume of the Chronicon Gottwicense also indicates. Among our own people too the word Steen designates a fortified house, as at Ghent the Gravensteen, the palace of the counts.

t. John was abbot of St. Gall before he was bishop of Constance: for whereas on the 1st of March 739 a donation was still written to Audomar or Othmar Neugart, Codex diplomaticus, charter 24, vol. I, p. 29, the following donation of Warin is made to Abbot John Ibid., charter 25, who then in charter 28, that is, on the 20th of August 760, is called bishop with his monks dwelling there (at St. Gall). Sidonius had died on the 4th before the Nones (2nd) of June of that same year Neugart, Episcopatus Constantiensis, p. 78.

u. Tello sat as bishop of Chur from 758 to 773 Eichhorn, Episcopatus Curiensis, p. 24.

v. Trudpert Neugart Episcopatus Constantiensis, p. 78 thinks he finds a contradiction between Hermann the Lame and Walafrid, because the man whom Walafrid writes died at Reichenau, Hermann in his Chronicle at the year 760 says died before the altar of St. Gall Ussermann, Germania Sacra, Prodromus, p. 122. Here are the words: When Sidonius, bishop and abbot (of Reichenau), had invaded his (Othmar's) abbey with rash daring, he perished before the altar of St. Gall, struck with a flux of the belly. Hermann could be excused on the ground that Sidonius was truly struck to death before the altar of St. Gall: but he also stumbles in saying that John succeeded him in both monasteries.

* margaritæ

* Pertz omits: religiosis

* Augia dives (Reichenau)

Chapter III. The miracles of St. Gall are continued.

A miracle at the fattening of swine, Having completed in the foregoing sentences the account in which we believe we have comprehended truly enough how the sacred place was made famous and enlarged in possessions through the merits of Blessed Gall, and also by what machinations of certain ill-wishers it was assailed, and what vengeance humbled certain men: we now judge that we must unfold how great protections the blessed man afforded to those serving him, for guarding or defending their goods

he lends, and with what authority he succours with a manifold kind of mighty works those who ask of him and trust in him, the Lord declaring to mortals the greatness of his merits by the constancy of signs. At a certain time, when the barrenness of the earth denied the fruits of the trees not only to the swine but also to the wild beasts or animals, so that in the pastures of the nearby wilderness no mast could anywhere be found with which the swine that were reared for ^a the uses of the monastery could have been fed, by a certain hidden impulse the herd of swine began to go off with swift course through the trackless places of the woods, and, having forded the bed of the river Rhine, penetrated the secret places of a more remote wilderness. The swineherd, wondering at the sudden flight of his flock, followed on the track, and found the herd, which he thought was going to ruin, lingering in most abundant pastures. And since he did not know the way of return, he remained there, living on the fruits of the trees and on flesh, until the whole herd was heavily laden with fat flesh. Desiring, then, to return home, he began to consider anxiously by what device he could undertake the unknown road. One night, then, he saw in a dream a certain old man of reverend habit and venerable with white hair of countenance, saying to him: Since, as I see, the swine which you follow are richly fattened, prepare now to return. And when he answered that he did not know the way, he said to him: Strike the sow which the whole herd is wont to follow as its leader, and wherever she goes before, direct your steps. And when he did this and diligently followed her as she went before, without straying he came unexpectedly to the monastery, while all suspected something else. In which matter what else shone forth than the merits of Blessed Gall, when for the uses of those serving him he showed the animals an unknown pasture, and called them back again in wonderful order to their own place?

[57] in the punishment of an arsonist, A certain brother of that monastery, having certain possessions under his care, built stables in a certain more remote place for the rearing of cattle, and stored a great quantity of hay there. Two men, then, instigated by diabolical persuasion, setting fire to it by night, burned those storehouses with all things that were gathered in them. But when the authors of this deed had now lain hidden for almost a whole year, one of them, seized by a demon, began to run about through the neighbouring places, publicly crying out: I set fire to the cattle-stables of Blessed Gall, and therefore in turn I am being burned invisibly by him. When, then, the divine judgment continued upon him became manifest, and many, roused by his importunate cries, came together from the several places to this wretched spectacle, he asked all to quench his burnings. But though they vied in throwing water upon him, the penalty divinely inflicted could not be extinguished by human strength. Then, no few days having passed in this wretched kind of torment, he ended his life insane. But the other, when he had seen the partner of his crime condemned to such torture, came to ^b the aforesaid provost, and of his own accord, dreading the divine judgment, confessed his fault, and offered two oxen for the debt, and bound himself by a vow that he would never thereafter inflict damage on the goods of St. Gall. That same brother, recognising his penitence, did not accept the oxen, but permitted him to go away with his own to his home.

[58] of a thief On a certain possession of the same monastery a certain little wood was guarded for the feeding of swine, lest it should be cut down and consumed everywhere by many. A certain poor man was wont to enter this secretly, and, by cutting down much there by stealth, to inflict great damage. And so one day, when according to his custom he entered secretly and cut down a few shrubs, the sword which he held clung so firmly to his hand that he could by no means lay it down. Recognising, then, for what cause he had been punished, he hastened to the basilica ^c built in honour of Blessed Gall, and, lying long in prayer, his hand being loosed, he left the sword before the altar. But going out, he began to think that it would do no harm if he carried home the wood he had cut, but would do no good if it rotted and perished. Having yoked oxen to a cart, therefore, he returns to the wood, and gathers into one the things cut down; and when he wished to put them on the vehicle, urged as if by goads by a certain most violent pain, he was seized in the hinder parts. When without delay he stretched out his hand thither, he received by chance the sword which he had left before the altar; and, clenching the handle with his fingers, he held the detestable gift so firmly that the joints of his knuckles were thought to be loosened from one another. Then the wretch, compelled by pain, ran back to the church, and there, prostrate, besought pardon for what he had committed and the release of his hand. And when he had persisted long in prayer and could by no means let go the sword, at length he promised by oath and vow that he would never thereafter inflict damage on the goods of Blessed Gall. Presently the hand, opened, laid down the sword, which, hung in that same place as a testimony of the miracle, remained there a long time, striking a great weight of fear into the invaders of Ecclesiastical goods.

[59] and of a perjurer. A certain man named Frumold took away by force two handmaids from a certain possession of the same monastery and subjected them to his own service. He, having been often summoned by the advocate on account of those women, was at length compelled by the sentence of the judges either to restore them to the monastery, ^d or to establish them as his by right with an oath taken upon the altar of Blessed Gall. And so, avarice driving him, making light of the oath, he came to the monastery with his people, and boldly carried it out as had been adjudged. But for his contempt of the Saint of God vengeance swiftly overtook him. For, the oath being completed, about to go to his own home, he went out of the basilica; and when, the beast being brought, he wished to mount it with a leap, bereft of his wits he turned his face, in sitting, to the hinder parts of the horse. Thinking, then, that this had happened through the neglect of his servants, he leapt off in anger, and ordered the horse to be turned round more quickly. And when, wishing to mount a second and a third time, he was mocked by the same error, at length, set upon the horse with the help of his retainers, he departed from the monastery with a blush. And when he was placed not far from there, a dire pain of the eyes suddenly seized him, and then, his sight decreasing moment by moment, it utterly deprived him of material light, condemned to the horror of blindness.

[60] A man delivered from death. How prompt a help the venerable Gall, when invoked, also bestows will be clear from the following example. A certain man, while he was making a journey through a certain wood, and was trying circumspectly, by hastening, to avoid the incursions of robbers who were wont to dwell in it and to harm many, so great a drowsiness suddenly seized him that he could scarcely walk: and since, out of fear of danger, he held the chances of the road suspect, and wished to turn aside for a little in order to sleep, he met a certain countryman, and began to ask him to be his guard in the meantime, until he could drive off the importunity of sleep by resting a little. And he, feigning peace, pledged his faith. And so, turning aside a little, he puts his cloak under his head, and, prostrating himself, implores the suffrages of the Blessed man in these words: St. Gall, guard me with your protection. Then, fortified with the sign of the cross, when he had fallen asleep, the faithless guard, unmindful of his pledge, taking up arms, approaches the sleeping man as if to kill him, and draws the garment off his neck so that he might the more easily kill the sleeper with one blow. But when he wished to bring down the sword for the blow, his limbs being stupefied with stiffness, his arms could not be bent. Meanwhile someone stood by the sleeper and said in his sleep: Why are you weighed down with sleep, whom I have just now protected from imminent slaughter? And he, waking, and seeing his * faithful companion with naked sword hanging over his head, leaps up, and, seizing him, asks for what cause he wished to commit this crime. And when he confessed that he had wished to do this in order to take his spoils, he at once lowered his arms, which had stiffened at the divine command. The other, then, weighing that he had been preserved from death by the divine mercy through the merits of Blessed Gall, made peace with him and let him go away unharmed.

[61] A girl delivered from a demon. Moreover, so many have been delivered from the fury of demons through the merits of the same holy father that, if we should wish to recount the healing of all, we should give fastidious readers occasion for murmuring. One, therefore, out of many we unfold, lest this kind of mighty work should be thought to have been lacking to the holy man. A certain girl, held by a most savage vexation of the ancient enemy, and brought to the monastery by the labour of not ignoble parents, when she had entered the oratory of Blessed Gall the Confessor, at once, tossed by a horrible assault of the demon, fell to the ground, and, wretchedly tearing herself, began with horrid outcry to pour forth most filthy words. For which cause one of the brethren, Stephen by name, having compassion on her misery, recited the exorcism over her until that vexation was ended. And to the girl when she came to herself ^e he enjoined measures of penance, and began to exercise himself for her in prayers and fasts. But the wretched woman, as soon as she took anything of the forbidden foods, the demon at once invaded her so sharply that she could scarcely be held by many. And when she had again been brought to that same place, and ^f the aforesaid Stephen had recited the exorcism over her once more, a little animal, most black, in the manner of a locust, slipped out from her mouth. This being seen, when that same brother insisted more attentively on the adjuration, three times the likeness of a locust each time fell from the woman's mouth. And while those standing by strove to catch these animals with their hand, they suddenly vanished. But the girl rose up unharmed in that same hour, and passed the remaining time of her life without any assault of the demon.

[62] A prodigious oil. This also it is pleasing to show by an evident miracle: how the holy man rebuked certain men in his service who were anxious about the scarcity of goods, and strengthened the faint-heartedness of little faith. The keeper of his church, when at a certain time he did not have a supply of oil for furnishing the lamps, one night put out the light which was wont to burn every night in the crypt, because the light which burned before the upper altar and the tomb directed its rays through a certain window to the altar placed below in the crypt, and was believed to suffice for both places. Now in that same glass lamp, which we have related was put out by the keeper, there was water below and the fat of the oil above. I am about to tell a wonderful thing: all the oil so flowed down drop by drop to the ground through a crack found in the bottom that nothing of the water seemed to be missing: and the same liquid, running across the ground as far as the altar, climbing up, took possession of its linen pall, and so stained it as far as the middle that it could never thereafter be washed out. In which I shall not be able to find what I should most wonder at: whether that the oil sank down beneath the water, or that the water did not flow out through the same fracture, or certainly that the oil went up from the pavement into the pall. In all of which, nevertheless, I do not doubt * that both the power of the holy man was shown and foolish parsimony.

[63] A fugitive brought back. It ought not to be passed over in silence with what power the blessed father restrains those who abandon his service and fraudulently go off, and either calls back the fallen or strikes those obstinate in evil. A certain brother of that same monastery, having contrived flight, stole a horse and went off by night. And when, fleeing, he had come to the waters * of the Rhine, he tried to ford it on the horse, and from the middle of the channel, without knowing it, the horse carrying him back to the place where he had entered, he returned with great haste to the monastery, thinking that he was going off far into other parts. When morning came, since he recognised that he had laboured in vain,

he hid himself by day in confusion: but by night, again taking to flight, he suffered a salutary error in the river as before, and, a * turn being made, he came back by the same way without knowing it. Joining obstinacy to confusion, then, he hid himself that day also, and, the night following, setting out a third time on the familiar road, he is called back in the same way as we have said. And when, now overcome with weariness, on the third day he had given himself to sleep in a field, he was caught by certain men who recognised the horse and was restored to his place; and because he did not find the effect of his will, even against his will, overcome by the power of the holy man, he came to the way. Many, moreover, are wont to testify that all who have fled from the household of that Saint must either undergo amendment as quickly as possible or succumb to manifest vengeance, and that it turns out with impunity for no one who has disdained to keep full faith with him.

[64] A man blinded by lightning is healed. That the Lord restrains certain men from sins by his scourge and afflicts them for what they have committed, the paralytic is witness, to whom the Saviour forgives his sins before healing him; but he sometimes so strikes that he restores them to health through the suffrage of the merits of his Saints, so that it may be both an indication of the divine working, when the man is inwardly restrained from sin by the scourge, and the power of the Saints may be clearly proven, when health is shown outwardly on account of their merits. It also sometimes happens that he who by the hidden judgment of God is subject not to one but to several infirmities, loses the troubles of his weakness not all together, but at different times and through different intercessors, so that, while the remedy of some ill is granted through the merits of one Saint, the full restoration of health is reserved to the prayers and honour of another. Of all which things the following narrative will give an evident indication. A certain man, struck by the violence of a thunderbolt, after a long sickness so lost the form of his whole body and the offices of his limbs that he seemed to express something monstrous rather than a man: since both his stature was lowered by a lamentable contraction, and the power of walking was taken away. And his face was spoiled by such foulness of burning, and the seats of his eyes were so levelled over by flesh and skin drawn across them, that a horrible wonder was presented to those who looked on. With the help of his kinsfolk, then, he was brought to Rome, and, the bonds of the rest of his body being loosed, he received back his former vigour and state, but remained in the squalor of blindness. He, brought back by his people, when he had come to the monastery of Blessed Gall, and ^g on a certain Sunday was present at the nocturnal praises, weighed down with sleep, saw as it were two burning arrows sent forth from the altar and fixed in the places of his eyes; and at once, terrified by so great a vision, he cried out, and fell trembling to the ground. And when he had rolled a long time on the pavement, the skin which had grown over his eyes being cut away as by the stroke of a sword, he forthwith rejoiced at the restoration of the light he had lost. Then, as time went on, the keenness of his eyes appeared so pure to those who looked on that it seemed to surpass the gaze of a sharp-sighted boy. He indeed could, as we believe without doubt, that most excellent of the Apostles, on whom was conferred by the Lord the power of binding and loosing, have freed him by his merits and prayers from every kind of weakness; but it is established that it was brought about by the providence of the divine power, that in the novelty of this same miracle the venerable Gall should be made equal to the apostolic acts, so that in this way also the greatness of his merits might shine forth to all.

[65] A deaf man cured, a theft disclosed. On the following Sunday also a certain deaf and dumb man, very well known to many of the brethren there, inasmuch as he had been wont to frequent that same monastery, when he was present at the nocturnal watches, was suddenly thrown down upon the pavement by a violent impulse; and at once, when a great deal of blood burst forth from his mouth and ears, he received without delay the functions of both members and went away whole. It seems that there should be inserted in this work how much the servant of God watches over the defence of the goods of those who strive devoutly to ask his suffrages. A certain boy, who afterwards, joined to the body of that same congregation, was wont to attest these same things, while he was still rejoicing in the flower of earliest youth among the scholars of the monastery, was present at the solemnities of a certain Sunday night, when someone from the neighbouring territory broke into his lodging, and went off having stolen his book and whatever he could find there. The boy, returning from the basilica, grieved sorely with abundant weeping over the loss inflicted. Now to his brother, who was placed outside the monastery, a certain old man, standing by him that same night in dreams with a placid countenance, indicated all the things that had been done concerning the little boy; he declared also the name of the thief and the place where he dwelt, likewise setting forth the time of that theft. He, giving credence to the vision, returning to the monastery, found done what he had heard in dreams; and presently, following the indications he had received, he caught the thief without difficulty and recovered all that had been taken away. At another time also a certain nun from the bishopric of Constance, whose arms, twisted stiffly to her breasts, could not be bent to the use of any work, when she had come and prayed for some time before the sepulchre of St. Gall, obtained health and went away rejoicing.

ANNOTATIONS.

* otherwise animantibus

* impulsu

* infidelem

* Pertz adds: ministri increpatam

* otherwise fluvium

* circuitu facta

Chap. IV. Other miracles.

A theft disclosed. A certain man coming, with no simple mind, as afterwards became clear, when he observed that certain workmen of the monastery, unyoking from the daily labour of farming, had left the iron tools in the ploughs for the night, judging the dark time opportune for his frauds, took away as many iron tools as he believed sufficient for his own load. And when, hastening his flight, he had laboured all night with empty effort, at the very rising of the light he came unexpectedly to the gate of the monastery; and because he knew that the deed could not lie hidden, he disclosed by spontaneous confession what, at the devil's persuasion, he had committed with pestilent presumption against the goods of St. Gall. And so, returning what he had attempted to carry off, having asked pardon, he went back empty.

[67] A weak man healed. A certain weak man, so contracted in all his limbs that by no means could he go anywhere by himself, carried by his people to the shrine of Blessed Gall and placed daily beside the sepulchre ^a in the crypt, when he had persisted there in prayers until evening, was carried back by them to the guest-house. And when this had been done for some days, a certain priest of that same congregation one day was engaged at the sacred offerings not far off in that very church; and suddenly, when no one was present besides them, the sick man, visited from heaven, as we believe, through the merits of St. Gall, whose suffrages he was assiduously imploring, began to cry out horribly with a confused voice, so that that same priest, amid the sacred solemnities of the Masses, as he was often wont to testify, was shaken by no small terror and fear. And when, looking about, he had surveyed all things with his eyes, and desired to overcome the greatness of his fear through the presence of someone, as the limbs of the wretch returned to their proper state he heard a crackling as of rods broken in their dryness; and turning this way and that for anxiety, after a very little while he saw him who had been weak come forth whole from the crypt, to whom also so great a perfection of health presently came that thenceforth he enjoyed the desired power of walking without the hindrance of infirmity.

[68] another from loathing of food, In that same province of the Alamanni a certain rich man was so wasted by an adverse ailment that for almost a whole year, labouring under loathing of food, he was failing, and could not take or retain the comforts of nourishment, as the recovery of health seemed to demand. He was brought to the monastery of Blessed Gall for this same cause. After long prayers and sighs, then, when the office of the sacred oblation was being completed, he received ^b the bread of blessing from the hand of the priest. Having eaten it, he was free of the loathing; and the desire for food being fittingly received, blessing the Lord and marvelling at the merits of St. Gall, he returned whole with joy to his own home.

[69] another freed from bonds. A certain poor priest, bound on account of the guilt of homicide with iron rings ^c both on his neck and on each arm, made it credible to those who saw him, by the furrows which the iron had inflicted on his flesh, with what grievous torments he was afflicted daily. When he had visited many places of the Saints for a remedy of that torment and the abolition of the crime committed, at length, regarded by the divine compassion, he merited to lose the bonds by which he was bound on his neck and on one arm; and when he had by chance come into the neighbourhood of the monastery of St. Gall, it was commanded him through a vision (as he was wont to relate) that he should go to the monastery seeking the patronage of the holy man, and it was likewise indicated that there he would lose the ring which he still bore on one arm and would obtain the grace of the health he desired. And he, burning with desire for the promised salvation, inasmuch as he was held by such torment that his whole arm had now been turned * by the sunken iron, hastened his journey to the monastery. And when he was present there at the nocturnal vigils, weighed down by deep sleep he sees an old man standing by, venerable with white hair, clad in a chasuble and saying to him: Why, O man, while the others are celebrating the praise of the Lord, are you weighed down with the torpor of sleep? Terrified by his presence, when he did not dare to give an answer, the old man touched the place of his wound with the staff which he carried in his hand. The iron then springing far off, because of the pain which he felt from the touch he terrified those standing by with horrid cries. When they asked for what cause he disturbed those singing psalms, he recounted in order all that he saw. And although he was not yet free of the still fresh wound, yet he was filled with immense joy over the loss of the iron by whose bonds he had been bloodied, because health was at hand.

[70] A miracle in a lamp. At another time also a certain brother, who discharged the office of keeper in that same Church, when he had to let down ^d the lamp-cluster which hung before the altar of St. Gall to lower places for lighting the lamps, * incautiously pulled back the rope by which that lamp-cluster hung, which, at once slipping from his hand, drew out of the wall the peg in which it was fixed. And when that same lamp-cluster had come near the ground with excessive speed, it suddenly stopped, and without any restraining device of human art remained suspended in the air. The keeper, then, struck with amazement at the miracle, brought fire and lit all the lamps, and, very many seeing this deed, without spilling or diminishing of the fat of the lamps he drew the lamp-cluster up higher than it was wont to hang. Praises, therefore, are rendered to God by all, thanks by everyone, who, for declaring the merits of the excellent father, by the novelty of a stupendous miracle did not suffer the light fitted to holy uses to be lacking to the venerable place even for an hour. When that same brother at another time was washing the glass lamps in that same church, a certain other man walking about there incautiously, when he had suddenly turned another way, touching with his garment some that were placed near, threw them on the pavement, so that by the violent impulse of that throwing-down they were carried as far as the chancel rails of the church; but, found unharmed in a wonderful way of the divine working, they were at once restored to their places, not without wonder.

[71] A physician. A certain brother of that same congregation, not ignobly instructed in medical science ^e, when at a certain time he had caused a vein to be cut with a lancet, and with over-hasty haste after a little while incautiously did some piece of work, at once not only the arm whose vein the incision had wounded, but also his whole body was distended with swelling. For which cause it happened that he began to hold death in suspicion, inasmuch as he had seen that the industry of his own art, applied the more zealously to himself, was of no avail. On the following night, then, he saw in a dream an old man of placid gravity standing by him, inquiring with gentle words into the causes of his infirmity. And when to the questioner he unfolded in order the event of the whole matter, the old man said to him: "Remember, son, when light is restored to the earth, to anoint the place of the wound with the oil which is wont to burn in the crypt before the altar: for you will at once receive health." When morning came, then, he related to the keeper of the church what he had heard in the dream, and, entering the basilica together with him, he carried it out as he had been taught, sure of the promise: and without delay, anointed with the sacred liquid, he was relieved of the swelling in his whole body and obtained most complete health.

[72] a blind woman and a scholar healed. A certain woman carried to the monastery on her own shoulders * an only daughter, blind, as she herself related, from birth; and laying her down before the altar of St. Gall, prostrate on the ground she lay for a long while praying for her. And while she was praying more devoutly, suddenly the girl, rolling this way and that on the pavement, cries out wretchedly, and amid distresses and groans, endowed with the sight she desired, she presents to all who were present a most welcome spectacle by the clearness of the sign. In that same monastery there was at that time among the scholars a certain little boy, sprung indeed from very poor parents, but sufficiently intent on the study of learning. And when by the untimely death of both parents he was stripped of their support, although he assiduously sought his daily food by his own labours, yet he by no means abandoned the earnestness of good study, even with necessity compelling him. He, struck with a certain pain in the side, wasted away with so grievous an infirmity over long spaces of time that on one side, namely from the shoulder to the lowest part of the body, very many ulcers emitting matter lay open. By this infirmity he was so weighed down that now he could scarcely move a step anywhere without the help of others. But when bodily medicine, though applied very often, availed him nothing, and he was now despaired of by all, the keeper of the church on the festival of Blessed Gall collected ashes from his sarcophagus, and mixed in oil which burned before that altar, and anointed the body of the boy, who was brought, in that part which the pain had possessed. On the next day, the ulcers now being skinned over, he was found whole; and in memory of the health restored to him he passed the remaining time of his life in faithful devotion in the watches of that same holy place.

[73] A thief punished. After some time a certain girl, bearing now for many years the useless weight of a withered and bent hand, came to the monastery with her mother. And when with pious vow, placing a little ball of flax upon the numb hand, she approached the altar of the holy confessor, and was about to place there what she had brought, at once the hand itself was restored to health. At another time a certain countryman in that same basilica of the blessed father secretly snatched from the altar a small piece of wax to be fitted to his own uses. Returning thence to his lodging, when he drew the wax out of his bosom to make from it some work or other, he found it turned into the hardness of stone; and at once running back to the church he restored what he had taken to its place, and, confessing his impudence salutarily to those standing by, he indicated what had been done. They, amazed at the novelty of the thing, when amid their wonder they took that same piece from the altar to know the matter more certainly, wonderful to say, found it changed back into the former softness of its nature.

[74] A dumb man, A certain poor young man, going to the monastery for the sake of prayer, brought with him his brother, who was long since lamenting the loss of his voice. And when he had approached the altar of St. Gall, he saw a certain priest there handling the most holy mysteries, and, awaiting the completion of the sacred action, he cast himself at the knees of that same priest as he returned from the office, and earnestly besought him that he would deign to pour out some prayers to the Lord for the wretched man. And he, satisfying a desire of this kind, first made a prayer for the wretched man: then fortified him with the sign of the cross, and so strengthened him with the sacrament of the Lord's body and blood. This done, the bonds of his tongue being loosed, he who had come dumb received again the functions of his former speech.

[75] a contracted boy, A certain boy so contracted in all his limbs that he could by no means go anywhere by himself, those who were wont to carry him left alone not far along the road which leads to the monastery. * But a certain armourer, making his way by the same road from the wood to the monastery, when he had seen the wretched boy lying there, said to him: How and whence, O pitiable one, have you come, or by what kind of security have you not feared to remain in this horror of solitude? whither, then, have you desired to come? And he said: On account of these calamities, by whose multitude you see me hedged in, I had long since desired to come to the patronage of Blessed Gall. But behold, these by whose labour I hoped to be carried thither, wearied now by the length of the way, have left me, wretched one, in this solitude to be tormented by hunger and torn by beasts. He, bent to mercy by compassion at these complaints, placing the boy on his shoulders, carries him for one mile to the monastery. Then the brother to whom the care of receiving the poor is committed, taking him, refreshed him in a fitting lodging. One night, then, about the nocturnal vigils, when the others who had likewise been received were hastening to the church, that same boy began to beseech all very earnestly that he might be carried to the basilica. And when all denied him what he asked, he began to call upon the name of Blessed Gall with frequent cries, and then also to make a more horrible din, so that he struck no small terror into those who heard. And so, when certain men came in to learn the causes of his distress, he was found whole, and hastened to the church with thanksgiving.

[76] a paralytic woman, Her people brought to the monastery a girl who had laboured a long time with paralysis. She, carried to the church, at the reading of the Gospel which is recited in the nocturnal watches according to the custom of the regular office, began to ask those standing round to raise her up from the ground and hold her up between their hands. And when she had been lifted up, she asked to be let go: and when they feared to do this, lest perchance she be hurt by a sudden fall, she affirmed quite confidently that she was strong. Being let go, then, she stood by herself, and thereafter, the vigour of her whole body regained, she went away whole. The maidservant of a certain householder dwelling not far from the monastery, when by chance * she was opening the doors of the house, a whirlwind cast dust and chaff into her face and eyes ^f; and at once, the trouble increasing, her sight gradually decreased, until she was encompassed with utterly dreadful darkness. She, brought to the church of Blessed Gall, when at her first entering she most devoutly besought his suffrages, received back the light she had lost and went away rejoicing. Not much time intervening, when the festival of the octave of the Epiphany was being celebrated with its yearly office, and all were coming together to the church at the time of the sacrifice, the lamps and candles were lit according to custom. But one candle, left without light among the others burning, amid the sacred solemnities of the principal Mass first began little by little to give off a thin smoke, then, not a few seeing it, catching flame and glowing more brightly than the rest, it commended the effect of the sign by the singularity of its splendour.

[77] and a Scot delivered. Lately also certain men coming from the nation of the Scots, with whom the custom of travelling abroad has now almost turned into nature, left in that same monastery one of their fellow-travellers, possessed by a manifold plague. When he had stayed there some days, and daily besought with full faith the remedy of his infirmity, one night he saw in a dream an old man, venerable in bearing and habit, standing by him; and asking who he was, he learned that it was Blessed Gall, and forthwith said to him: You see, O Lord, that I, loosened in my whole body, await daily the evidence of your merits. Do not, therefore, put off any longer what I believe you will one day do. For to this end I have been kept until now

I know, that as your power shines forth most widely to these barbarians, so also the brightness and splendour of your merits may become known to the men of your own nation. You yourself know, you know, I say, how far I am separated from my native soil, and how greatly, amid the straits of pilgrimage, I am crushed by weakness of body: succour me quickly, help me as soon as may be. He, moved by this complaint, answered with placid countenance in these few words: When day is restored to mortals, go to the church, and you will see that you are relieved better by divine counsel than by the comfort of your fatherland or of your kinsfolk. When morning came, he hastens to the basilica with the highest ardour of an eager mind, and beside the tomb of Blessed Gall, mindful of the promise, he persists in prayers. After prayer and tears, leaning upon a corner of the sarcophagus, he began by degrees to raise himself up, nor did he leave the corner of the bed on which he leaned before, his stature being erect and strength received, he could go and return by himself. He, endowed with full health in the time that followed, lives in that same monastery until now, devoting himself to prayers and a holy life.

[78] Epilogue. These grains from the most abundant harvest of the mighty works of Blessed Gall it has pleased us to commend to the barns of memory, to be of profit for our own and others' feeding: for these things will be able to confer very much righteousness of edification on those who love them, because they both instil uprightness of morals, and inflame the mind of the devout reader or hearer to the praise of the Lord, who so glorifies his Saints. For the rest, the miracles of this same holy father are so many and so great that they can neither be comprehended by zealous writers on account of their abundance, nor be run through by fastidious readers without weariness and a wrinkled brow. But only those have been inserted into this work which both guard the truth by the report of truthful witnesses, and by moderate brevity offend the mind of no one who is squeamish even at useful things.

PRAYER OF WALAFRID: We beseech you, therefore, Blessed Gall, Confessor of Christ, that as we have related that you have conferred health of body on many by your merits, so you would deign to implore for our minds the healing of the divine compassion. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Pertz: subito

* Pertz rightly adds: in tumorem

* Pertz adds: ibi

* Pertz: adduxit

* armentarius