Vitalis of Salzburg

ON ST. VITALIS OF SALZBURG, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, IN GERMANY,

ABOUT THE YEAR DCCXXX.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Vitalis, bishop and confessor, at Salzburg in Germany (S.)

A. T.

§ I. In which century, the seventh or the eighth, St. Rupert founded the church of Salzburg.

That St. Rupert in the 8th century What Suysken warned at the 24th day of September, about the end of the historical Collection on SS. Chunialdus and Gisilarius Vol. VI of September, pp. 712 and 713., namely that the things asserted in our work at the 27th day of March about the age of St. Rupert, apostle of the Bavarians Vol. III of March, p. 700., must be brought back to the file in the Supplement to the same day, seems rather to be performed by us now, since we must treat of St. Vitalis, his immediate successor in the episcopate at Juvavum, or Salzburg, who today obtains ecclesiastical cult there. Papebroch, illustrating the Acts of St. Rupert, judged that his death fell in the year 623 or 628, and this from the common persuasion of his time, according to which this Saint was believed to have given a beginning to his apostolate under Childebert II, king of the Austrasian Franks, and to have ended his life on the very feast of Easter falling on the 6th day before the Kalends of April, which indeed in the whole seventh century did not happen except in the two years already mentioned. This opinion, even after it had already begun to be refuted, was still patronized by Joseph Mezger in the History of Salzburg [Preliminary dissertation, p. 1 and following, likewise book I passim, p. 69 and following], Bernard Pez in the Letter to Hansiz on the Acts of St. Trudpert, Martyr P. 23 and following, Johann Heinrich von Falckenstein in the pragmatic History of the Boii Part II, period II, chapters I, II and III, p. 23 and following and the Antiquities of the Nordgau [Part I, chapter VII, p. 207 and following; part II, chapter II, p. 97 and following], the Benedictines of Salzburg in the Newest Chronicle of their monastery of St. Peter published in the year 1772 [Introduction and preliminary Disquisition, likewise centuries I and II passim, p. I and following], and other writers, whom I forbear to review, content to have named the chief ones. Their chief adversaries, however, were Mabillon [Acta SS. Benedictinorum, 3rd century, part I, p. 339 and following; Annales Benedictini, vol. I, book XVIII, no. 50, p. 564, Lucca edition], Pagi [Critica Baronii at the year 696, no. 6 and following; at the year 718, nos. 7 and 8, vol. XII, p. 155 and following, 282 and 283, Lucca edition], Eckhart [Commentarii de rebus Franciae Orientalis, book XVIII, no. 4, pp. 306, 307 and 308.], Meichelbeck [Historia Frisingensis, vol. I, prolegomenal dissertation II, pp. XI and XII; vol. II, prolegomenal dissertation I, p. II and following; Chronicon Benedicto-Buranum, prolegomenal dissertation I, pp. LXXV, LXXVI and LXXVII.] and Hansiz Germania Sacra, vol. II, p. 33 and following, who demonstrated by solid reasons that St. Rupert was contemporary not with Childebert II but with Childebert III, who began to reign at the end of the 7th century, and so died in the 8th century: although I do not agree with them about the year of death, which they assert was the year 718, if you except among them Hansiz alone, who, although he too had at first fixed this year as the year of St. Rupert's death, nevertheless afterwards, while retracting his disputation Ibid., p. 919 and following, deservedly withdrew from that opinion.

[2] came into Bavaria That the epoch of St. Rupert cannot be tied to the reign of Childebert II is deduced first from the fact that in the time of this king there existed no duke or king of the Bavarians Theodo or Dioto; yet that the duke who summoned St. Rupert into his lands was called by that name is altogether beyond all controversy. Nay, about that time duke Garibald presided over the Bavarians, to whom Chlothar I, on the testimony of St. Gregory of Tours [Historia Francorum, book IV, chapter IX, in Bouquet, Rerum Gallicarum Scriptores, vol. II, p. 207.], had given as wife Waldetrada, widow of Theodobald, and whose daughter Evin, duke of the Tridentines, took as wife at that very time at which Childebert II, his father Sigebert having been slain, still a little boy, undertook with his mother Brunechild to rule the kingdom of the Austrasian Franks, as Paul the Deacon narrates [On the Deeds of the Lombards, book III, chapter X, in Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, vol. I, p. 439.], from whom we also learn that the same Garibald, his daughter Theodolinda having been betrothed in the year 589 to Flavius Authari, king of the Lombards, ceased to rule the Bavarians in the following year 590, or certainly not much after Ibid., chapter XXIX, pp. 449 and 450.. Thereafter, on the testimony of the same Paul Ibid., book IV, chapter XVII, p. 455., with whom Aimoin agrees [On the Deeds of the Franks, book III, chapter LXXVI, in Bouquet, in the place cited, p. 105.], Tassilo was ordained king in Bavaria by Childebert, king of the Franks; and on the death of Tassilo about the year 609 his son Garibald succeeded Paul the Deacon, book IV, chapter XLI, p. 468., Theodebert II, son of Childebert, already reigning in Austrasia from the year 596. After Garibald II, how long he lived cannot be accurately defined [Compare Pagi at the year 637, no. 8, vol. IX, p. 321; Hansiz, volume cited, p. 52.], at the time when St. Emmeram came to Regensburg Compare vol. VI of September, pp. 462 and 463., and therefore quite long after the epoch of Childebert II and before that of Childebert III, the duke of the nation of the Bavarians was the eager man Theoto, as Aribo, bishop of Freising, says in the Life of St. Emmeram Vol. VI of September, p. 474., with whom Meginfred agrees: The monarchy of this province, he says Ibid., p. 491., duke Theodo, who then possessed it, etc. That his sons, however, did not succeed him in the kingdom is written by Arnolf of Vohburg Ibid., p. 495., who himself had a niece married to Adalram, born of the posterity of the same Theodo and of his son Lantbert, who was the author of the slaying of St. Emmeram Ibid., p. 510.: whence it is concluded that, although Arnolf published his books only in the 11th century [Ibid., pp. 456 and 457. Compare Waitz in Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae historica, vol. IV of the Scriptores, p. 543 and following], he is nevertheless worthy of credence in this part; and this all the more because his statements agree plainly on the same matter with other altogether authentic documents, as will be clear in what follows.

[3] is proved from that which Arnolf of Vohburg This writer, then, after he has praised the Theodo whose sons had not succeeded him in the kingdom, continues thus Vol. VI of September, pp. 495 and 496.: Likewise another Theodo, a strenuous and eager man, under whom the most illustrious confessor of Christ Ruopertus came with other servants of God to Juvavum, and there consummated the course of the present life. Under whom St. Corbinian came to Freising. This duke, then, had sons as successors in the kingdom, namely Diotpert and Grimald: after whom Hucbert furnished the dukedom to this nation, who, under a certain Ratharius, a stranger bishop, had given to Blessed George and to St. Emmeram a court which in the pittacia from which we have excerpted these things (which again wins credence for Arnolf) is called Pirchinuvach. In the times of this duke the most blessed prelate Boniface … entered Bavaria… He having returned to Francia, and the aforesaid duke having died, under the prince Pippin Udilo obtained the dukedom of this nation. Afterwards he records P. 498. duke Tassilo, whom Charles the Great, depriving him of the kingdom, compelled to be a monk together with his son Dioto; and that he did not fabricate the succession of the dukes from his own wit, but drew it from good sources, he indicates by these words: But what goods the dukes who before this prince ruled the dukedom of Bavaria under the kings of the Franks conferred on Blessed Emmeram, their pittacia and testaments, found in our possession, sufficiently indicate; for which reason Arnolf is deservedly pronounced by Hansiz Work cited, p. 54. altogether above every exception.

[4] and the genuine monuments of Salzburg present The series of dukes described by him is confirmed, moreover, by the Annotation of Arno, bishop of Salzburg, on the donations made to his church In Hansiz, volume cited, p. 13 and following, where these things are read: First, duke Theodo handed over the aforesaid town and at the same time the upper fortress to the lord Hhrodbert… And his son duke Theodbert succeeding, who handed over a little villa called Ultzhilinga… For his son and successor duke Huebert handed over in the district of Rotagoe a villa called Savarstedi… After him came duke Otilo… And after him succeeded his son duke Tassilo. And there is subjoined this attestation of Arno: This notice, moreover, I, Arn, together with the consent of Charles the most pious king, in the same year in which he took the region of Bavaria for his own work, most diligently sought out from very old and truthful men, from monks and laymen, and caused to be written down for remembrance. Further, the note of time appended falls in the year 788, in which Charles the Great, Tassilo having been deposed, undertook to administer Bavaria through his counts and prefects Compare Hansiz, volume cited, p. 54.. Likewise by an ancient author, certainly not very far removed from the age of Arno, who, in the judgment of Hansiz Ibid., p. 12., drew what he reports chiefly from original charters, were composed the Brief Notices of the donations made to the same church of Salzburg Ibid., p. 19 and following, from which we pluck the following for our matter: First

therefore Theodo, duke of the Bavarians, by the prompting grace of almighty God and through the preaching of Blessed Rudbert the bishop, was converted from paganism to Christianity and was baptized by the same bishop together with his nobles of Bavaria… Meanwhile Duke Theodo fell ill, and he commended to his son Theodobert the duchy of Bavaria and the cause of the lord Bishop Rudbert and of his disciples, to be faithfully protected, and charged him to obey him willingly in his Christianity and to assist him diligently in every work of God… And the Blessed Pontiff, with the counsel and will of the lord Duke Theodobert, began to build in the upper castle of the often-mentioned town of Juvavum a church and a monastery for sacred virgins… Duke Hucbert, son and successor of Duke Theodobert, handed over in the Rotagau the estate called Sauersteti… After which there is talk also of Duke Otilo and his son Tassilo.

[5] the succession of the dukes; From what has been adduced so far it becomes clear that that Theodo who succeeded the former Theodo around the year 680, as Pagi supposed [On the year 680, no. 27; likewise on the year 696, no. 6 and following, volume XII, pp. 22, 155 and following], or in the year 696, under which it is written in the Chronicle of Kremsmünster, or rather in the Kremsmünster Auctarium to the Annals of Melk [Compare Wattenbach in Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae historica, volume IX of the Scriptores, pp. 480, 481, 544 and 550], Ibid., p. 550: "Theodo is made duke of Bavaria by the kings of the Franks"; this Theodo, I say, whose dukedom falls wholly within the reign of Childebert III, which is contained between the years 695 and 711 Art de vérifier les dates, volume I, p. 548. Paris edition, 1783, is the very one whom St. Rupert begot to Christ and the Church through the Gospel. Thus satisfaction is given to the original Life of St. Rupert, which the other Lives of him follow in this matter, and which altogether requires that we should not tear the dukedom of Theodo away from the reign of Childebert. For it says In Hansiz, in the volume cited, pp. 35 and 37: "In the time of Hildibert, king of the Franks, namely in the second year of his reign (or the fifth, as other copies have it), the honourable confessor of Christ Ruodbert was bishop in the city of Worms… And when the fame of his holy way of life spread far and wide, it came to the knowledge of a certain duke of the region of Bavaria, named Theoto, who most willingly endeavoured, as far as he could, with humble prayers, to ask the above-mentioned man of God, through his envoys sent as messengers, that by visiting this province he would illuminate it with sacred doctrine."

[6] and it is confirmed from what is narrated in the Life of St. Corbinian These things are further illustrated, and the authority of Arnolf of Vohburg is also strengthened, from the Life of St. Corbinian, founder of the church of Freising, composed by Aribo, bishop of Freising, who ruled this church from the year 764 to the year 782 or 784 [Compare Meichelbeck, Historia Frisingensis, volume I, book I, chapter III, § II, p. 61, and chapter IV, § XI, p. 82; Suyskens, volume III of September, pp. 261 and 262, and volume VI of September, p. 454], so that he was nearly contemporary with the time of which we are treating. Aribo, namely, speaking of the things which St. Corbinian did in Bavaria on his second journey to Rome, narrates thus Volume III of September, p. 285: "Coming into Noricum, as long as he tarried there he sowed the doctrine of the divine word, and there the sacred words by the grace of God penetrated the hearts of not a few, to the increase of the faith of Christ. Which people also was still rude and lately converted to Christianity." This last phrase certainly refers most aptly to the recent preaching of St. Rupert; but let us hear what follows, which declares the matter still more clearly: "For at that time there was there the most devout Duke Theodo, distinguished in power and in manly virtue, graced with sons and eminent in the zeal of noble men, whose fame had grown far and wide. He divided the province itself among himself and his offspring into four parts, and priests were held dear there, as the custom of new converts requires." From this, moreover, one may see the tetrarchy instituted by Theodo, that is, that he held a divided rule with three sons, namely Theodobert, whom Arnolf, cited above, calls Diotpert, Grimoald and Theodoald. And of Theodobert indeed Aribo does not speak, because, as Pagi shrewdly observes On the year 702, no. 8, volume XII, p. 189, St. Corbinian did not come to that part of Bavaria over which he presided, but exercised his apostolic labour chiefly in the part which was subject to Grimoald. As for Theodoald, it is gathered from the same Aribo Volume III of September, p. 290 that he was carried off by a premature death, before the death of his father Theodo, as it seems: whence it is well explained why only two sons of Theodo, Diotpert and Grimald, are said by Arnolf to have succeeded their parent. Finally Aribo narrates Ibid., p. 291 the unhappy end of Grimoald and of his incestuous wife Pilitrud or Bilitrud, who was the widow of Theodoald, and of the children born of them; the result of which was that afterwards the pious prince Hucbert, son of Theodobert, likewise praised by Aribo Ibid., p. 293, alone obtained the dukedom of his nation.

[7] on Duke Theodo and his sons, To the aforesaid distribution of the Bavarian dominion among several princes St. Gregory II, the Supreme Pontiff, doubtless had regard when, in the year 716, he gave among other things these instructions to Martinian the bishop, Gregory the presbyter and Dorotheus the subdeacon of the holy Apostolic See, as they were going into Bavaria In Hansiz, volume I, p. III: "That, having considered the extent of the places, you arrange bishoprics according to the government of each duke, and fix the boundaries of what lies subject in diocesan fashion to the several sees. And if it seem good that three or four or a greater number of sees be constituted, reserving the place of the principal see for the archbishop to reside in, you shall, with an assembly of three bishops convened, ordain as prelates men approved in faith and of good testimony and learned in sound doctrine, by the authority of Blessed Peter the apostle and by the ensuing dispensation of our authority, placing them in the localities handed over to them." This tetrarchy being admitted, what Hermann Contractus noted under the year 702 about Ansprand, then guardian of Liutbert, king of the Lombards, also becomes plain In Pertz, work cited, volume V of the Scriptores, p. 97: "He, unequal in strength, fled first to Chiavenna, thence to Theodebert, duke of Bavaria, and remained there nine years." The same is to be read in Paul the Deacon in these words Work cited, book VI, chapter XXI, p. 498: "Ansprand fled to Chiavenna; then through Chur, the city of the Rhaetians, he came to Theudebert, duke of the Bavarians, and was with him for nine years." And some chapters later the same Paul says Ibid., chapter XXXV, p. 501: "Therefore after Ansprand had been in exile in Bavaria for nine full years, at length in the tenth year Theudebert, the leader of the Bavarians, having set his army in motion, came into Italy, fought with Aripert, and there was great slaughter of peoples on both sides." This is, namely, Theodobert, son of Theodo and father of Hucbert, who already in the year 702 had obtained from his parent a part of Bavaria to rule. And therefore Welser errs [Rerum Boicarum, book IV, p. 131 of the Nuremberg edition of 1682, and p. 275 of the Augsburg edition of 1777], and other writers [Brunner, Annales Boici, part I, book V, no. 8, columns 159, 160 and 161; and others, on whom see Hansiz, p. 53, and Falckenstein, Historia Bojorum, part II, period II, chapter I, section 2, p. 28 and following], who gather from the words of Paul the Deacon that Theodo died in that year and that his son Theodobert succeeded him; then they assert that another Theodo succeeded that Theodobert, whom Welser wrongly numbers the fifth and some the sixth or seventh of this name, according as various writers each formed for themselves various series of fictitious dukes Compare Pagi on the year 702, no. 9.

[8] likewise from the disciples of St. Rupert surviving under St. Virgilius, Another argument for our opinion on the time of the arrival of St. Rupert among the Bavarians is drawn from the narrative which is extant in the Breves Notitiae already cited above (no. 4) In Hansiz, volume II, pp. 23 and 24 about the suit of St. Virgilius, bishop of Salzburg, with Ursus the presbyter concerning the goods of the church of St. Maximilian in the Pongau, which St. Rupert had once built and consecrated, with the consent of the dukes Theodo and Theodobert his son: which goods Duke Otilo, not knowing that Duke Theodobert had handed over the very men there and had confirmed the cell itself with all its endowment to Saint Rupert the bishop for the see of Juvavum of his episcopate, had given to Ursus the presbyter, his chaplain, and had afterwards been unwilling to restore them to St. Virgilius when he claimed them by right of his see. And having narrated what was brought forward by each side in this controversy, the author of the Notitiae adds: "All these things Bishop Virgilius took care to inquire diligently from very old and truthful men, and left them written for the remembrance of posterity. Some of those who told him these things were disciples of St. Rudbert and of his disciples, some were godsons: among whom was Isinhard, a noble man and godson of the blessed old man Chunialdus the presbyter, and Maternus; Dignolus also, a disciple of St. Rudbert, and John; others also who heard these things from their elders, all narrating these things thus. Among whom were Dulcissimus the presbyter, Othmar his brother, presbyter, Madelhoch the presbyter, son of Madelgor, chancellor of Duke Theodo, Ruffolus the presbyter, Amandus the presbyter, Latinus his brother, Ebo the presbyter, Paldo the presbyter, Reynbert the presbyter, Heimo the presbyter. Likewise Vitalis the presbyter, Salemon the presbyter, Benedict the deacon, Syndonius the deacon, John the subdeacon, Wolfhard the subdeacon, Arnhalm the monk, German the monk, Tazzo the monk, Emicho the monk. And these laymen: Ugo the count, Immin the count, Heimo the count, Gerhard the judge, Sigibald the judge, Anno, Eber, Rudloch, Salaho, John, Egilolf: all these were noble and truthful men."

[9] the disciples of St. Rupert, We have here disciples and godsons (which word seems to refer to baptism or to the Christian instruction of children) both of St. Rupert himself and of his disciples, and these called by their own names. Among them at least one, Dignolus, to whom perhaps it may be allowed to add John, is said in express words to be a disciple of St. Rudbert; Isinhard is cited as the godson of the blessed old man Chunialdus, who, no one can doubt, is St. Chunialdus, the companion of St. Rupert, of whom and of St. Gisilarius our Suyskens treated on the 24th day of September; and to Isinhard is added Maternus, probably his contemporary: besides whom Hansiz suspects Ibid., p. 55 that Dulcissimus also, Othmar and Madelhoch lived for some years with St. Rupert while he still survived. Now, according to these things, Pagi rightly reasons thus On the year 696, no. 12: "But no one will deny that Virgilius was declared bishop of Salzburg after the year 742. Wherefore since the disciples of Saint Rudbert

saw and spoke with, he founded the bishopric of Salzburg at the beginning of the eighth century, and not at the beginning of the seventh, and gave back his soul to God." It may moreover be observed that most of those who were witnesses to St. Virgilius of the things which they themselves had heard from elders contemporary with St. Rupert were still alive in the year 788, when Bishop Arno, as we related above (no. 4), instituted an inquiry concerning the goods of the church of Salzburg. For thus it is written at the foot of the Annotation drawn up by Arno's care: "These are the names of the monks: Vitalis, Amandinus the presbyter, Latinus the presbyter, Cuffulus (perhaps the one above called Ruffolus?), Zissimo (perhaps for Dulcissimus?), Dignolus, Benedict the deacon, Sindo the deacon, Eno (perhaps Ebo?) the presbyter, Baldo (or Paldo) the presbyter, Letzho, Kaverheri, Reginpreht (or Reinbert) the presbyter, Materninus, Arnhelm, Tazho, Emico, German. These are the names of the laymen who testified upon an oath taken that they had so heard from their predecessors, as is written above: Immino the count, Cimo (perhaps Eimo or Heimo?) the count, Kerrad (or Gerhard) the judge, Sigibald the judge, Iparo, Jubianus, Eiglolf (or Eber, John, Egilolf), Helmuin, Ambrao, Amalger, Luiphram, Juvinam, Atto, Kislolf." For my part I seem to detect in these the names of almost twenty of those men whom St. Virgilius questioned in the suit with Ursus the presbyter. But what if Dignolus, a name noted in both places, was one and the same under Arno and under St. Virgilius, namely the disciple of St. Rupert? This indeed would not be altogether improbable for the opinion which we defend; although I would not dare to assert it as certain.

[10] and also from an anonymous poet of the ninth century, The arguments brought forward by us so far are supported by the verses of an unknown poet on the Order of the comprovincial bishops, which Mabillon edited among the ancient Monuments from a codex of the monastery of St. Emmeram at Regensburg Volume IV, p. 525 of the old edition and p. 346 of the new edition. That this poet wrote in the ninth century, and indeed between the years 855 and 875, within which space of time Bishop Anno is said to have occupied the see of Freising Compare Meichelbeck, volume cited, book II, chapter III, p. 129 and following, is shown by his verse about that same prelate:

"Behold, the pious Anno now in person governs the see."

Just as he also names as the last among the bishops of Salzburg Liuphramm, and among those of Regensburg Erchanfrid, of whom the latter sat from the year 847 to 864 [Compare Ried, Codex chronologico-diplomaticus episcopatus Ratisbonensis, volume I, p. XIV], the former from 836 to 859 Compare Hansiz, volume cited, p. 127 and following. But who were the pastors of the churches of Passau and Säben within that same space of time this author seems not to have sufficiently ascertained; since in place of their names he uses the formula "ill.", just as we in present-day fashion designate unknown names by the letter N. Moreover a certain gap is noticed in him both regarding the bishops of Passau after Waldric and regarding those of Säben after Alim; on which Hansiz Work cited, volume I, p. 146 and following and Resch [Annales Ecclesiae Sabionensis, volume III, ninth century, especially nos. 4, 26 and 38, pp. 14, 95 and 115] may be consulted. Let us now hear him singing of the bishops of Salzburg:

"This was once the metropolis called Juvavum, Which the kindly Hrodbert, founding it first, had ruled. After him Vitalis the prelate ruled the same. Then after him Flobargisus, who was upheld by its honour. The fourth had been John, ruling the see too. The stranger Virgilius fifth, establishing very many things. Arno sixth, accomplishing far more, above all. Seventh thence succeeded Adalram, a rich shepherd, For in his time establishing very many things beautifully. Eighth coming, Liuphramm, prelate of the fold, Renewing the office of the Lord more comely likewise."

But it is certain that John, who is here counted the fourth bishop of Salzburg, was raised to this dignity by St. Boniface in the year 739 [Compare Baronius and Pagi on the year 739, volume XII, pp. 439, 440 and 441; Hansiz, work cited, volume I, pp. 122 and 123, volume II, p. 75]. Whence it is easy to conclude that SS. Rupert and Vitalis are not to be removed a whole century from this epoch.

[11] to whose authority neither the catalogues "It is true indeed," says Pagi On the year 696, no. 14, volume cited, p. 158, "that to the Life of St. Rupert written by the aforesaid anonymous author is subjoined a brief Index of the bishops and archbishops of Salzburg from St. Rudbert the bishop down to Rudolph the archbishop (who sat from the year 1284) In Canisius, Antiquae Lectiones, Basnage's edition, volume III, part II, p. 430, whose beginning is: 'Saint Rudbert, bishop; Saint Vitalis, bishop; Ansologus, abbot; Savolus, abbot; Ezzius, abbot; Saint Flobargisus, bishop; John, bishop; Bertric, abbot; Saint Virgilius, bishop; Arno, archbishop; Ammilon, abbot'; and that at the end of this Catalogue this is found: 'In the Catalogue of these bishops five abbots are contained, who without pontifical order and dignity ruled the bishopric of Juvavum. These are Ansologus, Savolus, Ezzius, Bertric, Ammilon.' But the anonymous author of this Catalogue, who lived several centuries after Rudbert's age, mixed true things with false, and when he had found older catalogues in which he had found described the bishops of Salzburg and the abbots of the monastery of St. Peter, where the episcopal see was, and the archiepiscopal see from the time of Arno, first archbishop of Salzburg, he wrongly deduced from this that those abbots ruled the church of Salzburg when the bishops were dead and the see vacant: which will be evident from what is to be said to be false, and our poet proves it, who could scarcely err in a matter so recent. For he dedicated his little work to Louis, king of Bavaria, about the year 850, as is deduced from his verses; to whom, therefore, credence is to be given in what he puts forth concerning the order in which the several bishops of Salzburg, and of Regensburg, Freising, Passau and Säben sat. But since the author of that Catalogue supposed, by a great error, that Rudbert was in Bavaria at the beginning of the seventh century, and saw that Vitalis and Flobargisus could not have administered the see of Salzburg from that time up to the episcopate of John, whose beginning is certain, he invented that vacancy of the see, and believed that during it abbots presided over the church of Salzburg. Wherefore Hund, Le Cointe and others here and there who followed that Catalogue introduced great confusion into the history of this most noble church, and threw everything into disorder in this and the following century (that is, in the seventh and eighth centuries)."

[12] exhibiting the bishops and abbots of Salzburg intermingled The writers of Salzburg, namely, and others already for some centuries have so constituted their chronological order as to assert that the abbots inserted into the old Catalogues, even though they were never consecrated as bishops, nevertheless ruled the bishopric of Salzburg just as bishops did, and this not for that brief interval which must necessarily intervene between the death of one bishop and the election of another, but even for several years. For since the bishops themselves are said to have been at the same time abbots, those writers deny that other abbots presided over the monastery of St. Peter while the bishops were living; but they maintain that when the bishops died these succeeded them not only in the abbatial office but also in the episcopal government [Compare Hund, Metropolis Salisburgensis, volume I, p. 2 of Gewold's edition; Mezger, Historia Salisburgensis, book II, chapter VI, p. 180 and following; Novissimum Chronicon, pp. 12, 13, 81 and following; the Chronicon Salisburgense in Canisius, volume cited, p. 478; likewise the interpolations to the other Chronicon Salisburgense in Hieronymus Pez, Scriptores rerum Austriacarum, volume I, p. 332]: which the anonymous author cited by Pagi declares in those words: "Without pontifical order and dignity they ruled the bishopric of Juvavum." And another anonymous author, who carried the series of bishops down to Gebhard, that is, to about the year 1074, sets out the same in these verses In Hansiz, volume I, pp. 66 and 67, and in the Novissimum Chronicon, p. 167:

"These places Rudbert, the kindly father, chose for himself, And here at the same time he built the pontifical see; And he himself had taken up the government of the first see, Leading the peoples far and wide to the pastures of life. He had made Vitalis to be his successor, A true shepherd, full of heavenly nectar. Then three abbots approach the see in this order, Anzologus, Savolus, after these the venerable Ezius. Then Flobargisus, having obtained the name of shepherd, Fed the holy fold with the teachings of life. John after him possessed the same see. Virgilius the exile after him merited to be prelate. Abbot Bertric after him stands written in the order. Arn succeeded him, who did all things bravely, Who first held the same archiepiscopal power. Abbot Ammilon succeeded him as bishop, etc."

[13] nor the History of the conversion of the Bavarians and Carantanians If we ascend higher, we meet the author of the little work How the Bavarians and Carantanians were made Christians, whose age, in Hansiz's judgment Volume cited, p. 34, is drawn from his own words [In Hansiz, place cited, and p. 135; in Kopitar, Glagolita Clozianus, prolegomena XXXVII, p. LXXV]: "From the time, therefore, at which, by the gift and command of the lord Emperor Charles, the people of Eastern Pannonia began to be ruled by the prelates of Juvavum, up to the present time, there are 75 years," or, as other manuscript codices have, 85 Compare Kopitar, place cited, note 10. For since Charles the Great in the year 798 entrusted the care of instructing the Huns to Archbishop Arno, returning from Rome, by a messenger sent to meet him In Hansiz, p. 108, it follows that this little work was written either in the year 873 or ten years later, and that its age therefore is not much distant from that of the anonymous poet published by Mabillon. Now therein these things are read Ibid., p. 66: "Therefore after the departure of the most blessed Rudbert the pontiff, Bishop Vitalis, a man dear to all the people and an eminent teacher and sower of the word of God, took up the see of Juvavum to rule. After whose passing Anzologus was abbot. After whose deposition Abbot Savolus adhered to the aforesaid see. When the course of his life was finished, Abbot Ezius succeeded. When he departed from the world, that see shone again, honoured with a bishop, Flobargisus. After whom John bore the pastoral care in the aforesaid see." But from John the passage is made to Virgilius, thence to Arno, then to Adalram, the abbots Bertric and Ammilon being omitted, of whom the former, according to the other writers already cited, would have to be placed between John and Virgilius or between Virgilius and Arno, and Ammilon between Arno and Adalram. By the work cited, therefore, the Salzburg tradition concerning Bertric and Ammilon is indeed shaken; but as far as the three earlier abbots Anzologus, Savolus and Ezius are concerned, the patrons of this tradition have there the means by which they may seem able to defend their cause against the authority of the anonymous poet, who is not much older. Wherefore I have already earlier taken care not to use the verses of that poet as a peremptory argument, and I have been content to affirm

that, to the other testimonies adduced by me, by which I judge the matter already sufficiently settled, some support accrues from those verses.

[14] take anything away. And so much for that. But on examining the matter more deeply, it will be evident that there is no lack of reason for declaring more assertively that the opinion which I am combating is helped little or not at all by that History of the conversion of the Bavarians and Carantanians. For as the author of that History knew very well the things that were done by St. Virgilius and the four succeeding bishops of Salzburg, especially for the conversion of the Carantanians and other peoples, so on the contrary he seems to have had scarcely anything sufficiently ascertained about what had happened in the church of Salzburg from the death of St. Rupert up to the episcopate of St. Virgilius, but only to have had before his eyes some Catalogue of bishops and abbots, from which he arranged the things that I have already described above, thinking that each had succeeded each at death in the order in which their names followed one another. A Catalogue of this kind we have already had pointed out above by Pagi, which the writers of the Novissimum Chronicon Introduction, no. 7, p. 6 think was originally completed in the year 1186 under St. Eberhard the archbishop, then transcribed word for word about the year 1288, yet in such a way that the names of the prelates were supplied down to Rudolph, who was sitting in the year 1288. The same writers furnish another Catalogue Page 167, carried from St. Rupert down to Hartwic, to which a note of the time is also attached in these verses:

"This book remains, written in the thousand and fourth year: Hartwic was prelate, Tito at that time abbot."

The title is: "Order of the bishops and abbots of the church of Juvavum"; and the beginning: "Ruodpert, bishop and abbot; Vitalis, bishop and abbot; Anzologus, abbot; Savolus, abbot; Izzio, abbot; Flobrigis, bishop and abbot; John, bishop and abbot; Virgilius, bishop and abbot; Beretric, abbot; Arn, archbishop and abbot; Ammiloni, abbot; Adalram, archbishop"; and so on, the title of abbot is not attached to the other archbishops, although all, except the last, Hartwic, were truly abbots: for the eleventh archbishop Frederick renounced that office in the year 987 and instituted Tito as abbot Compare Hansiz, volume cited, p. 162; just as about the same time St. Wolfgang, bishop of Regensburg, consecrated by the same Frederick, had transferred the name and right of abbot of St. Emmeram to Ramuold his cousin [Compare Mausoleum S. Emmerami, chapter XIII, pp. 43 and 44 of the 1672 edition; Mabillon, Annales Benedictini, volume III, book XLVIII, no. 8, p. 585]. There is therefore between this Catalogue and that of which Pagi speaks this difference above all, that here the bishops down to Adalram are at the same time called abbots, while there on the contrary no bishop is called abbot except Adalram alone, to whose name "Abbot, archbishop" is attached, as may be seen in the Novissimum Chronicon already cited, where the Catalogue whose beginning Pagi reported is extant, carried down to Frederick Page 168. The other difference is that in the older Catalogue Bertric is placed after Virgilius, whereas in the more recent one he precedes him. But let these things said about those Catalogues, which were written after the History of the conversion of the Bavarians and Carantanians, suffice.

[15] Indeed the most ancient catalogue, It remains to deal with another document of this kind, which on account of its antiquity Meichelbeck pronounced once and again, and not undeservedly, more precious than gold and topaz [Historia Frisingensis, volume I, prolegomenary dissertation II, p. XI, and the Letter to Placidus, abbot of Salzburg, cited in the Novissimum Chronicon, p. 177]. It began, namely, to be written while the eighth century was still running, under Archbishop Arno, who was the first to be inscribed in it as living. Bernard Pez made some things from it public in the introductory Dissertation to the first volume of the Thesaurus Anecdotorum, where he calls it a Necrology Part I, no. II, pp. V and VI; other things from it the Benedictines of Salzburg published in their Novissimum Chronicon, who are wont to call the codex in which it is contained codex M or MS. M Page 173 and following. That these do not agree with Pez in designating the pages depends solely on the different method on either side of counting the pages, and it is sufficiently clear from elsewhere that both are speaking of one and the same codex. Therefore I shall now describe in a few words of what kind the older and thus more important part of this codex is.

[16] which at the close of the eighth century At the beginning there appears the Order of the patriarchs or prophets of the Old Testament. Then the Order of apostles, martyrs and confessors. Then follows the Order of living bishops or abbots, in which are noted Arn the archbishop, Rachto called bishop, Hildibert the deacon, Bertric the abbot, Ammiloni the abbot…, Adalhram the archbishop, etc. There is subjoined the Order of living monks, where are found several of those who had been witnesses to St. Virgilius in the suit with Ursus the presbyter, and afterwards to Arno when he was drawing up his Annotation, as I related above (nos. 8 and 9): namely Heimo, presbyter and monk, Arnhelm, monk, Paldo, presbyter and monk, John, subdeacon and monk, Cuffulus, presbyter and monk, Sindo, deacon and monk, Lezzio, monk, Ævo, presbyter and monk (called elsewhere Ebo), Latinus, presbyter and monk, Salomon, presbyter and monk; then also Augustine, presbyter and monk, Qatto, presbyter and monk (or Wato), Erchanprecht, presbyter and monk, Majoranus, presbyter and monk, Caozhari, presbyter and monk, all of whom, it is read in the History of the conversion so often already cited, were sent by St. Virgilius to the Carantanians at various times In Hansiz, pp. 89 and 92; in Kopitar, pp. LXXII and LXXIII. And these names, out of the very many inscribed in that Order of living monks, I selected chiefly for this reason, that, being known from elsewhere, they bear excellent witness to the age of this codex. After these there is placed there the Congregation of St. Amandus: Arnus, bishop; Siccharius, bishop; Willihari, bishop, etc. Then there seems to follow the Order of living kings with their wives and children, where are placed first Charlus the king, Pipinus, Engilulphus, Charlus, etc., and the women Fastraat, Hrodrud, Judith, etc.; and also the Order of living dukes with their wives and children, in which are inscribed first Thassilo and Deoto, father and son namely, whom Charles the Great compelled to put on the cowl Compare Bouquet, work cited, volume V, Chronological Index, p. LXI. Passing over the other catalogues of the living, that is, of bishops, abbots, clerics, nuns, etc., we come to the Necrology properly so called, which is likewise divided into several parts. Of these the first is the Order of deceased bishops or abbots, written in the following series, which it will be well to represent here accurately as it is exhibited by Pez:

Concerning these names Pez observes, which perhaps may also be applied to the following part of the Necrology, that they are not of the bishops or abbots of the church of Salzburg alone, but of others also who had been joined to the former by a pious compact: as, for example, holds of the most celebrated Flaccus Alcuin, who is here named Albinus the abbot, who had the closest friendship with Arno, prelate of Salzburg, so that he quite often called him brother, and sometimes even his own germane brother, whence it was thought by some writers that both were brothers by blood; and that devotion of Alcuin toward Arno, or his Aquila (for so he rendered the Teutonic name in Latin), also overflowed onto the monks of Salzburg, as is clear from the letters he gave to them Compare Hansiz, pp. 100, 102 and 103.

[17] was begun to be written, The second part of the Necrology is the Order of deceased monks. In this Order the first are Kislarius, presbyter and monk, and Kunialdus, presbyter and monk, whose monastic state, about which our Suyskens doubted Volume VI of September, p. 712, becomes certain from this. Next are noted below Gawinus, presbyter and monk, and Iduinus, presbyter and monk, concerning whom these things are found under the year 784 in the Annals of Salzburg [In Hieronymus Pez, Scriptores rerum Austriacarum, volume I, p. 333; in Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae historica, volume IX of the Scriptores, p. 769]: "Gavinius and Idwinus were elevated," which seems to imply some sacred cult. From the long series of the rest I shall select only some, known from the Annotation of Arno, from the Breves Notitiae of the donations and from the History of the conversion of the Bavarians and Carantanians: such as are Ursus, presbyter and monk, Benedict, deacon and monk, Sindo, deacon and monk, Vitalis, presbyter and monk, Warman, presbyter and monk, Akihart, deacon and monk, Hemo, presbyter, Madalhoh, presbyter and monk, Amicho, monk, German, monk, Leczio, monk, Cuffulo, presbyter and monk, Arnhelm, monk, Latinus, presbyter and monk, Tazzo, monk, Kerhari, monk, etc. Afterwards there occurs the Order of deceased kings with their wives and children, in which are recorded Charlus, Crifo, Pipinus, Charlmanus, etc. among the men, and among the women Suanhilt, Perthrocda, Hiltegard, Hrodrud, etc. Then the Order of deceased dukes with their wives and children, from which those whom Pagi deservedly calls fictitious dukes are altogether absent, but there are mentioned first Theoto, Theoperht, Crimolt and Theotolt, those tetrarchs of whom we discoursed before (nos. 6 and 7); and below them are placed Thassilo, Crimolt, Huiperht, Otilo: while the series of women is begun by Folchaid and Elinhast, I know not whether the wives of Theoto and Theodobert, and also Pilitruth, who, we learn from the Life of St. Corbinian, was first the wife of Theodoald and then entered into incestuous marriage with Grimoald. The Order of deceased dukes is followed by a mixed Order of deceased bishops and abbots, of outsiders namely, such as are Heimeramus, bishop, apostle of the people of Regensburg; Gurbinianus, bishop, apostle of the people of Freising; Agnellus, bishop of Säben; Vivolus, bishop of Passau; Ermperht, bishop of Freising, brother of St. Corbinian; Beatus, bishop of Passau; Gawipald, bishop of Regensburg; Wilipald, bishop of Eichstätt, to pass over the rest. These catalogues are followed, say the Benedictines of Salzburg Novissimum Chronicon, p. 177, by an almost numberless and very long order of priests and deacons, of bell-ringers, of nuns, of laymen and of women, and at the end finally there is added a collect for the dead, which the same authors copied out entire.

[18] the context itself plainly reveals, These things being considered, there will be no one, I believe, who does not agree with Hansiz when he remarks these things about that ancient work [In the Reflections at the end of volume II of the Germania Sacra, no. 182, p. 1005]: "The recension of the living is not to be taken in such a way that those who are written there are all thought to have lived at the same time; for thus without doubt Archbishop Adalramm could not be joined with Arno: but rather in such a way that each one was among the living at the time he was being inscribed. In a word, the living were inscribed not at one time but at successive times: just as the Order of the dead does not prove that those who are inscribed died together and at the same time, but only this, that they were among the dead when they were being inscribed." For catalogues of this kind were wont to be written up not at the same time nor by one hand, but with names added by turns to other names, as each presented itself. Since these things are so, and thus concerning the time and manner in which those catalogues were

begun to be made, it is quite clear; and since concerning the things that happened in the church of Salzburg from the departure of St. Rupert up to the episcopate of St. Virgilius almost nothing is found handed down to the memory of posterity except the mere names of bishops and abbots, so that a certain more recent chronographer of Salzburg is forced to confess complainingly In Canisius, volume cited, p. 478: "Concerning the successors of Blessed Vitalis up to the times of Blessed Virgilius, on account of the simplicity or carelessness of the writers, the times are not distinguished": for these reasons, therefore, I for my part judge thus, as I have already said before, that no probable monument was available to the author of the little work on the conversion of the Bavarians and Carantanians from which he could have been made certain that from St. Rupert to John bishops and abbots succeeded one another at death indiscriminately in ruling the church of Salzburg; but that this was wrongly deduced by him from the Necrology, into which he saw that their names had been entered in order. But if anyone objects to me that St. Vitalis is placed by this author before Abbot Anzologus, otherwise than is done in the Necrology, I confess indeed that this is true, but at the same time I seem to myself able to assign the cause of the order inverted by him: namely because it was perfectly clear to him, a thing which all the Lives of St. Rupert declare and no one has ever called into doubt, that St. Vitalis had been designated as successor by St. Rupert himself.

[19] [it argues that the abbots did not, when bishops were lacking, (preside over) the bishopric of Salzburg,] Now, to proceed further from the very circumstance with which we are occupied, I ask whether anyone, when he sees Anzologus inserted in the Necrology before St. Vitalis, would not at once be led to think, or at least strongly suspect, that he died before him, and consequently could not have succeeded him. Against this consequence I see that it can be objected, and is in fact objected [In Hansiz, Observations of the monk of St. Peter's in volume II of the Germania Sacra, § III, no. 150, p. 989], that the order has been disturbed by the fault of the copyist, just as by a similar slip, as Hansiz freely concedes Volume cited, p. 70, in the Necrology of the dukes Duke Tassilo was placed before Odilo his father. But is it certain and wholly established that the Tassilo who is seen inscribed in the Necrology immediately after the tetrarchs is the son of Odilo? For since together with the dukes their wives and sons are commemorated therein, and after Tassilo is placed Crimolt or Grimoald, doubtless distinct from Grimoald the tetrarch, would it be so absurd to conjecture that both of these were sons of one or two of the tetrarchs, who died before Hucbert, who at length alone ruled the Bavarians? But grant that the copyist slipped regarding the succession of the dukes, yet he is not to be believed to have been ignorant that St. Vitalis succeeded St. Rupert in the episcopate without anyone between. Wherefore I cannot but incline strongly to that opinion by which it is held that Anzologus was already abbot under St. Rupert, and so further that Savolus and Ezius discharged the abbatial office under St. Vitalis and perhaps also under Flobargisus as bishops: which indeed agrees excellently with our chronological order, established before by many arguments, by which between the death of St. Rupert and the beginning of the episcopate of John, ordained by St. Boniface in the year 739, there is left an interval of scarcely, if even scarcely, twenty years, for filling which two prelates, St. Vitalis and Flobargisus, could abundantly suffice Compare Hansiz, pp. 1004 and 1005.

[20] but presided over the monastery under the bishops; And lest this matter seem rashly asserted, the example of Abbot Bertric is to the point, who in the Order of living bishops or abbots (concerning which above, no. 16) holds the fourth place from Arno the archbishop; whence Hansiz concludes P. 1005: "After Arno the archbishop was inscribed in that Order of the living, Abbot Bertric was alive, so that he too could be inscribed"; nay indeed P. 100 it becomes manifest that in the year 798, in which Arno was adorned with the archiepiscopal dignity, Bertric too was alive, and thus never occupied the place of the bishop, unless you wish that he fell from the dignity, which has occurred to no one. "To which," says the same writer Pp. 1005 and 1006, "the other catalogue is also to the point, namely the Order of the dead, in which, while all the other predecessors of Arno are inscribed, yet no Bertric is named" (namely before Arno), "who nevertheless is claimed to be Arno's immediate predecessor: who would believe him omitted through carelessness? What is more likely than that he did not die before Arno? Granted, therefore, that Bertric was abbot already under Virgilius" (namely in the last six years of St. Virgilius, as some assert), "yet the things we have said prove that he continued the name and office of abbot also afterwards under Arno, already archbishop. Where now there remains no place of escape, so that at least Abbot Bertric must be admitted to have been what was disputed before, a secondary abbot under Arno as primary, or at least a substitute: and the reason of conformity will persuade that the very same be believed of Amilonius also; and indeed even more probably of those three earlier ones, Anzologus, Savolus and Ezius." Nevertheless it might perhaps be conceded, as Hansiz also hints P. 1006, that, when the bishop died, the vicarious care of the see was for some time in the hands of the abbot, until namely another bishop was elected; just as, concerning the vacant see of Lyon, it may be seen in Mabillon that this was once granted to the abbots of the Île Barbe Annales Benedictini, volume II, book XXVI, no. 74, pp. 312 and 313.

[21] Nor indeed should it be thought unusual, what I have maintained with Hansiz, that under the bishops who were abbots, other abbots presided over the monastery of St. Peter of Salzburg, as elsewhere too, namely in England whom you would not badly call second or secondary abbots. For since in other monasteries, as Mabillon several times in the Annals [Volume II, book XXXII, no. 73, p. 601; volume III, book XXXIX, no. 63, p. 261; book XLII, no. 85, p. 358; book XLVII, no. 12, p. 544] and Hansiz in the Reflections Pp. 1003 and 1004 demonstrate, it sometimes happened that the abbot had with him another abbot conjoined or subordinate, so the same sometimes took place in cathedral monasteries over which the bishops themselves presided as abbots, and this for the stronger reason that the bishops were sufficiently taken up with ruling or even converting peoples. Certainly for England, where several cathedral churches were possessed by monks [Compare Reyner, Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia, treatise I, section I, § XVII, p. 77 and following; Mabillon, Annales Benedictini, volume II, book XXI, no. 5, p. 81], we have the clear testimonies of the Venerable Bede. Thus in the Life of St. Cuthbert, after he had somewhere made mention of the bishop of Lindisfarne, and then of the monastery and abbot of Lindisfarne, he admonishes the reader in these words [Volume III of March, p. 105; and Works of the Venerable Bede, volume IV, pp. 256 and 258, Giles's edition]: "And let no one wonder that in the same island of Lindisfarne, though it is very small, we have said above that there is a place of the bishop, and now of the abbot and monks: for in truth it is so. For one and the same dwelling of the servants of God holds both at once, nay holds all as monks. For Aidan, who was the first bishop of that place, was a monk and was always wont to lead the monastic life with all his people: whence from him all the prelates of that place up to this day so exercise the episcopal office that, while the abbot rules the monastery, whom they themselves have chosen with the counsel of the brethren, all the presbyters, deacons, cantors, lectors and the other ecclesiastical grades keep the monastic rule in all things together with the bishop himself." The same he expresses more briefly thus in his Ecclesiastical History Book IV, chapter XXVII, Works, volume III, p. 136: "From ancient times there both the bishop with the clergy and the abbot with the monks were wont to dwell; who nevertheless themselves too belonged as household members to the care of the bishop: because namely Aidan, who was the first bishop of that place, coming thither with monks and himself a monk, instituted the monastic way of life in it: as Blessed Father Augustine is also known to have done earlier in Kent." Moreover, abbots of this kind joined to the bishops of Lindisfarne are also designated by their names: as, among others, in the praised Saint Bede Volume III of March, p. 101; and Works, volume IV, p. 232, "Herefrid, presbyter and formerly abbot of the monastery of Lindisfarne," and also Ecclesiastical History, book V, chapter I, Works, volume III, p. 158 "Guthfrid, venerable servant of Christ and presbyter, who also afterwards presided with the right of abbot over the brethren of the same church of Lindisfarne, in which he was brought up"; and in later historiographers he who, when the middle part of the ninth century had elapsed, presided over the monks of Lindisfarne under the bishop, "Eadred the abbot, of wondrous holiness before God and of no small nobility among men," as Mabillon speaks Annales Benedictini, volume III, book XXXIV, no. 84, p. 37, who also presently adds: "Hence is confirmed what we have said elsewhere, that in the cathedral churches of monks among the English there sometimes existed besides the bishop an abbot, who presided over the monks under the bishop" [Compare volume I, book X, no. 11 and following, p. 246 and following; volume II, book XX, no. 22, p. 47; book XXI, no. 27, p. 90; book XXXIII, no. 76, pp. 638 and 639]. To which likewise pertains what the Venerable Bede advises St. Egbert, prelate of York, concerning the method of suitably multiplying bishoprics, the number of which he judged it necessary to increase Works, volume I, pp. 122 and 124: "Let some place among the monasteries be provided where an episcopal see may be made. And lest perchance the abbot or monks should attempt to oppose and resist this decree, let licence be given them to choose from among their own him who is to be ordained bishop, and let him bear the episcopal care of the adjacent places, as many as belong to the same diocese, together with the monastery itself."

[22] and at Regensburg, sometimes obtained. Nay rather Hansiz seeks an example from Bavaria itself and thus from the neighbourhood of the church of Salzburg: "That this matter may be most indubitable," he says P. 1004, "behold an example ready to hand from the church of Regensburg and the monastery of St. Emmeram, which was one of the cathedral monasteries from the time of Bishop Gaubald, instituted by St. Boniface. There it was the ANCIENT CUSTOM, as Arnolf, provost of the same place, testifies [Book II on the Miracles of St. Emmeram, in Canisius, volume III, part II, p. 123, Basnage's edition], THAT THOSE WHO WERE PRELATES WERE ALSO ABBOTS, and this not only so long as the episcopal see remained at St. Emmeram's (which was up to Charles the Great), but also afterwards up to St. Wolfgang, who renounced the office and name of abbot. This being so, nevertheless besides the bishop-abbots there were others who were commonly called PROVOSTS

and who RULED THE MONASTERY WITH THE DEANS AFTER THE BISHOP, as Arnolf likewise writes, and these same were called abbots. Let the catalogue of the abbots of St. Emmeram be consulted, which up to that very eighth century, in which Gaubald and his successors were at once bishops and abbots, nevertheless themselves too are recorded under the names of abbots [Compare Hofmann, Historia Episcoporum Ratisbonensium, in Oefele, Rerum Boicarum Scriptores, volume I, pp. 547, 548 and 549; Hund, Metropolis Salisburgensis, volume II, p. 256; Mausoleum S. Emmerammi, chapter XXVI and following, p. 69 and following, 1672 edition]: Sandrad, Alabold, Babo, Richobald, who was abbot under Bishop Adalwin and calls himself abbot in the conveyance which he made in the year 814, which is read in the codex of Anamot under nos. LXVII and LXX [In Bernard Pez, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, volume I, part III, column 240 and following]. Under Adalwin's successor Baturic, who was likewise at once bishop and abbot, there was nevertheless another abbot, Sigefred, whose ample donation is seen in the Codex Traditionum Ratisbonensium, where Sigefred himself speaks thus Ibid., column 8 and following: 'I, the unworthy servant of the servants of God, Abbot Sigefred, hand over to St. Emmeram's, where the venerable man Baturic, abbot and bishop, is seen to be the present ruler,' etc.; and below: 'It has pleased me also, together with the venerable man the bishop and abbot of the same place…' Likewise there is read in the same Codex an exchange made between Baturic and Sigismund the abbot in the year 828 Ibid., columns 209 and 210, likewise another between Apollonius the abbot and Erchenfrid the deacon in the year 866 Ibid., 249 and 250. From all of which it is certainly manifest that in the cathedral monastery of St. Emmeram there was, besides the bishop-abbot, another domestic abbot, the curator of the monastery: the former indeed held as the primary abbot, the latter as his vicar," as Mabillon speaks Annales Benedictini, volume II, book XXIX, no. 4, p. 428. The same Hansiz assigns also another analogy in this very matter between the church of Salzburg and that of Regensburg, when he proposes a question to himself and solves it in this manner P. 1007: "Why in the first century only of the church of Salzburg and a little beyond are certain abbots found distinct from the bishops, but not so in the following century and thereafter up to Tito, to whom Archbishop Frederick I fully transferred the care of the monastery? The answer is very easy: for the very same thing happened in the church of Regensburg, in which after Abbot Apollonius, who is named in a certain charter at the year 866, for a century and more up to Ramvold no abbots distinct from the bishops are named, either because the bishops were unwilling to share the name of abbot with their vicars, or because they were not noted down." Indeed I would not easily believe that these abbots, if they had existed, were not noted down; but I would think that from those times those who presided over the said monasteries under the bishops were called only provosts or priors, and not abbots; which can also be observed concerning the cathedral monasteries among the English.

[23] The Acts of St. Trutpert are objected in vain. Therefore, that we may at length close a sufficiently long disputation, I judge that the conclusion wholly stands that the beginnings of the church of Salzburg were laid by St. Rupert at the opening of the eighth century. Nor will there now be need for me to discuss the argument by which Bernard Pez endeavoured to attack the Hansizian opinion, which is ours, from the Acts of St. Trutpert the Martyr, found by him in a codex of Zwiefalten Letter to Hansiz, Vienna edition, 1731. It will suffice to have said a few things about it. And first indeed, that those words which are read in the Zwiefalten codex, "In the six hundred and seventh year of the Lord's Incarnation, under Blessed Boniface the Third, in the reign of the Emperor Phocas," are nothing else than an interpolation, and are so entirely absent from the codices of St. Gall, Basel and Strasbourg, that they consequently contribute nothing to determining the time of the martyrdom of St. Trutpert. Then, that it cannot be believed, as is asserted in those Acts, that SS. Rupert and Trutpert were sprung from the island of Ireland; since their names are plainly Teutonic, however much Pez strives to claim them for the Irish language P. 5 and following, to which a recent Irish writer, John Lanigan, pronounces them foreign, who both for this and for other reasons denies these Saints to his country [Ecclesiastical history of Ireland, volume III, chapter XIX, § VI, note 65, pp. 162, 163 and 164]. There is added that learned men go off into various opinions as to whether St. Rupert and St. Trutpert were really brothers or not, although the writer of those Acts affirms it most expressly. But even if this brotherhood were most certain, not even then would our demonstration concerning the age of St. Rupert waver; nay rather light would have to be sought from it for at length recognizing the age of St. Trutpert and of Otpert, the nobleman who received him on his coming into the Breisgau: since the suit is still before the judge whether Rampert, who restored the basilica of St. Trutpert and had his body raised there more honourably, whether in the year 815 or 816, or in the year 835 (for the time is still doubtful), was the grandson, or rather the great-great-grandson or great-grandson, of the aforesaid Otpert; inasmuch as the reading of the various codices varies in this part. And these things I have said briefly: of which if anyone desires to see more ample treatment, they will be supplied, besides our Henschenius Acta Sanctorum of April, volume III, p. 424 and following, by Bernard Pez, already cited, by John Michael Lorenz, editor of the Acts of St. Trutpert from the Strasbourg Codex, by Marquard Herrgott [Genealogia diplomatica Habsburgica, volume I, prolegomena II, p. XV and following; book II, chapters XII and XIII, p. 170 and following, and the Acts of St. Trutpert, p. 285 and following], by Martin Gerbert [Historia Nigrae Silvae, volume I, book III, no. 10 and following, p. 47 and following], and by Trutpert Neugart [Episcopatus Constantiensis, seventh century, no. 20 and following, p. 42 and following].

§ II. About what year St. Vitalis succeeded St. Rupert in the episcopate of Salzburg.

From the day of the death of St. Rupert, It comes next to be investigated, which is evidently connected with the preceding disputation, in what year, or at least about what year, our St. Vitalis took up the church of Salzburg to rule as its principal prelate of sacred things, or when St. Rupert, whom it is established he immediately succeeded, departed to those above. And in this place I could indeed altogether omit the things that were brought forward by the patrons of the opinion I have so far refuted concerning the year of the death of St. Rupert, as being already to be held wholly refuted. Yet because the exposition and discussion of them contributes something to establishing our opinion more firmly, besides that thus the state of the whole controversy, conducted before and to be conducted hereafter also, will be set more clearly before the view of our readers, I have therefore thought it would not be out of place if I adduced these things here too. And after I have done this, more in the manner of one narrating than of one disputing, I shall thereafter have to contend with those writers whose chronological order I have followed up to now, with the one exception of Hansiz, who at length dissents from the rest concerning the year of the death of St. Rupert, and to whom, as I advised long ago (no. 1), I judge that I must wholly adhere.

[25] the 27th of March, which they supposed to have been the day of Easter, As the day on which St. Rupert departed from this world was never effaced by any forgetfulness, but at all times it was fixed and settled among all that this was the sixth day before the Kalends of April, which is also called the day of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ; so the memory of the year in which the death of the same Saint occurred was gradually, in the course of time, because his contemporaries had neglected to note it, obliterated among the people of Salzburg: so that in the twelfth century, when knowledge of that year was wanted, it was necessary to strive toward it by a certain conjecture. We have as witness of this matter a writer whose lucubration Hansiz says he found in a manuscript codex of the Imperial Library Germania Sacra, volume II, p. 35, and whose words, adduced by the same Hansiz Ibid., p. 50, are these: "The number of years from the passing of St. Rudbert, about which you have asked, we do not find written definitely. A conjecture, however, can be made from consideration of the times in which he is read to have lived. Of his times it is read thus: 'In the times, therefore, of Hildibert, king of the Franks, namely in the second year of his reign, the venerable confessor of Christ Rudbert was bishop in Worms.' Of the day of his death, which is celebrated on the sixth day before the Kalends of April, it is read thus: 'When the day of Christ's Resurrection had dawned, he joyfully performed the solemnities of Masses, and, fortified with the Sacrament of the Lord's Body, amid words strengthening the brethren he put off the man.' And elsewhere: 'Thus his Passover befell him in the sacred time of Easter.' Now the times of the king, when found, teach us to find the times of the bishop. In the times, therefore, of Justin the Younger and Tiberius Constantine and Maurice, emperors of the Romans, Hildebert, king of the Franks, son of Sigibert and Brunhild, is read to have lived… About these times it is evident that Saint Rudbert lived." I could wish that Hansiz had also copied out the things that precede this last phrase; although they can be supplied somehow from the other writer whom we shall presently cite. But hear what Hansiz further reports: "The rest is corrupted, perhaps by the alteration of some smatterer: for he confuses Childebert II, son of Sigibert, with Childebert I, son of Clovis; and he determines that Rupert died in the year 544, in which Easter Day had fallen on the sixth day before the Kalends of April; and he adds: 'Now from his passing to the present year, which is the one thousand one hundred and first of the Lord's Incarnation'" (thirtieth is omitted, says Hansiz), "'there are five hundred and eighty-eight years: it is the seventh year of King Lothair'" (who began to reign in the year 1125). "Then by a new error there is added: 'that the evangelical shepherd Rudbert, from the year of his coming from Worms into Bavaria up to the day of his calling, ruled the see of Juvavum in the year of the Lord's Nativity 693'; where the most exalted Gentilotti thinks he wished to establish a new epoch of Rupert, whereas it is a mere slip of the copyist. For the mind of the author is clear from what precedes." Namely, so far as I at least understand, the primary author must be distinguished from one or perhaps two who have tampered with his words; and his genuine mind seems to have been that St. Rupert died in the year 623: so that I judge that by the copyist's fault one C was put for X.

[26] certain writers of the twelfth century The conjecture of him whom I have called the primary author, and indeed almost his very words, was adopted by another writer somewhat more recent, whom Canisius was pleased to call a disciple of St. Eberhard, and from whom, as I advised a little before, can be supplied what Hansiz omitted to transcribe from the earlier author. This disquisition of the Eberhardine disciple, in three places altogether,

not without some variety of wording, occurs in Canisius Volume III, part II, pp. 284, 431 and 475, Basnage's edition: the Benedictines of Salzburg published it anew from their codex H in the Novissimum Chronicon Pp. 25 and 26. According to these four copies, then, I shall now present it. The beginning is: "The number of years from the passing of St. Rudbert we do not find written definitely." What follows then agrees with what Hansiz took from the more ancient author, only the name of Justin the Younger being removed, as far as the words "is read to have lived." After these words the writer proceeds thus: "In the 575th year of the Lord's Incarnation Tiberius Constantine reigned. In the 582nd year of the Lord's Incarnation Maurice reigned" (for so I think the Canisian reading "DLXXXVIII Hildibert XXII Maurice reigned" must be corrected, which I think arose from the words "XXVIII Hildibert" wrongly inserted here, which belong to what follows presently). "Likewise in the 588th year of the Lord's Incarnation Hildibert, son of Sigibert, reigned over the Franks. In the 603rd year of the Lord's Incarnation" (so one Canisian copy; the others 533, which is manifestly erroneous) "Phocas reigned, who was made emperor after Maurice. About these times it is evident that Saint Rupert lived." Thus far he. But before we hear the rest of his reasoning, I would wish it noted that the chronology by which the beginning of the reign of Childebert II is fixed to the year 588 is indeed false, but that nevertheless it is not to be imputed to the Eberhardine disciple. The author of this anachronism, namely, is a monk of St. Gall who reduced the Chronicle of Hermann Contractus into a sort of epitome, disturbing the order of time here and there, and especially in the history of Clovis and his successors, as the distinguished Pertz remarks in the Preface to Hermann Monumenta Germaniae historica, volume V of the Scriptores, p. 73, where he also adds this: "The book, excerpted in place of Hermann at the end of the eleventh century and in the twelfth by Ekkehard of Aura, and carried into Austria, served as a foundation for the Chronicles of Melk, of Klosterneuburg, and those derived from them, of Kremsmünster, Garsten, Salzburg, Austria, and Leoben." Hence, therefore, in these Chronicles Compare ibid., volume IX of the Scriptores, p. 479 and following the death-years of the Merovingian kings are wrongly designated: namely of Clovis 522 for 511, of Theoderic 544 for 534, of Theodebert 558 for 547, of Childebert I 561 for 558, of Chlothar 573 for 561, of Sigibert 588 for 575, of Chilperic 596 for 584, of Guntram 607 for 593, of Childebert II 610 for 596, and so on of others.

[27] they fixed the year 623 or 628 as his death-year. Whence the second year of Childebert II was for our author 589. In which year he would have supposed that St. Rupert, being already bishop, was surely thirty years old or somewhat more than thirty. Then he seems to have set the year 624, in which according to this hypothesis the Saint would have been about seventy, as a kind of goal, from which his death, whether it fell short of it or beyond it, certainly could not have been far distant. And finally he seeks the years nearest to the year 624 in which the solemnity of Easter fell on the 27th day of March: which indeed are the years 623 and 628. Having given this warning beforehand, I present his following words in that form which seems to me more genuine from a collation of the various readings (which I do not think it worth the trouble to note here): "Now let him who wishes inquire where, before the 624th year of the Lord's Incarnation or after the same year, the Lord's day of Easter fell on the sixth day before the Kalends of April, so that this be neither before nor after that limit further than the measure of human life allows. If anyone finds this beforehand, he will be able to find how many years there are from the passing of St. Rudbert. But if he who despairs of attaining the labours of this investigation himself prefers to be credulous of another's finding, let him know that in the 623rd year of the Lord's Incarnation, before the year noted above, and after the same, in 628, Easter day was on the sixth day before the Kalends of April. In which of the two years the Saint himself of whom we are speaking died, I have not read: yet, the above-written ordering of times being considered, there is no doubt that he died in one of them; and although it is not certain whether he survived 623, in which the Lord's day of Easter came on the sixth day before the Kalends of April, it is nevertheless certain that he did not survive the 628th year of the Lord's Incarnation, in which similarly the Lord's day of Easter fell on the sixth day before the Kalends of April. If we wish to go back further, namely to contend that St. Rudbert flourished under the first Hildibert, king of the Franks, son of Clovis or Louis, who reigned in the times of Justinian the Great and First, then it is established that he died in one of the years written below, either in the 533rd year of the Lord's Incarnation or in the year 544, in both of which the Lord's day of Easter fell on the sixth day before the Kalends of April. Therefore let us choose what is more certain between two doubtful things, and let us compute the years from the passing of St. Rudbert from the 623rd year of the Lord's Incarnation. Now from his passing up to the present year, which is the one thousand one hundred and eighty-sixth of the Lord's Incarnation, there are 563 years: it is the 36th year of the reign of the Emperor Frederick."

[28] More recent writers adopted the year 623, Accordingly from a computation of this kind, which it is not clear to me who first devised, proceeded the annotations of the chronographers from the twelfth century onwards: of whom some write that St. Rupert died in the year 623, as the Garsten In Pertz, work cited, volume IX of the Scriptores, p. 563 and Admont [In Pez, Scriptores rerum Austriacarum, volume II, column 167; in Pertz, volume cited, p. 571] Chronicles and also the Salzburg Chronicle of Canisius Volume III, Basnage's edition, part II, p. 478, others in the year 628, as the Salzburg Chronicles of Pez Work cited, volume I, column 331 and of Pertz Volume cited, p. 767; and volume I, p. 89. And in the Salzburg Chronicle in Pez one may see this addition at the year 623 made by a more recent hand: "In this year died St. Rudbert, bishop and first abbot at St. Peter's in Salzburg, on the feast of Easter, which in that year was on the 27th of March." And since in the Chronicle itself there was extant, written before, at the year 628: "The passing of St. Rubert under Pope Honorius, the Emperor Heraclius, Lothair, father of Dagobert, being king of the Franks: Vitalis succeeds Saint Rubert," some corrector or other added these words to it: "This is true. Truer above at the year 623. So the sepulchral stone, long hidden, opened under Archbishop Paris" (namely in the year 1627). Hence consequently the corrector drew back the death of St. Vitalis, which had formerly been noted there at the year 649, to the year 646, saying: "In this year St. Vitalis truly died, renowned for miracles"; in which matter he agrees with the Salzburg Chronicle of Canisius, where these things are asserted of our Saint: "Blessed Vitalis, successor of St. Rudbert, first abbot of St. Peter's, which St. Rudbert founded, was ordained bishop of Juvavum, whose cathedral see was held for many years at St. Peter's: he sat twenty-two years: he died in 646 on the eve of Ursula" (that is, the 20th of October). And so at length the people of Salzburg, whereas before they had wavered in their opinions as to which year was rather to be adopted, 623 or 628, when the sepulchral stone of St. Rupert was at last found in the year 1627, wholly persuaded themselves that this Saint passed from this life in no other year than 623; just as the sepulchral stone of St. Vitalis also, discovered at about the same time, began to seem to them a most certain indication that he died in the year 646.

[29] inscribed on the sepulchral stone of St. Rupert: On the former stone these words are inscribed In Hansiz, p. 49; in the Novissimum Chronicon, pp. 14 and 54 in semi-Gothic characters, as may be seen in Meichelbeck, who represented part of this inscription in type imitating the very form of the letters Historia Frisingensis, volume II, in the plate set at page 124: "In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 623, on the day of His Resurrection, died St. Rupert, founder of this monastery and first bishop of Salzburg, buried here." The other stone bears this epigraph In Hansiz, p. 68; in the Novissimum Chronicon, p. 68: "The prelate Vitalis lies here, and heals the sick. In the year 646, on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of November." See how confidently Mezger opposes both to Mabillon Historia Salisburgensis, Preliminary Dissertation, § II, p. 7: "First there stands in the way the immovable testimony of the marble sepulchral stone (a weighty witness indeed), under which, after St. Virgilius, the body of St. Rupert lay hidden up to now in the church of St. Peter. It expressly says that our Saint died on the 27th of March in the year 623: therefore he did not first come into Bavaria in the year 696, seventy-three years after his death. There stands in the way, secondly, also our sepulchral stone of St. Vitalis, our second prelate and abbot, which says that he died in the year 646 on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of November." But in truth, so far is it from these two stones having added any strength to the conjecture formerly made, of which we spoke above, that rather both inscriptions were derived from this very conjecture: although among the monks of Salzburg, according to the Chronicle put together from somewhat older ones by Abbot Martin Hättinger, who presided over them from the year 1584 to 1615 Novissimum Chronicon, p. 490 and following Ibid., pp. 87 and 88, the opinion was settled for some time that the author of these inscriptions was Abbot Ansologus, whom they determine to have been the next ruler of the monastery and church of Salzburg after St. Vitalis.

[30] but this stone is not older But let Meichelbeck be heard on the contrary, discoursing thus Work cited, volume I, Prolegomenary Dissertation II, p. XI: "That disagreement of most learned men moved someone to judge that inquiry should be made into the principal foundation of Father Joseph Mezger, namely into the antiquity of the inscription of the marble sepulchral stone of St. Rupert… Nor indeed was there lacking reason for doubting whether this inscription savoured of the style and hand of the seventh century; inasmuch as at that time, in these parts at least, it was quite unusual to set down the years from the Incarnation of Christ, as is known to the learned and will be evident to the eye from the Freising instruments in the course of the work: where we are silent about the other things which could be opposed to the antiquity of that inscription. Pains were therefore taken that the form of the letters of that sepulchral stone should be seen with the eyes: this being happily discovered, men by no means unskilled in distinguishing ancient characters judged that that inscription of the sepulchral stone of St. Rupert is in no way older than the fifteenth or fourteenth century of Christ; and that by that very fact that foundation of the Reverend Father Mezger has not as much weight as he had judged was to be attributed to it. This observation being applied, greater weight could not but accrue to the opinion of Mabillon and confirm it." Adding his vote to these words of Meichelbeck, Hansiz says P. 60: "These things the most modest man says: how rightly he discourses is clear from the report of Abbot Amandus

in the Disquisition on the Life and Miracles of St. Vitalis Disquisition IV, chapter II, page 80. 'I read,' he says, 'in MS. R, under Abbot Peter'" (who began in the year 1436), "'folio 475, column 2, that that stone of the sepulchre was set up by Dom Peter the abbot, and cost twelve and a half pounds of silver, which up to now we thought had been set up by Ansologus.'" And the same Hansiz had observed a little before that the very name Rupertus is an indication of a later age, because namely in antiquity it was written Hrodbertus, Rodbertus, Rudbertus, Ruodpertus; just as the word Salzburgensis also is old, Salisburgensis new.

[31] in the fifteenth century, Why say more? The writers of the Novissimum Chronicon themselves remark these things against Mezger's assertion Page 15: "We believe indeed that this was written from a pious desire, which we too would wish; but with what confidence and authority he is armed to write these things we are wholly ignorant: perhaps our Mezger was led to write this by the report of a certain more recent manuscript, which is a Chronicle written at the end of the sixteenth century, which on folio 32 reports the following of Abbot Ansologus, successor of St. Vitalis: 'He,' namely Ansologus, 'covered the sepulchres of Saints Rudbert and Vitalis with marble, and adorned them with inscriptions and candelabra,' etc. But if the sepulchral stone were so ancient, it would be a witness indeed most weighty and almost contemporary; and when it spoke, full and consummate victory would stand on our side, and all historians would long ago have been silent: whence we cannot attribute to this stone greater antiquity than about the middle of the fifteenth century (we judge plainly the same of the sepulchral stone of St. Vitalis); especially because the characters and marks cut in the stone correspond to the characters of that century, as will be evident to one examining the diplomatic lexicons, like egg to egg. Hence it is to us as good as certain that our Abbot Peter, the 57th in order, who ruled the abbey from the year 1436 up to the year 1466, and, as we have from his acts, was a most devoted venerator of St. Rupert and St. Vitalis, under which abbot also the sepulchre of St. Rupert was opened, had this stone cut and placed upon the sepulchre. This is gathered more clearly from the same manuscript cited above under letter R, page 157, that this abbot, namely Peter, had this stone made over the sepulchre, and that it cost 12 and a half pounds of silver. The same is testified by our Abbot Amandus in the Life of St. Vitalis, disquisition 4, chapter 2, page 80, who cites the same manuscript R, although as to the page he does not agree with us," etc. The testimony of Abbot Amandus Pachler we have already taken above from Hansiz. And by this domestic document of the people of Salzburg, by which the age of the stone is indicated by sure marks, I think one should rather stand than by the suspicion of Meichelbeck Work cited, volume II, p. 124, according to which that stone would be referred to the time of Archbishop Wichard, namely to the year 1315: nay rather it is established that a far different stone, with another epigraph which contributes nothing to our matter, was erected at that time, which Hansiz P. 445 and the Novissimum Chronicon Pp. 53 and 321 describe. I do not dwell on Bernard Pez, who imagines that the inscription of Ansologus served as a guide to Abbot Peter, so that he expressed it in a new style Letter to Hansiz, pp. II and 12.

[32] just as neither does that of St. Vitalis. Nor is Mezger helped any more, nay even less, by the sepulchral stone of St. Vitalis. For its inscription, as Hansiz says Pp. 71 and 72, "is of the same kind as the inscription of the sepulchre of St. Rupert; and it appears, even from the Arabic numerals in which it is written, to be more recent… But Abbot Amandus remarks in his little work on St. Vitalis, page 80, 'that the stone of the sepulchre of St. Vitalis is cut far more artfully, and represents the person of St. Vitalis in pontifical habit, skilfully and beautifully portrayed; whereas that old age scarcely knew the sculptor's art in these lands, especially since the stone of the sepulchre of St. Rupert is made with far less and more unskilled art.' So he. And it is sufficiently established that that marble stone, on whose border that epigram is cut, did not yet exist in the year 1462, when the matter of enrolling Vitalis among the Saints was being treated: for the appearance which the tomb then had is described in detail in the treatise of the canonization (of which we shall have to treat later)… Then after some time, uncertain in what year, this aspect of the sepulchre was changed:.. there was placed upon it that stone representing the carved person of Vitalis with a radiate head, and the epigraph written on the border which designates the year and day of his death. Whence it is clear that it is not of an age which bears value among antiquaries." Thus Hansiz, the writers of the Novissimum Chronicon freely conceding this conclusion, but at the same time saying Page 66 that it is to them indubitable that this sepulchral stone of St. Vitalis does not at least go beyond the middle of the fifteenth century, as (they say) will be evident to one inspecting the letters and examining them by the laws of ancient characters, and that Abbot Peter had it made perhaps a year or two later than the sepulchral stone of St. Rupert: as if indeed within the space of two years, or certainly of a few years, the sculptor's art had made such progress there.

[33] Others, likewise reasoning from the day of Easter, But I now turn my pen against Mabillon and others who asserted indeed by sure arguments the true age of SS. Rupert and Vitalis, but were less happily engaged in determining the year in which St. Vitalis, on the departure of St. Rupert to heaven, took up the church of Juvavum to rule. That method of reasoning of the old Salzburgers of the twelfth century of which we spoke pleased them; and having appropriated it for their purpose, they seemed to themselves without doubt to have found the year which they were seeking. Thus Mabillon, the leader of the rest, writes [Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Sancti Benedicti, third century, part I, p. 345. Compare Annales Benedictini, volume II, book XX, no. 23, p. 47]: "Rudbert, having designated his successor, 'amid the words of prayer gave back his spirit on the day of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Ancient writers not rarely call the Lord's day the day of the Lord's Resurrection; but in this place other authors who wrote about St. Rudbert interpret it as the day of Easter. Since, therefore, Rudbert's coming into Bavaria has been fixed by us in the year of the Lord 696, and it is established from the Salzburg records that he died on the sixth day before the Kalends of April, his death is to be bound to the year of Christ 718, in which Easter fell on that day." And no less assertively Pagi at the same year 718 No. 7, volume XII, p. 282: "In this year Saint Rudbert, bishop of Salzburg in Bavaria, 'amid the words of prayer gave back his spirit in peace, namely on the day of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ,' says the anonymous author in his Life… For in this century, in which St. Boniface established John as bishop of Salzburg in the year 739, Easter did not fall on the 27th day of March, on which Rudbert is believed to have died, except in the years 707 and 718." The year 791, namely, in which the same coincidence took place, Pagi rightly set aside as too remote.

[34] they fixed the death of St. Rupert to the year 718: But neither of these two distinguished writers perceived how hard a stone, to use Hansiz's expression, had here to be moved: for against their thesis, as the same writer observes P. 56, there is objected a difficulty from the age of the dukes with whom Rupert is related to have lived; and this difficulty our Suyskens also felt while he was labouring to set in order the chronology of St. Corbinian, where he pronounces it not easy to untangle Volume III of September, p. 268, and again while he was discoursing on SS. Chunialdus and Gisilarius, where he hints even more openly Volume VI of September, p. 712 that the reasons by which Hansiz had tried to prove that the death of St. Rupert fell in the year 718 did not satisfy him. Suyskens, namely, did not turn over the Hansizian volume on the archbishopric of Salzburg diligently enough. He read only the things which Hansiz had disputed more laboriously than happily in defence of the thesis of Mabillon and Pagi P. 56 and following; but he did not read the Corollaries extant at the end of the volume P. 919 and following, in which that writer abandoned this thesis, and to which he himself refers us, when in the Preface to the reader he speaks thus: "So placed in the light is the matter, so set before the eyes, that it is almost held in the hands, and seems indubitable; the more so because I have also, according to my little measure, not unsuitably, so far as I attain, dissolved the difficulties which Hareus did not touch at all, which Mabillon left unsolved, and which Pagi entangled with new difficulties: where I would wish you to be advised in good time that, after you have read the things that are in the Acts of Rupert on his age and the year of his death, you should at once consult also those that are noted in the Corollaries on Rupert. There I have broken the necessity by which first I myself, and before me Mabillon and Pagi, had thought ourselves bound, of fixing the year of Rupert's death to the seven hundred and eighteenth." So he: and if Suyskens had attended to these things, he would, as I at least judge, have solved with easy labour the knots that he struck upon.

[35] but the things which after the year 716 Now what stands in the way of St. Rupert being believed to have died in the year 718 is this, namely that he survived Duke Theodo, and that Theodo was still alive in the year 716, and that after his death, even if it be supposed to have happened within that same year, more things were done by St. Rupert than could have been comprised in that brief space of time which intervened from then up to the 27th of March 718. To begin from what I said in the second place, that Theodo was still alive in the year 716, we have as witness Anastasius the Librarian in the Life of St. Gregory II, where, after he had said [Volume I, p. 165 of Bianchini's edition, and in Muratori, work cited, volume III, p. 154]: "In his times a sign was made in the moon in the fourteenth indiction, and it was seen bloodied until midnight," in which words there is an evident mark of the year 716 Compare Muratori, work cited, volume I, p. 505, note 180, he presently added: "At that time, therefore, Teudo, duke of the Bavarians, the first of that same nation, came to the threshold of the Blessed Apostle Peter, with a vow of prayer." This very thing is read in almost the same words in Paul the Deacon [On the Deeds of the Lombards, book VI, chapter XLIV, in Muratori, volume I, p. 505]: "In these days Theudo, duke of the nation of the Bavarians, came to Rome for the sake of prayer to the footprints of the Blessed Apostles"; where, although the exact designation of the year is lacking, and the chronological order of events is often wanting in Paul's narrations, yet the things that precede lead us to the year 716: namely that, Pippin of Herstal being dead, Charles Martel his son began to possess the principate Ibid., chapter XLII, p. 504, and that Liutprand, king of the Lombards, the donation of the patrimony of the Cottian Alps to the Roman

church had confirmed Ibid., chapter XLIII, p. 504, which two facts belong to the year 715; to pass over the other things to be referred to about the same time [Compare Muratori, ibid., in the notes; Zanetti, Del regno de' Longobardi, book V, no. 31, pp. 502 and 503; De Rubeis, Monumenta ecclesiae Aquilejensis, chapter XXXVI, no. 5, columns 316 and 317; Delle antichità Longobardico-Milanesi, volume I, Dissertation I, no. 35, p. 58]. Meanwhile I would wish the reader advised that that clause about Theodo's pilgrimage to Rome, together with the following clause about Callistus promoted after Serenus to the patriarchate of Aquileia, is absent from the tenth-century Bamberg codex which the distinguished Spruner lately employed for translating Paul the Deacon's History of the Lombards into German [K. von Spruner, Paul Warnefried's Geschichte der Langobarden, Hamburg 1838, p. 165, note 30. Compare his Introduction, p. XIII]; yet I would not think that the authenticity of these clauses is therefore shaken: for the editors of Paul seem constantly to have found both in their codices, by whom nothing is noted concerning the clause on Theudo except the variant reading vestibula for vestigia; while with that on Callistus, successor of Serenus, which begins with the words "At Forum Julii," what immediately follows coheres most aptly: "At which time, as we said, Pemmo presided over the Lombards of Friuli," just as also the doge Andrea Dandolo joins these two matters together in his Venetian Chronicle Book VII, chapter III, part I, in Muratori, work cited, volume XII, column 134, doubtless having Paul the Deacon before his eyes.

[36] under Duke Theodobert Then the other thing which we have to show, that St. Rupert survived Theodo, Hansiz draws out from the little book of Donations or the Breves Notitiae already cited above by me (nos. 4 and 8). It is narrated there Chapter II, in Hansiz, pp. 20 and 56 that the church of St. Maximilian in the Pongau was begun to be built by the Saint with the leave of Duke Theodo, and presently it is added: "Meanwhile Duke Theodo fell ill, and commended to his son Theodobert the duchy of Bavaria and the cause of the lord Bishop Rudbert, to be faithfully protected, … and that he should faithfully help in all things toward that place, raising it up for his own reward. And the church being built there, St. Rudbert called Duke Theodobert there, and announced to him the matter itself in order; and thus having received authority from him, he consecrated it in honour of St. Maximilian, and named the place itself Pongau. Then also Duke Theodobert gave there from his Forest three miles in every direction whatsoever." For my part I shall not keep silent that these same things are narrated of Theodo himself in the Annotation of Arno, which has thus In the same, p. 18: "The lord Hrodbert went to Duke Theodo, and told him those miracles, and asked him to give him licence to build a cell there, and so Duke Theodo gave him licence. And the lord Hrodbert, coming again to the same place with his men and with the above-written brethren, began there to grub up roots and to clear the place and to make an oratory. And the oratory being made, he came again to Duke Theodo, and asked him to come there with him. And coming there, the lord Hrodbert consecrated that oratory, and Duke Theodo handed over the place itself to the monastery of St. Peter at Salzburg, and three miles on every side." This discrepancy Hansiz passed over; nor does Anselm Berthod, treating in our work at the 12th day of October of the cult of St. Maximilian, bishop and martyr Volume VI of October, p. 38, seem to have attended to it. With the little book of Donations in this part agrees the Life of St. Rupert of fairly good note which was produced in the year 1462 for the canonization of St. Vitalis from an authentic and ancient book, as was asserted, and another copy of which Papebroch also found in a notable manuscript of the convent of the Friars Preachers at Florence Compare volume III of March, p. 700, from which manuscript, collated with the edition of Canisius, he inserted the same into our work as genuine Ibid., p. 702 and following. The author of that Life, after he has narrated that St. Rupert, having shared counsel with Theodo, began to build the church of St. Maximilian with dwellings for the servants of God, presently passes to Theodo's last illness and the final commands given to his son Theodobert, and then subjoins: "And when he had instructed his son with commands of this kind and with all that he had wished, he closed his last day, passing to the Lord. And after this Duke Theopert with his nobles proceeded to go to St. Rudbert for the sake of visiting him; and coming to him in the above-said wilderness, he venerated the place with pious affection, giving to the church which St. Rudbert built there and, the duke himself being present, dedicated in honour of St. Maximilian, three miles on every side of the same forest," etc. Wherefore I suspect that a fault has crept into the Notitia of Arno, and that in it Theodo has been written twice where Theodobert should have been written.

[37] were done by the Saint, But if from that discrepancy, such as it is, this first proof of Hansiz comes out less firm, the other certainly stands, drawn from the time at which those things happened which in the shorter Life of St. Rupert, which Hansiz likes to call the original one, are declared in this manner In Hansiz, pp. 45 and 46: "Then the aforesaid doctor Rodbert, desiring to obtain some companions for the teaching of evangelical truth, went back to his own country; and returning again with twelve disciples, and bringing with him a virgin of Christ named Erendruda, whom he placed in the upper castle of the people of Juvavum, there gathering a congregation in reasonable fashion, as the canonical order requires, he arranged everything." Treating of this monastery of Nunburg or Nonnberg (that is, of the castle or hill of the nuns), Arno in the Annotation Ibid., p. 17 says: "Likewise of the monastery of maidens, which was built in honour of the Holy Mother of God, ever Virgin Mary, beside the episcopal residence itself in the upper castle, which the lord Hrodbert, bishop and confessor, first built, and which he also called Salzburg: in which also he established his niece, the handmaid of Christ Erndruda, with other maidens, in which place she rests honourably; and what was handed over there by Duke Theodobert we annex below." And then he enumerates one by one the farms and estates given to the convent by Theodobert, without casting in any mention of Theodo; and indeed, as Hansiz shrewdly observes Page 58, since the places given to the convent were situated in the district of the Salzburggau, Theodobert had no right in it unless his father Theodo had died: since it is clear from the donations of Theodo that in the tetrarchic division, of which there was talk already above (nos. 6 and 7), that part of Noricum in which the Salzburg district lay remained with him.

[38] wholly require And what I deduced by reasoning from the Annotation of Arno is openly set forth both by the Breves Notitiae Chapter III, in Hansiz, p. 21 and especially by the Life in Papebroch Place cited, pp. 703 and 704. For the former expressly teach that the building and consecration of the church of Blessed Mary were done by St. Rupert with the counsel and will of the lord Duke Theodobert, and also that by the licence and will of the same St. Erendruda was placed there with other nuns, and that the duke himself made very many largesses for the sustenance of the handmaids of God and for the reward of his father and of himself. And in the Life, after Theodo's death and the consecration of the church of St. Maximilian have been narrated, the following is to be read: "These things being thus done, the man of God, seeing that the summit of Bavarian dignity had subjected itself to the yoke of Christ, but that many still remained entangled in the error of paganism, returned to his country, and thence, with twelve companions chosen for preaching (among whom were the eminent Blessed Kunialdus and St. Gisilarius, both presbyters, both holy men), and bringing with him the virgin of Christ St. Erndruda, his niece, he returned, as it were with so many lights, to the city of Juvavum. Then in the upper castle of the same city he built in honour of our Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour and of His Holy Mother the perpetual Virgin Mary a monastery, and there with a congregation of nuns he placed St. Erndruda for the service of the heavenly King; and with the assent of Duke Theodobert, who handed over countless possessions to that convent, he arranged their way of life reasonably in all things. These things being thus accomplished, this blessed man, striving with the help of the supreme Pontiff to bring to perfection the work of great preaching which he had begun, determined to go round the realms of Noricum, a troop of his disciples accompanying him, and going out from the city of Juvavum, and visiting the nations on which the light of faith had not yet shone, he sowed among them the wheat of belief, the tares perishing… And when he had thus gone round the bounds of the Bavarians, and had converted all to the faith of Christ, he admonished them to remain steadfast in the faith; and having left there presbyters and men full of God, who should accustom the people to the divine mysteries, he himself made haste to return to the city of Juvavum, because, filled with the prophetic spirit, he foreknew that the day of his calling was at hand."

[39] that he be held to have survived the year 718; And from these so many and so great labours undertaken after the death of Theodo it is plain to the eye that, if Theodo made his pilgrimage to Rome in the year 716, it could in no way have happened that St. Rupert died in the year 718, and that in the third month of this year not yet fully elapsed. The passing of the most blessed man must therefore be deferred to some later year, which leaves a sufficient interval from the death of Theodo, whom he survived. Now the chronographers removed some centuries from his age fix the death-year of Theodo either at 717 or at 718 [Hansiz, pp. 59, 923 and 924; Hieronymus Pez, Scriptores rerum Austriacarum, volume I, column 333; volume II, column 66; Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae historica, volume IX of the Scriptores, pp. 551, 563 and 768], on what authority I know not; but I see that they assign to him as successors his sons Theodoald and Grimoald, Theodobert being passed over: which is an indication that the Life of St. Corbinian written by Aribo was available to them; whence also they make mention of St. Corbinian at the year 712, 716 or 719. Nor yet is there reason for us to think that Theodobert was unknown to them: they knew him certainly from the Salzburg monuments, but believed him a whole century older from a preconceived opinion about the age of St. Rupert. Pagi, just as he deferred the second Roman journey of St. Corbinian up to the year 722 or 723 [On the year 716, no. 7, on the year 723, no. 9, and on the year 724, no. 6, volume XII, pp. 265, 309, 318 and 319], so by necessary consequence prolonged the life of Theodo also to that point; but to this chronological order that of Mabillon is to be preferred

Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Sancti Benedicti, third century, part I, pp. 503 and 508 and that of Suyskens Volume III of September, p. 269, who judge that St. Corbinian went to Rome again about the year 717, or certainly not much later, so that concerning the time of Theodo's death they nearly agree with the chronographers already cited. And truly at that time Theodo would have been of a fairly advanced age: inasmuch as at the beginning of the eighth century he had three adult sons with whom he shared his principate; and the son of the eldest of these, Theodobert, Hugbert, already in the year 725 began to rule the Bavarians Ibid., p. 275, when the sister of the same Hugbert, Guntruda, had already married Liutprand, king of the Lombards Paul the Deacon, work cited, book VI, chapter XLIII, p. 504: although Baronius makes her a daughter of Theodo instead of a granddaughter On the year 726, no. 43, p. 363, led into error by the copy of Paul the Deacon which he used, from which the name of Theodobert, father of Guntruda, is absent, which name nevertheless the Lindenbrog, Ambrosian, Monza Compare Muratori, place cited, note 175 and Bamberg K. von Spruner, work cited, p. 165 codices express. This slip is therefore easily to be pardoned in the great Baronius; but I wonder how Pagi, a shrewd man, could write On the year 723, no. 9, p. 309 that Theodobert perhaps departed from life before his father Theodo, since he had in his hands and quite often cited the Breves Notitiae, in which the contrary is maintained not obscurely.

[40] and truly, since the 27th day of March, However it may be with Theodo, there will be no one, I think, who will not readily admit that St. Rupert prolonged his life beyond the year 720; especially if, with Hansiz, who was held back by it for some time, I at length remove that obstacle by which Mabillon and others after him were pre-engaged, so that they did not go beyond the year 718. Thus he says on this matter Page 921: "The ancient tradition of the Church holds that the Lord suffered and was fixed to the cross on the 25th day of March, and rose from the tomb on the 27th day of March. Wherefore in the most ancient calendars and Martyrologies of the Church there is read inscribed at the 25th day of March the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, and at the 27th day of March the Resurrection of Christ. The words of Jerome in the Martyrology are: 'On the eighth day before the Kalends of April at Jerusalem the Lord was crucified; on the sixth day before the Kalends of April at Jerusalem the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ was celebrated.' These very words are read in the Martyrology of Ado, of Rabanus and in almost all the others which can be consulted in the Belgian Hagiographers, volume VII of June. Thus there the Reichenau Martyrology: 'On the sixth day before the Kalends of April. At Jerusalem the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ': in the same words the Augsburg, the Labbe, the Corbie and almost all the others. So the Rosweyde, the Centula, the Brussels, Greven's, Molanus's. So also Wandelbert in the metrical Martyrology at the eighth day before the Kalends of April, or the 25th of March: 'The angel on the eighth announces the Lamb to come: and the Lamb Himself is lifted on the cross for the death of the world.' At the sixth day before the Kalends of April, that is, the 27th of March: 'The sixth shines with the triumph of the rising Lamb.' The ancient Calendar of Polemius Silvius, written in the year CCCCIIL: 'On the eighth day before the Kalends of April. Equinox: beginning of spring. Christ suffered on this day. On the sixth day before the Kalends of April. Resurrection.' The same tradition of the Church is affirmed by Augustine, Bede, Usuard and others here and there, whom see cited in volume III of March, page 540, likewise page 687."

[41] as from the most ancient ecclesiastical monuments, Thus far Hansiz: whom I interrupt, so that, besides the twofold treatise of our predecessors at the 25th of March on the Sacred Memory of Jesus Christ crucified and at the 27th of March on the Sacred Memory of Jesus Christ rising, to which shortly afterwards was added the new Exercise of Henschenius Volume I of April, preliminary Diatribe, Exercise I, pp. V and VI, I may moreover point out to the readers what Fiorentini, illustrating the Hieronymian Martyrology, gathered from the Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers concerning the solemn day of the Lord's Passion on the eighth day before the Kalends of April and concerning the joy of the Resurrection to be placed consequently on the sixth day before the Kalends of April [Vetustius Occidentalis Ecclesiae Martyrologium, pp. 396, 397, 399 and following, likewise 406]; and with even better right I may praise highly for the same argument the most distinguished chronological Exercise of Enrico Sanclemente on the year of the Lord's Passion De emendatione vulgaris aerae, p. 493 and following, where the note of the eighth day before the Kalends of April, as a notable argument concerning the very year in which Christ suffered, is excellently illustrated, not only from the express testimonies of Tertullian, St. Sulpicius Severus, St. Augustine, Hilary the Deacon, St. Bede and other Latin writers, to which some support also accrues from the East from Theodoret and St. Cyril, and from the Liberian Catalogue and from the Calendars and Martyrologies adduced in our work (as was said above) to the number of thirty and more, but especially from two monuments in the highest degree venerable, which no one before Sanclemente had used for this matter. "Now they are," he says Pp. 506 and 507, "the Cycle of Hippolytus the Martyr and the Paschal Period of 84 years, which in antiquity was circulated under the name of the Roman Computation. In the Cycle of Hippolytus, in the last place of the second Hendecaeteris, the Pasch of the Lord is noted on the sixth day before the Kalends of April. From which it follows that the preceding Friday fell on the 25th day of the month of March. And in the same place there are read inscribed the marks ΠΑΘΟC ΧC, which, as has been proved elsewhere, certainly indicate that the consummated Passion of Christ on the cross is to be joined, according to the mind and reasonings of Hippolytus, with the Varronian year of the City DCCXXCII, to which the consuls Gemini gave their name. You have therefore in such brief marks certain knowledge of the time of the Passion of Christ the Lord and of the eighth day before the Kalends of April, to which, according to the ecclesiastical computation of St. Hippolytus, it is to be bound. Likewise in the Roman Computation, at the year 68, which corresponds to the 32nd of the Hippolytean Cycle, you will find Easter appointed on the sixth day before the Kalends of April. From which it is evident that both Periods agree in all things as to the year and day of the Passion of Christ… But if in the Roman Computation no mark or indication is added that the Passion of Christ is to be joined with the year 68 of that Period, nevertheless all those of the Latin Fathers who join the eighth day before the Kalends of April with the consulship of the Gemini make it credible that the same is to be understood. For the conjunction of both chronological characters presents a certain argument that those Fathers employed either the Cycle of Hippolytus or the Roman Computation, or certainly some other in no way discordant from both." But let it suffice to have selected these things: the rest may be seen in Sanclemente himself, who does not hesitate to commend in these words the opinion by which the Death of Christ is fixed to the 25th and the Resurrection to the 27th of March: "This was the opinion proper to the whole Latin Church; this draws its origin from the very cradle of the Christian faith; this was kept constant and uncorrupted up to the age of Leo the Great; this finally, even in the later centuries after Leo the Great, can desire witnesses neither more numerous nor more worthy of credence than it has." Witnesses of this kind are certainly the Calendars and Martyrologies, which, even after, through the Period of Victorius first and then more through the Cycle of Dionysius Exiguus, the Alexandrian method was introduced and that ancient tradition of the Western Church, as Sanclemente speaks P. 508, was thrown down from its seat and rank, nevertheless continued to record the Passion and Resurrection of the Saviour at the often-mentioned days here and there among the sacred memorials; and some indeed add on the 5th day of May the Ascension of the Lord and on the 15th of May the Coming of the Holy Spirit.

[42] from very many sacred calendars, But although the number of such ecclesiastical calendars cited in volume III of March in our work is fairly large, to which, as Hansiz has already advised, are added those which Sollerius published at the end of our June, almost all of which preserved the same tradition concerning the days of the Death and Resurrection of Christ, it will nevertheless be helpful to point out some Martyrologies and Calendars written from the ninth century onwards and agreeing in the same, which, after our March was published, were drawn into the light and committed to print by learned men. To this purpose, therefore, are the following: those published by d'Achery, the Hieronymian from the Corbie codex, the Gellone, and the prose additions to Wandelbert Spicilegium, volume II, p. 1 and following, new edition; by Martène and Durand, the Auxerre, the Murbach, three of Corbie, the Lyre Thesaurus novus Anecdotorum, volume III, column 1543 and following, likewise the Bedan of Trier, the Fleury, the English, the Gallican, the Stavelot, the Verdun, the Auxerre Amplissima Collectio, volume VI, column 633 and following; by Eckhart, the Freising Commentarii de rebus Franciae Orientalis, volume I, p. 835; by Beck, the German Martyrologium Ecclesiae Germanicae, Augsburg 1687; by Schilter, the Alemannic Thesaurus Antiquitatum Teutonicarum, volume I, part II, monument VII, p. 70; by Hontheim, those of Trier, one of St. Maximin and one and another of St. Simeon Prodromus Historiae Trevirensis, part I, p. 373 and following; by Oefele, the Diessen Rerum Boicarum Scriptores, volume II, p. 654 and following; by Gerbert, the Rheinau, the St. Gall, the Petershausen, the Reichenau, the Muri Monumenta veteris Liturgiae Alemannicae, part I, p. 455 and following; by Binterim, the Cologne Kalendarium Ecclesiae Germanicae Coloniensis of the ninth century, Cologne 1824 and the Xanten Die Erzdiöcese Köln, volume I, p. 373 and following; by Lelong, the Utrecht in the vernacular tongue Beschryving van de Reformatie der stadt Amsterdam, p. 262 and following; by Michael Monachus, the Capuan Sanctuarium Capuanum, p. 391 and following; by Fiorentini, the Lucca Vetustius Occidentalis Ecclesiae Martyrologium, p. 1049 and following; by Giorgi, the Fulda, the Ottoboni, the Lorsch, the Vatican, the Palatine-Vatican Martyrologium Adonis, p. 656 and following; by Muratori, the Ambrosian and the Sitoni Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, volume II, part II, p. 1027 and following; by Zaccaria, two of Florence Excursus litterarii per Italiam, chapter XV, p. 290 and following and the Brescia Ibid., chapter XVI, p. 353 and following; by Tartarotti, the Trent-Verona Apologia delle Memorie antiche di Rovereto, p. 329 and following; by Althan, the Gertrudian and one and another of Moosach De Calendariis, p. 105 and following; by Lami, the Tuscan or Florentine Ecclesiae Florentinae Monumenta, volume IV, p. 62 and following; by Bandini, likewise five Florentine ones [Catalogus codicum Latinorum Bibliothecae Mediceae Laurentianae, volume I, column 172 and following; Bibliotheca Leopoldina, volume I, column 133 and following, 205 and following, 215 and following, volume III, column 147 and following]: to which is added the Neapolitan Calendar cited by Mazzocchi, who moreover asserts that Sicilian and other Calendars were available to him which that tradition

of which we are treating attesting [In Vetus marmoreum Sanctae Neapolitanae Ecclesiae Kalendarium Commentarius, at the 25th of March, volume I, p. 113]. That with these on the same matter the Irish Martyrology of Tallaght also agrees, I understand from the papers left by Bollandus; nor do I doubt that the very same could be said of many others which it has not befallen me to see: for I have kept myself within those books only which are extant in our library. Among these we have also three Usuardine codices, witnesses of the same thing, namely two of parchment, of which one was formerly of Bilsen, the other of the nunnery of Tusschenbeek, and one of paper formerly of the abbey of Villers; and also a manuscript Breviary and Missal and an illuminated Book of Hours, whose three Calendars, the former in the Latin, the latter in the French idiom, exhibit the old tradition concerning the days of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ. Nay rather, this was still preserved after the invention of the art of printing in a good many Calendars of Breviaries and Missals; as I am taught by the Breviaries of Liège of the year 1488, of St. Servatius of Maastricht 1503, of Mainz 1507, of Utrecht 1508 and 1512, of St. Pol-de-Léon 1516, of Dol 1519, of St. Aubin of Angers 1531, of Liège 1535, and the Missals of Liège 1486, 1502, 1515 and 1552, of Utrecht 1511, of Esztergom 1512, of Paris 1516, finally of the distinguished church of Sarum in England both the Missal of 1527 and the Book of Hours of 1556 This prymer of Salisbury. Rouen 1556; to which add the Calendar excerpted with much care, chiefly from the Missals of Salisbury, York and Durham, from the English Martyrology and from the Legenda of Capgrave, by a learned man (namely, as report has it, by John Lingard, a Catholic priest and distinguished historiographer of England), which the distinguished Harris Nicolas inserted into his work on the Chronology of History The chronology of History, p. 95 and following, London edition 1838. To those cited thus far are to be added the martyrologists Canisius in the sixteenth century and du Saussay in the seventeenth, who both, following the custom of the ancients, made mention at the 25th of March of the Passion of Jesus Christ and at the 27th of March of His Resurrection.

[43] from some of the Middle Ages There are also other witnesses that that ancient tradition, of which the Venerable Bede, although he himself embraced the Victorian Period, speaks thus [De temporum ratione, chapter XLV, volume II of the Works, p. 89, Cologne edition 1612; or chapter XLVII, volume VI of the Works, p. 242, London edition 1843]: "But that He was crucified on the eighth day before the Kalends of April and rose on the sixth day of the same Kalends, it is established was spread abroad as the opinion of many ecclesiastical doctors," persisted commonly even long after the times of the same Bede. Hansiz adduces one, who proceeds to speak thus Place cited: "And there was at one time in the eleventh century a popular persuasion concerning the time of the final judgment, which they thought would come in the year in which the sixth day before the Kalends of April, to which the Resurrection of Christ is assigned, coincided with the Sunday of Easter. Concerning which matter the biographer of St. Altmann (bishop of Passau), a writer of the twelfth century, reports thus: 'At that time (namely in the year 1065) many nobles were going to Jerusalem to visit the sepulchre of the Lord, deceived by a certain popular opinion, as though the day of judgment were at hand, because Easter in that year had fallen on the sixth day before the Kalends of April, on which the Resurrection of the Lord is inscribed: moved by which terror not only common people, but also the chief men of the peoples, distinguished in birth and dignity, and the very bishops of various cities, upheld by great glory and the highest honour, left country, kinsfolk and riches, and carrying the cross followed Christ by the narrow way.'" Thus he Compare volume II of August, pp. 366 and 367. With whom agrees the other biographer of St. Altmann, that the Resurrection of the Lord was inscribed on the sixth day before the Kalends of April Ibid., p. 379; although he denies that the bishops Siegfried of Mainz, Gunther of Bamberg, Otto of Regensburg and William of Utrecht then undertook the pilgrimage to Jerusalem on account of that popular opinion. And indeed, observes our Bosch Ibid., p. 368, note i, among the chroniclers of that age who made mention of this pilgrimage, no one, so far as I know, alleges this cause of the journey undertaken.

[44] chroniclers, However that may be, the chief of those same chroniclers nevertheless confirm that tradition of which we are speaking. Thus Bernold of Constance [At the year 1065, in Ussermann, Germaniae Sacrae Prodromus, volume II, p. 8; likewise in Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae historica, volume V of the Scriptores, p. 428]: "In the same year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1065, when also Easter was celebrated on the sixth day before the Kalends of April, on which day also Christ rose," etc.; where, as Ussermann has rightly noted Ibid., note 4, "Bernold does not intend that Christ rose at Easter, which would be a remark unworthy of a learned writer, but that Easter in this year fell on the 27th day of March, on which day the ancients believed the Lord's Resurrection took place: whence also on the same day the Resurrection of the Lord is noted here and there in the ancient Calendars, as also on the 25th day of March the Incarnation and Passion of the Lord. The writers of the Middle Ages therefore distinguished the day of Easter, which varies in every year, from the day of the Resurrection fixed in the Calendars at the 27th of March. Since later writers did not sufficiently notice this, they fell from time to time into various anachronisms." And Marianus Scotus and Sigebert of Gembloux, who were contemporaries of Bernold, accuse the great Cycle of 532 years of error against evangelical truth on this very head, that according to that Cycle neither would the Passion of Christ have fallen on the eighth day before the Kalends of April nor the Resurrection on the sixth day before the Kalends of April: as may be seen in Marianus throughout the whole course of his third book, where for this very reason he constantly sets a difference of twenty-two years between his chronology and that of others, so that the twelfth year of the common era, in which the Sunday of Easter would have been the 27th day of March, is for him the thirty-fourth year, and so on In Pertz, work cited, volume V, p. 481 and following; while the remarks of Sigebert are to be read at the years 532 and 1063 Ibid., volume VI, pp. 316 and 361.

[45] and other writers it is gathered, After these is to be cited William Durand, bishop of Mende, who likewise asserts of Christ our Lord [Rationale divinorum Officiorum, book VI, chapter LXXVII, no. 28, folio 213, Lyon edition 1551]: "He was crucified on the same day on which He was conceived of the Virgin, namely on the Friday, which was the eighth day before the Kalends of April"; likewise Ibid., chapter LXXXVI, no. 11, folio 227: "He truly rose on the sixth day before the Kalends of April"; and he also copies out the verses of I know not what poet on the 25th day of March Book VII, chapter IX, no. 3, folio 267, of which the first two sound thus:

"Hail, festal day, which restrainest our wounds. The Angel is sent: and Christ suffered on the cross."

And how deeply that persuasion was still seated in minds in the fifteenth century is evident from this, that, as Petau notes [De Doctrina temporum, volume II, book XII, chapter IX, pp. 232 and 233, Venice edition], "Alfonso Tostado, when at Siena in Tuscany, among the 21 heads which he had proposed for disputation, had put forth this very one, that Christ did not die on the 25th day of March, but on the third day of April, at the beginning of the thirty-third year of His age, was, at the instance of Cardinal Juan de Torquemada, summoned to judgment and condemned, as our Mariana mentions in the book on the year and day of the death of Christ, chapter X; on which matter Tostado wrote a very long Apology, under the name of Defensorium." But while I report the words of Petau, it is not my intention to discuss the things which he opposed to that ancient tradition. Sanclemente discussed them wisely: for me it is enough, what I think has been abundantly demonstrated, that that tradition was all but common in the Western Church through many centuries.

[46] was held as the fixed anniversary of the Resurrection of Christ, Hansiz therefore deservedly concludes Place cited: "It is therefore an established matter that the day of the Lord's Resurrection, in the ancient sense of writers and of ecclesiastical tables, is a day fixed to the sixth day before the Kalends of April, or the 27th of March; and accordingly far different from the Sunday of Easter, as being a feast, as we call it, movable, and falling according to the occurrence of the fourteenth moon now in March, now in April. These things being established in this manner, it is clear that those words of the Life of Rupert which note that he gave back his spirit on the day of the Lord's Resurrection impose no necessity on us to believe that he met death on the Sunday of Easter, but this only and no more, that he died on the 27th day of March, on which very day the Martyrologists set the departure of the holy man. Thus the Rosweyde Martyrology, after making commemoration of the Lord's Resurrection, adds at the same day, the sixth before the Kalends of April: 'Of Ruotbert, bishop and confessor.' The Cologne thus: 'On the same day, of Saint Rupert, bishop in Worms and confessor.' Greven: 'The Resurrection of the Lord'; then: 'Of Rupert, bishop of the city of the Vangiones, which is now called Worms, and confessor.' Molanus: 'At Jerusalem the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ'; and afterwards: 'At Worms, of St. Rupert, bishop and confessor, who in the times of Childebert propagated the doctrine of Christ in Bavaria, Austria, Styria and all Noricum.'" Similarly the Calendars of Freising in Eckhart, the first of Moosach in Althan, and of Diessen in Oefele join both memorials, of the Resurrection and of St. Rupert. "A most opportune example for our matter," the same writer continues, "may be seen in Ughelli among the bishops of Trent Italia Sacra, volume V, column 596, Coleti's edition concerning Altmann, founder of the college of Suben in Bavaria, of whom he says thus: 'Being now become an old man, he departed from life on the day of the Lord's Resurrection, the sixth day before the Kalends of April, in the year 1130.' Where likewise it is manifest that the day of the Lord's Resurrection is not taken for the Sunday of Easter: for in the said year 1130 the Sunday of Easter did not fall on the fourth day before the Kalends of April, but on the third day before the Kalends of April, that is, the 30th of March; while the day of the Resurrection, the sixth before the Kalends of April, had fallen on the Thursday of Holy Week." But although this year of Altmann's death is not correctly recorded by Ughelli, since it is certain that he passed not only the thirtieth year of that century but also the fortieth by some years [Compare Gentilotti in Ughelli, ibid., notes 1 and 2; Tartarotti, Apologia delle Memorie antiche di Rovereto, p. 297 and following]; nevertheless it is sufficiently established that he did not reach the year 1155, in which the 27th day of March was first Easter Day. "Finally, to one consulting both chroniclers and biographers, where they report a thing done on Easter Day, they always state expressly that it was done either on the Paschal Solemnity or on the Sunday of Easter or simply at Easter; but scarcely ever say on the day of the Resurrection: which could be demonstrated in six hundred places; and if ever they use the word Resurrection, they mark it with SOLEMN or FEAST added, thus: on the feast-day of the Resurrection, on the solemn day of the Resurrection."

[47] wholly distinguishing it The reasonings of Hansiz which we have adduced so far,

Martin Gerbert repeats almost entirely, while he treats of the epoch of St. Rupert (which he nevertheless leaves uncertain) on the occasion of narrating the origin of the monastery of St. Trutpert Historia Silvae Nigrae, volume I, book III, no. 14, p. 53. The same seemed probable also to Resch Annales ecclesiae Sabionensis, volume II, seventh century, note 155, p. 548, writing on the year and day of the death of St. Rupert. And already before, Tartarotti had added his vote to them in his annotations on the Catalogue of the bishops of Trent Work cited, p. 268 and on the Trent-Verona Calendar Ibid., p. 344; where he added that he did not sufficiently understand how Lorenzo della Torre could have been praised by Althan De Calendariis, chapter X, pp. 87 and 88 for having thought that the Gertrudian Calendar, in which the Resurrection of the Lord is inscribed at the 27th of March, was written in the year 981, because then the celebration of Easter fell on that day: which is surely all the more to be wondered at because Althan himself observed that in the oldest Martyrologies the day of the Lord's Resurrection is commemorated as in its proper place on the sixth day before the Kalends of April Ibid., chapter VI, p. 55, and that the Crucifixion is joined to the Lord's Annunciation two days before Ibid., p. 58; so that that conjecture of Lorenzo della Torre seems rather to be reckoned among the anachronisms of which we heard Ussermann speaking above (no. 44), no otherwise than that reasoning of Lami concerning the Florentine Calendar edited by him Ecclesiae Florentinae Monumenta, volume IV, p. 61: "In the Calendar Easter" (rather, the Resurrection of the Lord) "is assigned to the sixth day before the Kalends of April; but in that century Easter did not occur on that day except in the years 1016, 1035, 1054, 1073, 1092; and Saint Bononius the abbot" (inscribed in the Calendar) "died in the year 1026: wherefore this codex must have been written either in the year 1035 or 1054." Finally Helwig, in his chronological work for discerning the time of dated diplomas [Zeitrechnung zu Erörterung der Daten in Urkunden, pp. 7, 10, 13, 14, 44, 49, under the words Ascensa, Commemoratio Passionis, Crucifixio, Passio, Resurrectio], rightly indicates that among the men of the Middle Ages the 25th and 27th days of March were reckoned as the fixed anniversaries of the Passion or Crucifixion and of the Resurrection of the Lord, as also the 5th and 15th of May of the Ascension of the Lord and the Descent of the Holy Spirit; and that these are accordingly to be well distinguished from the movable solemnities by which the Church each year recalls those most holy mysteries.

[48] from the movable solemnity of Easter, But I would think that there is extant no document of sacred antiquity from which that distinction between the fixed day of the Resurrection and the movable solemnity of Easter shines out more manifestly than from the order of vigils which St. Perpetuus, sixth bishop of Tours, instituted in his church in the fifth century, and which St. Gregory of Tours has preserved for us, inserted in his History [Historia Francorum, book X, chapter XXXI, in Bouquet, Rerum Gallicarum Scriptores, volume II, p. 386]. In that order, among the other vigils of the greater festivals, these two are appointed [Compare Ruinart, ibid., in the notes; Carpentier, Supplement to Du Cange's Glossary, under the word Resurrectio, volume III, column 399]: "On the sixth day before the Kalends of April, for the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, at the basilica of the lord Martin. Easter, in the church," namely the cathedral, which was other than the basilica of St. Martin. Whence it seems to be gathered that the church of Tours, and perhaps certain other Gallican churches at that time, besides the most solemn Sunday of Easter depending on the variation of the moon, also kept the 27th day of March as a feast in memory of Christ rising [Mabillon, De Liturgia Gallicana, p. 103; Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae Latinitatis, under the word Resurrectio, volume V, column 1387, 1734 edition; Fiorentini, Vetustius Occidentalis Ecclesiae Martyrologium, p. 406; Tartarotti, work cited, p. 344]. To this seems to refer what St. Martin of Dumio left attested in the sixth century De Pascha, in Flórez, España sagrada, volume XV, appendix III, p. 414: "It was observed by very many Gallican bishops until not long ago that they always celebrated Easter Day on the eighth day before the Kalends of April, on which the Resurrection of Christ is handed down to have taken place." For my part I see that the treatise of St. Martin of Dumio on Easter is scarcely anything other than a repetition of the things which were disputed in the Synod of Caesarea, under the presidency of St. Theophilus, about the year 198, for rightly determining the day of Easter, and that in the old narrative of these things at the very beginning is read Baluze, Nova Collectio Conciliorum, columns 13 and 14: "For all the Gauls celebrated Easter on one anniversary day, the eighth before the Kalends of April, saying: What have we to do with keeping Easter with the Jews according to the reckoning of the moon? But as we keep the Lord's Nativity, on whatever day it comes, on the eighth day before the Kalends of January, so also ought we to keep Easter on the eighth day before the Kalends of April, when the Resurrection of Christ is handed down"; whence also St. Bede [De temporum ratione, place cited, likewise De aequinoctio verno, volume II of the Works, p. 232, Cologne edition 1612] and from him Blessed Rabanus [De Computo, chapter LXIV, in Baluze, book I of the Miscellanea or volume II, p. 76, Mansi's edition] have thus: "For the Gauls always celebrated Easter on whatever day the eighth before the Kalends of April had fallen, when the Resurrection of Christ was handed down to have been." Nevertheless I conjecture that the praised St. Martin, since he says that this was observed by the Gauls until not long ago, spoke thus not from the acts of the Synod alone, held almost four hundred years before, but from information received more recently, and that not sufficiently accurate. I call the information not sufficiently accurate because it supposes that the fixed day of the Resurrection was still celebrated by the Gauls as the Paschal solemnity itself; just as if they had not yet submitted themselves to the universal decrees of the Church concerning the Sunday of Easter: which is sufficiently refuted both by other historical documents and indeed by the very order of vigils of Tours. Wherefore I for my part judge thus, that there were churches in Gaul which at first kept the annual memorial of the Lord's Resurrection only on a fixed day, as the narrative already cited declares; but that afterwards, the controversy about Easter having been decided, the same churches conformed themselves indeed to all the other Catholics in observing the day of Easter, but at the same time retained for some time that former custom of recalling the Resurrection on a fixed day. But whether what the writers just cited say, that this fixed day among the Gauls was the eighth day before the Kalends of April, was said rather according to the persuasion of the Easterners, which the Menaea of the Greeks still express, namely that Christ rose on the eighth day before the Kalends of April [Compare volume III of March, pp. 542 and 543, likewise Petau, work cited, book XII, chapters XI and XII, pp. 235 and 236], than according to the true practice of those Gallican churches, I do not know. However this may be, certainly the ordinance of St. Perpetuus, like most of the Latin calendars of which we have treated before, fixes the Resurrection not on the eighth, but on the sixth day before the Kalends of April.

[49] But if anyone wishes to interpret from that ancient custom of the Gauls what is narrated in the Lives of St. Rupert, it is not necessary to say that St. Rupert died on Easter Day itself. that when the day of Christ's Resurrection had dawned he joyfully performed the solemnities of Masses, I shall not much oppose it: although I rather think that there is not in a locution of this kind such force of signification that such an interpretation is needed; since it is sufficiently established that the expression "solemnities of Masses" is not rarely used of Sacred rites performed without any special apparatus. But if that phrase, "Thus his Passover befell him in the sacred time of Easter," were to be taken in the strict sense of the words (which nevertheless is doubtful to me), since the sacred time of Easter is not the Paschal Sunday alone, but extends much more widely, the death of St. Rupert would have to be bound to a year in which the 27th day of March fell within the Paschal time: such as was the year 726, but not likewise 723, as Hansiz erroneously marks P. 922, unless the Saint be said to have passed from this life on Holy Saturday, which in the year 723 occurred on the 27th day of March, and from whose Mass the Paschal time begins according to the usage of the Church. Lastly I would wish it attended to that the writer of the annotation on the translation of St. Rupert and his annual memorial, annexed to the Breves Notitiae often cited by me [In Hansiz, p. 33; in Canisius, volume cited, pp. 284 and 475; volume III of March, p. 702], sufficiently hints that the day of the Resurrection was held by him too as fixed and thus different from the movable feast of Easter. For he speaks in this manner: "And the day of his passing, the sixth before the Kalends of April, on the day of the Lord's Resurrection, on account of the Offices of Lent or of Easter itself, rarely happens to be celebrated as is fitting"; which words indicate clearly enough that the day of the Lord's Resurrection could fall within Lent, which would be most absurd to say of the feast of Easter.

§ III. Of the life, episcopate, death and burial of St. Vitalis.

Of St. Vitalis From what has been premised, this chronological order of the things done by St. Rupert seems roughly to be capable of being established. In the second or fifth year of Childebert III, that is, in the year of Christ 696 or 699, St. Rupert was bishop in the city of Worms. Not long after, at the invitation of Duke Theodo, he first sent some priests into Bavaria; then he himself went there, and at Regensburg baptized Theodo, converted to the faith of Christ with his nobles and a great multitude of people. About that time Theodo held the dominion of Bavaria divided with his three sons; which division was made not later than the year 702. Departing from Regensburg, the Saint undertook an apostolic expedition along the bed of the Danube as far as the borders of Lower Pannonia; then, returning thence, he came to Lauriacum, and stayed there for some time; afterwards he took up his journey again, preaching the Gospel in many places with fruit: all which journeys and labours must certainly have required the space of some years; so that the beginnings of the church of Salzburg seem not to be able to be placed before the year 710, nay rather seem to have to be placed somewhat after this year. At that time, therefore, a great part of Noricum having been traversed, a place for erecting the episcopal see offered itself to the Saint at Lake Walarius, called by the popular name Wallersee, where he dedicated a temple in honour of St. Peter. But the ruins of the once splendid city of Juvavum having afterwards been found not far from there, he at length transferred and fixed the seat of the bishopric there, building a new basilica likewise under the name of St. Peter. Meanwhile in the year 716 Duke Theodo's pilgrimage to Rome took place: returning from which, he gave his consent to the building of the church of St. Maximilian in the Pongau; and not long after he died, namely before this house was consecrated to God. This work having been completed, under Theodobert, his father's successor in that part of the principate, the holy prelate went back to his own country: returning from it with twelve

apostolic men and his niece Erendruda, he founded a convent of virgins and set it in right order: thereafter he went round the region spreading the word of God on every side, erecting temples, appointing ministers of sacred things; until at length, foreknowing his imminent death, he returned to Salzburg, and there fell asleep in the Lord after the year 720, if I am not mistaken, having chosen for himself as successor St. Vitalis, of whom we must now treat more specially.

[51] concerning the life and acts As the miracles of St. Vitalis, illustrating his posthumous glory, are written fairly copiously, of which discourse will recur below; so on the contrary we are in a great scarcity of documents as regards his life and actions: since no one is known, equal or near to his age, who took care to commend them to the memory of posterity. Wherefore on this part Hansiz discourses thus in a few words P. 71: "Of St. Vitalis this one particular thing is handed down to memory, that he converted the people of the Pinzgau to the faith. It is a people among the Alps of the diocese of Salzburg, who to this day venerate St. Vitalis as their Apostle. By the author of the little work on the Conversion of the Bavarians and Carantanians he is praised with this eulogy: 'Bishop Vitalis, a man dear to all the people, and an eminent teacher and sower of the word of God.' By the anonymous poet he is proclaimed 'a true shepherd, full of heavenly nectar.' Truly the sum of his praises and the most present argument of his holiness and of his apostolic spirit is the testimony of St. Rupert, who out of the company of his disciples, whom he had had as partners of his apostolic work, chose him before all to succeed to the work begun by himself; doubtless not about to do so unless he had judged him the most worthy of all. From which it is also made manifest that he was a sharer in all the labours of St. Rupert, and a companion of those journeys by which 'he went round the whole extent of that country' for the sake of preaching the Gospel. Of his family and country nothing is ascertained. The name Vitalis is Latin, of which kind several occur in the tables of the Saints. Yepes gathers that he was a monk of St. Peter's from the Bull of Pope Pius the Second upon the Report of the miracles of St. Vitalis, where he says 'that ancient books and old writers testify, and that there is report and fame of this, that the most holy father Rupert, among many perfect men of his congregation, singularly appointed St. Vitalis as successor.' Of the year of his death likewise no legitimate document is extant."

[52] very few things are known with certainty. Indeed, the things which, besides these indicated by Hansiz, the menologists and other writers of the latest centuries affirm about the life and virtues of St. Vitalis have not much certainty; but some of them (for of all I would not say even that) are contained within the bounds of probable conjecture. No one, so far as I at least know, has ever been able to adduce any document concerning St. Vitalis more remote from our age than "a notable and precious book of old writing in no way suspect, but wholly free of every fault and suspicion," from which the most ancient known miracles of St. Vitalis were brought forward for obtaining his canonization In Canisius, volume cited, p. 358. And in that book, written I know not when, but certainly after the year 1181, the praise of our Saint is woven most briefly thus: "Saint Rudbert, the first teacher of Juvavum, when about to pass to Christ, designated as his successor the venerable confessor of Christ Vitalis, on account of the eminent grace of his chaste way of life. He, having taken up the government, as is read in the Life of the aforenamed Father Saint Rudbert, both administered it prudently and, happily fulfilling it, rested in Christ on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of November. Whose merits God has deigned to reveal at his sepulchre, which is kept in the monastery of St. Peter at Salzburg; to the honour of his name He bestows many benefits on wretched mortals crying to him." Nor besides is any biography of St. Vitalis mentioned in the cause of canonization; but the witnesses questioned in it upon the articles concerning his sanctity drew their knowledge here and there from the legends of SS. Rupert and Virgilius which they call authentic and from the tradition of the elders. Whence it is self-evident that not much account is to be made of what Canisius published as a kind of Life of St. Vitalis Ibid., pp. 348 and 349, an oratorical rather than historical encomium, put together by Martin Hättinger, abbot of Salzburg, at the beginning of the seventeenth century Compare Novissimum Chronicon, pp. 64, 501 and 502, in which, besides the labour expended on the conversion of the people of the Pinzgau and of other peoples, all the virtues worthy of an excellent pontiff are proclaimed, but above the rest a meekness plainly remarkable, mercy toward the poor and afflicted, and a singular grace of composing quarrels and of bending the fiercest spirits to humanity; then of the birth of the Saint and of the miracles worked by him while living the same author writes thus: "Who, I say, could doubt that the most blessed Vitalis was begotten of an illustrious lineage either of kings or of princes, since he was so greatly cultivated, venerated, loved, preferred by St. Rudbert, and elected as the second bishop of Salzburg? With how great miracles he certainly flourished in life anyone can perceive from this, that to the blind prostrate on the ground he restored sight by a mere look to heaven, to the lame their step by one single sigh, to the paralytics the soundness of their limbs by a single familiar greeting." But these miracles I for my part judge to have been among those which happened at the tomb of St. Vitalis, especially from the twelfth century: since in the panels adjoining the tomb, of which there is talk in the Acts of the canonization In Canisius, place cited, p. 363, they were so represented by the painter as if the Saint were working them in person, the panegyrist might hence have conjectured that the matter truly was so Compare Novissimum Chronicon, p. 64; nor would I speak otherwise of Dominic Hess of the Order of St. Francis, who in the metrical Catalogue of the prelates of Salzburg Compare the same, p. 59 composed these lines on the miracles of St. Vitalis Ibid., p. 72:

"Why should I tell in scanty verse his many miracles? What the all-heal cannot (though it is said To heal all pains), what the herbs of Paeon cannot, This he performed by the sign of the holy cross and the strong force of prayers, Driving out hateful diseases and the ministers of death, And preparing immortal glory by other Miracles: so much can the unimpaired piety of the soul."

[53] Basnage, tastelessly, on the miracles Basnage, however, is to be hissed off, who does not fear to brand with the mark of impiety these thoughts of pious men, which Bucelin Menologium Benedictinum, at the 20th of October, Mezger Historia Salisburgensis, book II, chapter II, p. 168, Berthold Rizel Sancti et Beati Austriae, p. 171 and others adopted: "But who," he says [Observations on the Monuments of Salzburg in the new edition of Canisius, volume cited, pp. 272 and 273], "would bear that Vitalis should be represented with the same features, armed with that same power of miracles, if not a greater, as was once the Messiah to the disciples of John the Baptist Matthew XI, 5; Luke VII, 21, 22? A glance of the eye sufficed him, nay a greeting." Nor does he make much more account of the miracles which it is established were worked by the intercession of St. Vitalis when already reigning in heaven. "But it is," Hansiz rightly says Pp. 980 and 981, "the practice of this man, namely from his own school, to mock miracles everywhere, with such licence that this one thing almost suffices for derision, that a thing is beyond the order of nature. By which these persecutors of miracles tear up almost all the extraordinary benefits of God, and, except those which are in the sacred writings, hold all the rest in mockery, despising and deriding the credit of writers however ancient and even of eyewitnesses: by which they cut down a great part of sacred and ecclesiastical history with one blow; they accuse even the gravest writers of bad faith or of old-womanish credulity, they themselves alone being wise and acute, sitting as counsellors to God and dictating the law: No further, namely than so far as they themselves comprehend; derogating credence also from the promises of Christ John XIV, 12: Greater than these shall they do."

[54] and other matters concerning him Besides this, the same Basnage showed himself also an unlearned censor of historical matters, when he committed to paper the things which I subjoin Place cited: "If I may disclose what I think, I should much rather believe" (namely against the credit of ten centuries) "that Vitalis is he who came from Gaul with Emmeram, skilled in the Teutonic tongue, by whose help he tried to bring the Pannonians to Christ [Life of St. Emmeram, chapters V and XII, in Basnage, volume III, part I, pp. 95 and 99; volume VI of September, pp. 474, 478, 490 and 493]. Emmeram lived in the year 697." And a little after he says again of St. Vitalis: "Mabillon scarcely confesses that he was a bishop or a man: 'I myself,' he says Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Sancti Benedicti, third century, part I, p. 346, 'would readily believe that Vitalis succeeded Rudbert; if, however, he was other than the Vitalis who is found to have subscribed Arno's little index.'" But hear in what words the often-praised Hansiz chastises the ignorance of the man joined with bad faith Pp. 981 and 982: "As for that first point about Vitalis, whom he rather believes came from Gaul with Emmeram as interpreter of the tongue of the Teutons than from Worms with Rupert, take it thus, reader: that it is a conjecture not well weighed. He says that Emmeram lived in the year 697, with no witness cited; perhaps because he had read that in this year a monastery was founded at Regensburg, called after St. Emmeram. Basnage could with slight labour, if he had had even so little care, have read in Hund and Welser the epitaph of Emmeram, which notes that he suffered in the year 652. He had spent three years in Bavaria, as is clear from his Life written by Cyrinus (this is Aribo, bishop of Freising). Therefore in the year 649 he landed among the Boii with Vitalis the presbyter. Now if you should say that this Vitalis afterwards succeeded Rupert about the year 720 (and indeed Basnage judges that St. Rupert died in the year 718), how many years old, pray, was Vitalis at that time? At the least some above ninety. For in the year 649, since he was already a presbyter, he must have had some twenty-odd years; to which add the 70 years which elapsed from the year 649 to the year 720. You will gather years of age in all at least 95: you would hardly persuade anyone that a man so decrepit was called to the episcopal care, which required an active man, especially in that rude beginning of the church of Salzburg.

[55] discoursed. "Why say more? He could have read in the Life of St. Emmeram, as also in Meginfred, whom he published among the works of Canisius in the same fourth volume (rather, the first part of the third volume), what became of that presbyter Vitalis after the death of Emmeram. He had stood by the dying Martyr: of him the Martyr, lying in his blood, had asked water for refreshment; he, hesitating, said: 'Why do you wish to be refreshed, since you are deprived of the members of your body, for whom it is better to die as soon as possible than to live in such torments?' Presently he received a punishment, so that as often as he brought drink to his mouth he became bereft of mind. This happened so: for Vitalis lived long at Regensburg after the death of his master, a man otherwise conspicuous by the example of many virtues,

suffering this one thing, that by any drink whatever he was carried out of his mind, running hither and thither through chasms and precipices, through towers and roof-tops, yet with no harm to himself or to others. These things says Cyrinus, a writer of the eighth century, surely worthy of credence, since Basnage himself learned of that Vitalis from no other source than from him. There is no dream there of the bishopric of Salzburg, which who would believe could either have been unknown to Cyrinus or dissembled by him? He who would certainly not have passed over a splendid topic for praising Emmeram, if it had been allowable to record a bishop of Juvavum among his disciples. He says that he lived at Regensburg after the death of the Holy Martyr, not at Salzburg. But the matter, if I mistake not, can be held in the hands. Let the conjecture of Basnage therefore be gone. Vitalis was the successor of Rupert, credibly one of those companions whom Rupert had brought from Worms. What Mabillon had at first written ambiguously about Vitalis, he shortly afterwards brought to clearness upon finding that ancient metrical catalogue which we too have used. But this very thing could have been learned from the History of the conversion and from other monuments, the better of which we have produced in the Acts." And as for the Vitalis subscribed to the Annotation of Arno, who had held Mabillon in doubt, that no one may now be able with any probable reason to confuse him with St. Vitalis the bishop, the Order of deceased monks mentioned before (no. 17) brings it about, in which among the first hundred no fewer than six are inscribed called by the same name of Vitalis, and to three of these the title of presbyter is attributed Novissimum Chronicon, p. 174.

[56] Inquiry is made Rejecting therefore the things which Basnage either fabricated or rehashed from Mabillon when the latter had already corrected himself, it remains for us to take care that we supply, so far as can be done, the want of a genuine Life of St. Vitalis, such as I have already said is lacking, with information either certain or at least sufficiently probable drawn from elsewhere. In which matter most diligent labour was expended by Amandus Pachler, abbot of the monastery of St. Peter at Salzburg, by a volume published about the year 1663, to which he gave the title: "Disquisitions on the life and miracles of the Most Holy Vitalis, Confessor and Pontiff, … collected from ancient monuments": from which book most of their material was taken by those who afterwards commented on the acts of St. Vitalis, Mezger, Rizel, the writers of the Novissimum Chronicon and others. Now the disquisitions of Amandus are seven: the first on the country, parents and discipleship of St. Vitalis; the second on his succession to the episcopate; the third on the deeds in his episcopal government; the fourth on his happy passing, sepulchre, images, relics; the fifth on his sanctity, canonization, invention and translation; the sixth on his miracles; the seventh finally on the cult paid to St. Vitalis both formerly and today. And he used the name of Disquisitions deliberately and wisely, since, as he himself well remarks Page 5, almost all the parts are not without their doubts and questions, so that it is needful to inquire what is true and what doubtful is contained in all these. But what Abbot Amandus did by prolix investigation, we are content to dispatch briefly.

[57] into the birth of St. Vitalis, That St. Vitalis had his country in common with St. Rupert is the opinion of nearly all who have written about both. Therefore by far the greatest part of these determine that St. Vitalis was Frankish-born; because they are persuaded that St. Rupert was born in Francia, and indeed of the royal lineage of the Franks, as his genuine Lives maintain: and by Francia they understand all that region which then obeyed the kings of the Franks, and which was not so contained within the bounds of present-day France, but extended its bounds widely through present-day Germany too. Wherefore, because St. Rupert was at first bishop in the city of Worms, there have not been lacking those who have determined that his birthplace must be set among the Vangiones: yet that this conclusion extends more widely than the premises (which the dialecticians forbid) everyone perceives. Others, following the spurious Life, deriving the origin of St. Rupert from the kings of the Franks and at the same time from the dukes of the Scots, place his cradle in Ireland: how wrongly, see demonstrated long ago by Papebroch Volume III of March, p. 700, then by Mezger, who nevertheless settles the matter less decisively Work cited, book I, chapter II, p. 76 and following, then by Hansiz Page 36 and others Novissimum Chronicon, pp. 33 and 58; although Bernard Pez still fought for Ireland, but with feeble weapons, as has already been said (no. 23), and, led by the authority of Pez, monk of Melk, Berthold Rizel of Melk likewise wrote Work cited, page 166: "Rupert brought Vitalis from his own country: he was an Irishman by nation: what remains but that we concede that Vitalis was of the same nation?" Wiser is what the same Rizel answers to the question who and what kind the parents of St. Vitalis were: "I have no intention of selling uncertain things, I would rather say things wholly unknown, for certain… Some of the more recent writers divine" (led by Abbot Martin, cited at no. 52) "that he was sprung perhaps from royal, or certainly from illustrious, stock, and they even think that he was a kinsman of the same St. Rupert; but the matter lacks all testimony" Compare Novissimum Chronicon, p. 58. Nor therefore must I stop here further, who do not sufficiently approve even that addition of Rizel: "This at least it is allowable to augur, that no ignoble stock nurtured so splendid a nature."

[58] concerning the time at which he joined himself as companion Next there presents itself the question which Abbot Amandus discusses Disquisition I, chapter III, p. II and following, at what time St. Vitalis began to have Rupert as master and to join himself to him as companion: whether while he was still residing at Worms, whence either before him he was sent as legate with others to Duke Theodo or at least set out with him into Bavaria, and accompanied him from there to the borders of Pannonia and so at length up to Juvavum, which is now Salzburg; or rather later, when Rupert was already preaching to the Bavarians, he was first joined to his disciples, whether as a minister of the word of God, or in the boys' school of the monastery of Salzburg, to which, as the Breves Notitiae have it In Hansiz, pp. 20 and 21, "Ledi also and Urso his brother commended to the lord Bishop Rudbert their nephews, named Wernhari and Dulcissimus, to learn letters and the office of God at his see of Juvavum," and Arno adds Ibid., p. 18 "and to be tonsured at the monastery of Salzburg"; finally whether he was of that number of twelve apostolic men whom St. Rupert went to his country to enlist in the last years of his life. This last was so settled for Aventinus that he did not hesitate to designate St. Vitalis with ten others, each by his own name, "forgetting to name the twelfth," says Papebroch Volume III of March, p. 704; and the assertion of Aventinus, so far at least as it regards St. Vitalis, is held far more probable than the others by the authors of the Novissimum Chronicon P. 59, namely on account of the faulty chronology which they hold, according to which that journey of St. Rupert to his country would have preceded the building of the church of St. Maximilian in the Pongau and the death of Theodo P. 43 and following. Far different is the judgment of Abbot Amandus Disquisition I, chapter III, pp. 20 and 21, to whom it seems more probable, as the same authors report Pp. 58 and 59, "that St. Vitalis, as a boy still innocent, perhaps twelve years old and more, adhered to St. Rupert in the episcopate of Worms as a disciple and nursling, and afterwards, as a cleric and not yet a priest, came with St. Rupert to Theodo about the year 580" (nay rather, this could certainly not have happened sooner than the year 696), "and thence, carried down the Danube with St. Rupert, on the return at length settled at Salzburg, and there, the monastery having been planted, put on the habit of sacred profession… To whom at length, when he was already fifty or sixty years old, he, being about to die, committed as to a worthy successor both governments, of the bishopric and of the abbey."

[59] to St. Rupert, What was probable to Amandus Pachler, the same is certain to Mezger Work cited, book II, chapter II, p. 166 and to Rizel Work cited, p. 166, that Vitalis adhered to Rupert from the tender years of boyhood; which Abbot Martin also had long before declared by conjecture In Canisius, place cited, p. 348: "From the garment of boyhood he was not only the companion of the journey of the most holy pontiff Rudbert, but his nursling and emulator of his labours and vigils, nay rather the foremost of his disciples and of the most worthy heralds of Jesus Christ." Surely if it had to be believed altogether that St. Vitalis had associated with St. Rupert from his boyhood, there would be no doubting that this had happened before the monastery of Salzburg, much less a boys' school in it, existed: since a shorter space intervened between the beginnings of the church of Salzburg and the death of St. Rupert than is the distance from the years of boyhood to an age fit for the episcopate. But no reason compels us to subscribe to the reported opinion of Pachler in its entirety: so that I prefer to leave it undecided whether Vitalis submitted himself to the discipline of St. Rupert as a boy or as a man. This, however, appears credible to me, as to Pachler, that our Saint was a disciple and helper of St. Rupert before the latter undertook his last journey to his country. That I should incline more to this opinion is brought about by the earlier Rupertine biographer in Papebroch. For this one, describing the return of the Saint from his country with twelve companions chosen for preaching Volume III of March, p. 704, says: "Among whom were the eminent Bl. Kunialdus and St. Gisilarius, both presbyters, both holy men," and is silent about Vitalis, whom nevertheless, if he had been among those twelve men, he would seem likely to have designated by name equally with SS. Chunialdus and Gisilarius; inasmuch as shortly after he proclaims Vitalis a holy man and acceptable to all the people, and for this reason designated as successor by St. Rupert: just as by the writer of the History of the conversion of the Bavarians and Carantanians also Vitalis is called In Hansiz, p. 66 "a man dear to all the people and an eminent teacher and sower of the word of God." There is added that it is not well conceived how Vitalis would have been in such favour with the people of Salzburg if he had only recently been brought there and not even then had stayed there: for Rupert, on his return from his country, presently began to go round the realms of Noricum, a troop of his disciples accompanying him. Whence that which Pachler suspects Novissimum Chronicon, p. 59 does not much displease me either, that when St. Rupert went away from Salzburg to his country, St. Vitalis, on account of his remarkable piety and prudence, was left at home, and that the vicarious government of the bishopric and abbey was meanwhile committed to him.

[60] and whether he was his fellow-countryman. Further, it is a consequence of what has just been said that I am not so firmly persuaded as most before me were persuaded that St. Vitalis was the fellow-countryman of St. Rupert. For since it is uncertain whether he was already the companion of St. Rupert when the latter first entered Bavaria or not

and it is even less proved that he was one of the twelve whom that Saint afterwards summoned thither from his country: it follows that Vitalis may also have come from elsewhere to bring aid to the new Christianity among the Bavarians: since, as we learned before from Aribo, biographer of St. Corbinian (no. 6), "priests were held dear there, as the custom of new converts requires." And from the name of Vitalis, indeed, which is purely Latin, nothing can be derived to elucidate this matter; since it was not rare that men born in Francia, England or another barbarous (as the Romans called it) land either bore Latin names from infancy or exchanged their native names for Latin ones, especially those who were of the clergy and through the clerical state passed under the Roman law. Thus we have already seen above that the presbyter of St. Emmeram, his interpreter knowing Teutonic, was called Vitalis. Thus Aribo, bishop of Freising, rendered his Teutonic name (which today is Erb to the Germans, erf to the Belgians) in Latin as Heres, just as he also wished at times to be called Cyrinus by a Hebraism Compare volume III of September, p. 261. That Arno, prelate of Salzburg, was quite often called Aquila by Alcuin, I likewise noted above (no. 16); just as I remember having said elsewhere that he who was known by the Latin name Gaudentius, first archbishop of Gniezno, was called in Bohemian Kadim Auctarium to the Acta Sanctorum, volume V of October, p. 39. And the name of St. Virgilius, who presided over the church of Salzburg before Arno, was sparingly twisted from the Irish Feargil or Feargal, in Lanigan's judgment [Ecclesiastical history of Ireland, volume III, chapter XIX, § X, note 127, p. 180], as Sidonius from Sedna Ibid., note 132, p. 182; of which kind of changes very many examples occur in the same Lanigan. And who does not know that the most holy apostles of the nations Winfrid and Willibrord, together with episcopal unction, received the Roman names, the latter Clement, the former Boniface? Wherefore, as I have already indicated, we must leave the country of St. Vitalis doubtful. But his monastic state I judge cannot be denied by any sufficiently probable argument, and that it is betrayed by that report and fame drawn from antiquity, "that the most holy father Rupert, among many PERFECT MEN OF HIS CONGREGATION, singularly appointed St. Vitalis as successor," as the Acts of canonization have it: without my now wishing to dispute whether that congregation was already then Benedictine in the strict sense of the word [Compare the Observations of the monk of St. Peter's, § IV, in Hansiz, p. 992 and following, and the Reflections of Hansiz, p. 1000 and following], such as it certainly existed afterwards and still continues to exist.

[61] By the same, when about to die, That Vitalis was chosen as successor by St. Rupert himself, and indeed with the highest rejoicing of the people who loved him, all the Rupertine Lives testify, except, though it asserts nothing to the contrary, that one which Papebroch made public from the manuscript of Rouge-Cloître, the latter part of which is concerned chiefly with the praise of St. Erendruda. The Lives are supported by the verses of the anonymous poet mentioned elsewhere (no. 12), singing of St. Rupert:

"He had made Vitalis to be his successor, A true shepherd, full of heavenly nectar."

They are likewise supported by the old book (on which no. 52) and by ancient panels Novissimum Chronicon, p. 61, attesting with concordant voices that the venerable confessor of Christ Vitalis, on account of the eminent grace of his chastity and holy way of life, was designated as successor by Rupert when about to pass to Christ. Nay, the original Life even states that he was ordained by him; where I believe the word "ordain" is to be taken of the true conferring of the sacred episcopal Order: so that of Vitalis ascending the throne of the church of Salzburg after Rupert there may not undeservedly be used, with the names changed, the words which the Venerable Bede wrote of St. Laurence of Canterbury Ecclesiastical History, book II, chapter IV: "Laurence succeeded Augustine in the episcopate; whom he himself had ordained while still living for this reason, lest, when he was dead, the state of the church, so rude, being even for an hour destitute of a pastor, should begin to totter." And indeed some time afterwards the state of the Bavarian church did totter, when, at the arrival there of St. Boniface, legate of the Apostolic See, the Christians had no bishops in the province except one, named Vivilus, namely of Passau [Letter of Gregory III to Boniface, which is the 46th among the Bonifatian letters, in Würdtwein, p. 99, in Giles, p. 97], and there raged in that region destroyers of churches and perverters of the people, as Willibald, the biographer of St. Boniface, testifies [Volume I of June, p. 468. Compare Seiters, Bonifacius, der Apostel der Deutschen, chapters VI and VII, pp. 265, 266, 277 and following]; "of whom some long ago falsely put themselves forward with the rank of the episcopate, others even reckoned themselves of the office of the presbyterate, others, feigning these and countless other things, seduced the people in great part."

[62] chosen and consecrated, By which it shines out the more that this was a prudent counsel of St. Rupert, to provide a good shepherd for his flock before he departed to heaven: which very thing had been done many times in earlier centuries by holy bishops, with the consent of clergy and people, as Natalis Alexander [Historia ecclesiastica, fifth century, chapter VI, article II, and sixth century, chapter VI, article III, volume V, pp. 150 and 396, Venice edition] and Thomassin [Discipline de l'Église, part II, book II, chapters LV, LVI and LVII, column 1070 and following] show at length; nor do the canons by which it was forbidden that, while a bishop was living, another bishop should be constituted, or that a bishop should himself choose his successor, seem to have been understood so strictly that it was never permitted to a bishop, whether for the sake of a good evidently to follow or to guard against evils, if not while the hope of a longer life still shone, at least "at that hour at which he knew he was about to depart from the present world," which are the words of St. Zachary writing to St. Boniface Letter LII in Würdtwein, p. 113, or L in Giles, p. 109, to designate a successor for himself; especially when this was done with the flock not unwilling, and so that worst abuse was absent which the Roman Synod in the year 465 under Pope Hilary proscribed in these words Labbe, Concilia, volume IV, columns 1061 and 1062: "Some think the episcopate, which is given only for preceding merits, to be not a divine office but a hereditary gain; and they believe that, like perishable and mortal things, so the priesthood can be bequeathed as by right of legacy or testament. For very many" (that is, many) "priests, when set on the border of death, are said to substitute others in their place by designated names: so that, namely, a legitimate election is not awaited, but the favour of the deceased is held instead of the assent of the people. How grave this is, judge ye." But every kind of that vice was far exiled from the election of St. Vitalis.

[63] he succeeded him in the episcopate, Which election and consecration seems to have been performed some weeks before the death of St. Rupert, when he, divinely forewarned of his approaching death, had betaken himself into the city: in what year this happened, we have long since shown cannot be accurately defined. The biographer of St. Rupert narrates the matter thus Volume III of March, p. 704: "He himself made haste to return to the city of Juvavum; because, filled with the prophetic spirit, he foreknew that the day of his calling was at hand, which he foretold to his disciples: who, dismayed by such and so sad an indication, why he should desert them and so new a people of Christianity, affected with huge grief, wept. But he, with his hope raised to Christ, commended the city of Juvavum and the people of the Noricans and all those converted to the faith of Christ to almighty God most high, and chose Vitalis, a holy man and acceptable to all the people, to become his successor. And when the days of the Lenten observance were being kept, the man of God, Bishop Rudbert, began to be wearied by the heat of fevers." Where you see with your eyes that the last illness of the holy prelate is placed after the promotion of St. Vitalis to the episcopate.

[64] which he did not hold long. "In the time of Vitalis," says Hansiz P. 74, "Duke Theodebert being dead, and then Grimoald (brother of Theodebert) slain in the year 725 (as the Life of St. Corbinian teaches), Hugbert, son of Theodebert, succeeded in the monarchy of Bavaria, whose benefactions to the church of Salzburg are reported in the little book of Arno… The little book of Donations records more." Under this prince, his episcopate having been completed within a fairly short time, St. Vitalis ceased to live. That he departed about the year 730, from which year likewise the death of St. Corbinian was not far distant Compare volume III of September, p. 276, is the conjecture of the praised Hansiz, who writes thus of Flobargisus, the successor of St. Vitalis Page 75: "But who would divine the years? If it is true, what I have read in a certain Chronicle, that he sat seven years, it can be gathered approximately that he was brought to the sacred office in the year 730. For in the year 739, when St. Boniface entered Bavaria for the third time, when he divided the province into four parishes or bishoprics, he had found no bishop in Bavaria except Vivilo of Passau alone: by which it is made manifest that the see of Salzburg was then vacant. Nor is Flobargisus read in the number of those bishops of Alemannia and Bavaria to whom Pope Gregory III had commended St. Boniface on his return to Germany in the year 738 [Letter XLV in Würdtwein, p. 97; in Giles, p. 96. Compare Seiters, work cited, chapter VII, p. 268 and following]." But however it may have to be determined about the time of Flobargisus, it at least comes out certain from these things that St. Vitalis did not occupy the see for very long.

[65] He is said to have converted the people of the Pinzgau Nor meanwhile did he merit small praise for himself by the conversion of the people of the Pinzgau, who by a perpetual tradition from then call him and venerate him as their apostle. That I should hold that this conversion was procured only after the death of St. Rupert, I am moved both by this very report, which ascribes it singularly to St. Vitalis, and by the series of the journeys by which St. Rupert came as far as Juvavum. For he came there from the northern and eastern parts, where the Danube flows past Regensburg, Passau, Linz, Vienna toward Pannonia; but the Pinzgau, situated further to the south of the Salzburg dominion, extends into the western tract toward the Tyrol. "The Pinzgau lies," says Benedict Pillwein Legenden Heiliger Gottes, etc., p. 241, in a note, "in the northern part of the chain of the Tauern mountains in the midst of the Alps of the diocese of Salzburg; and it is a very long and partly also fairly broad valley, to which several lateral valleys are connected. A fertile and pleasant region is inhabited by a people remarkable for strength and form of body and for industry of mind… The chief places therein are Lofer, Saalfelden, Taxenbach, Zell am See and Mittersill." Of these Saalfelden is inscribed in the Annotation of Arno, where it is reported In Hansiz, p. 15: "Boso, a freeman, who was also a presbyter, and John his brother handed over by the licence of Tassilo in the district of the Pinzgau the places called Bisonshio and Salafelda." Which the Breves Notitiae likewise indicate thus Ibid., p. 26: "Buso the presbyter and

John his brother handed over to God and St. Peter and St. Rudbert at the see of Juvavum, for their souls, all that they had of property in the estate which is commonly called Walchwisz, and in Bisoncium, which is now called Pinzgau, and at Salvelt on the river Sala." And the place Bisonshio, of which Arno further says, "In the above-mentioned place Bisonshio a cell has been built, in which monks live by the labour of their hands," is the same, if I am not mistaken, as the village today called Piesendorf, where the author of the Topographical Lexicon of Bavaria asserts that a Benedictine convent existed [Geographisch-Statistisch-Topographisches Lexikon von Baiern, Ulm 1796, under the word Piesendorf, volume II, column 651].

[66] to the faith of Christ. Of the faith of Christ brought into the Pinzgau by St. Vitalis, the writers of the Novissimum Chronicon speak in this manner P. 65: "But it is not at all to be doubted that the people of the Pinzgau, among whom not a few are subject to our monastery, and not the least part of the diocese of Salzburg situated among the Alps toward the Tyrol, dwelling around the lake of Zell, are spiritual sons in Christ begotten through the Gospel by Saint Vitalis: an indication of which conversion not wholly to be despised is that the aforesaid subjects of the Pinzgau must every year at the feast of St. Vitalis render certain cheeses to our monastery, which are afterwards divided among the poor with certain blessed bread on the very feast of St. Vitalis, and take their name from Blessed Vitalis, the Bread of St. Vitalis and the cheeses of St. Vitalis; to which countrymen also an annual banquet is wont to be given up to present times. Concerning all which there is wont to arise at least the prudent doubt whether they are not indications of such holy antiquity. For otherwise nothing is found whence these things draw their origin, except that a certain Burgrave of Salzburg, Conrad, founded 150 cheeses, which he ordained to be distributed to the poor in the year 1218 under Abbot Simon; as is read in manuscript R, folio 404. Nevertheless the things we have said move the mind so that we almost believe that this is a sign of a peculiar obligation toward St. Vitalis from the first conversion of those subjects. Not a few authors think the same about the conversion of the people of the Pinzgau, and among the more recent Father Hansiz, otherwise supremely opposed to our first beginnings as regards history and chronology." Thus far they.

[67] He seems to have died about the year 730, on the 20th of October. Now if anyone consults the Index of matters of the second volume of the Bavaria Sancta put together by our Matthaeus Rader, at the name of St. Vitalis, he will find noted there that he wrote many books. But that this is nothing other than a slip, anyone will at once detect who reads the very Life of St. Vitalis woven by Rader P. 36. The occasion of erring was furnished by those words: "Whole volumes speak of the most holy man's immortal works, living and dead, his kindness toward the needy, his clemency toward the afflicted," etc. These words being afterwards read through drowsily, Rader, or perhaps some copyist of Rader, entered of St. Vitalis in the Index: "He wrote many volumes," where it should rather have been said: "Many volumes written about him." But it will be enough to have pointed a finger at this error, lest anyone be deceived through inadvertence in this matter. Nor have I more to discourse about the things done by St. Vitalis in his life: for I deliberately pass over what Abbot Martin rhetorically and Dominic Hess poetically, each according to his own genius, committed to writing about his blessed death, as not pertaining to history. That St. Vitalis seems to have died about the year 730 we have already said a little before (no. 64): and all the monuments designate one and the same day of his death or deposition, the thirteenth before the Kalends of November, which the Salzburg Chronicles in Canisius call the eve of Ursula; and it is still sacred to the memory of the holy prelate. The place of burial, which has always remained the same, is at the southern corner of the church of St. Peter, beside the wall which divides from this church the chapel of St. Catherine adjoining it at the side; where there was formerly an altar dedicated in honour of St. Andrew the apostle [Compare Mezger, work cited, book II, chapter III, p. 170, and book VI, class III, p. 1113; Hansiz, work cited, p. 74; Novissimum Chronicon, p. 67; Geographisches Lexikon von Baiern, volume III, columns 194 and 195]. But as for what Martin Hättinger relates about Abbot Ansologus, whom he believed to have been the next governor of the bishopric of Salzburg after St. Vitalis Novissimum Chronicon, p. 87: "He covered the sepulchres of St. Rupert and Vitalis with marble, and adorned them with inscriptions and candelabra and other ornaments and insignia"; the credit of this assertion, supported by no suitable surety, I for my part leave with its author. But there will be occasion to say more about the tomb of St. Vitalis in what follows.

§ IV. Of the miracles of St. Vitalis and the process of canonization.

St. Vitalis, From the death of St. Vitalis a space of four and a half centuries must be traversed without any mention of him meanwhile presenting itself in the annals; until one comes to the year 1181, the last of the pontificate of Pope Alexander III and the twenty-eighth of the reign of the Emperor Frederick I: in which year Conrad, archbishop of Salzburg and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and legate of the Apostolic See, restored from the foundations the metropolitan basilica of St. Rupert, destroyed by fire some years before; and meanwhile God conferred on the church of Salzburg, which on account of its fidelity toward the chair of Peter had been grievously afflicted by the schismatics, a signal glory by the glorification of the bodies of the holy prelates Virgilius, Hartwic and Eberhard, laid in the church of St. Rupert, and of our St. Vitalis in the monastic church of St. Peter. "From which four," says Baronius exultingly At the year 1181, no. 16, volume XIX, p. 527, "there presently burst forth most abundant rivers of miracles, of each of which that saying of David could deservedly be spoken Psalm XLV, 5: 'The stream of the river maketh glad the city of God.' By which all Germany also was watered with an overflowing flood of graces, gladdening the hearts of all the inhabitants." Then, having recited the beginning of the History of the miracles of St. Virgilius brought to light by Canisius, the most pious author proceeds to speak thus again Place cited, nos. 17 and 18: "So that of Germany, turned on account of the schisms into a squalid desert, that saying of Isaiah could be spoken Isaiah XXXV, 7: 'That which was dry shall become pools, and the thirsty land springs of water.' So that it plainly appeared that these things were divinely granted to the most noble church, which alone among the Germans did not consent to be defiled by schism, at the end of the course of the life of the most holy Roman Pontiff" (Alexander); "by which it might be signified that the heavenly ones themselves, who reign with God in the Church triumphant, are joined in communion with the pious faithful and are a protection to the Catholics who are fighting.

[69] with other Saints of Salzburg "But not from the venerable relics of St. Virgilius alone did such streams of miracles as have been described flow; but the church of Salzburg, like a paradise Genesis II, 10, was then watered by four rivers of heavenly powers in the showing of signs, namely first from the body of St. Virgilius, of which we have spoken, and also from three other pontiffs of the same church, from whose sacred bodies, likewise found in this same year, as many springs of miracles burst forth divinely from heaven rather than from earth. These things are recorded in fourfold Chronicles, in which in summary: 'In the year of the Lord one thousand one hundred and eighty-one Pope Alexander died, Lucius succeeded: Vitalis, Virgilius, Hartwic, Eberard, bishops of Salzburg, were renowned for signs.' Further, as of Virgilius, so also of Vitalis, the several and likewise manifold miracles from the more ancient monuments of the same church are already found published in the codex of the Antiqua Lectio by the industry of the same Canisius of Nijmegen: but those of the rest are lacking." Thus far Baronius, who I know not whether passed over the miracles of SS. Eberhard and Hartwic, which are extant in Canisius after their Lives [Volume cited, pp. 305, 306, 307, 310, 311, 414, 415, 416, 417 and 420, Basnage's edition], although in smaller abundance than those of SS. Vitalis and Virgilius; and they can also be read in our work, where Henschenius Volume IV of June, p. 260 and following illustrated the Acts of St. Eberhard and Janning Volume VI, or the Appendix, of June, p. 127 and following those of St. Hartwic. Nor must it be omitted that the church of Passau also, whose prelate Dietpold or Theobald, having abjured the schism, was then on friendly terms with Conrad his metropolitan Hansiz, Germania Sacra, volume I, pp. 330 and 331, came into a share of the same glory. For the chronographer of Reichersberg, where under the year 1181 he narrated Ludewig, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, volume II, column 319: "In the same year, by the will of God, the sepulchre of Blessed Virgilius was revealed on the third day before the Kalends of March, and miracles began to shine at his sepulchre and at the sepulchres of other blessed pontiffs in the city of Salzburg," presently adds: "Not long after the place of Passau was burned… And at once there too splendid miracles began to be divinely shown at the sepulchre of Blessed Pilgrim the bishop and at the sepulchres of other pontiffs of that place."

[70] became renowned for miracles The fourfold Chronicles which Baronius praises are those very ones which the procurator adduced in the cause of canonization of St. Vitalis, as I shall report afterwards. Other books of Annals agree with these. That of Melk says [In Hieronymus Pez, Scriptores rerum Austriacarum, volume I, column 234; in Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae historica, volume IX of the Scriptores, p. 505]: "The church of Juvavum, through the revelation of the holy bishops Virgilius, Vitalis, Eberhard, Hertwic, is wondrously glorified by Christ, and is laudably exalted by the vows and gifts of the peoples of all lands, in the reign of Pope Alexander and the Emperor Frederick." That of Kremsmünster In Pertz, ibid., 546: "To the praise of the name of God, in this year in the metropolitan church of Salzburg the archbishops Virgilius, Eberhard, Haertwic were renowned by signs and various prodigies, and at St. Peter's Saint Vitalis." That of Admont In Pez, volume II, column 190; in Pertz, volume cited, p. 585 declares the same briefly; and that of Garsten thus In Pertz, ibid., pp. 585 and 586: "At Juvavum, that is Salzburg, Saint Virgilius the bishop, the eighth (rather, the fifth) from Blessed Rupert, is found, the Lord revealing him. With whom also other holy pontiffs, Vitalis, Hertwic, Eberhard, and the first and chief of them himself, Saint Rupert, made known by many miracles, are frequented by the peoples of almost all not only neighbouring but also far-distant regions." And in the margin of the Garsten codex it is noted: "In this year this chronicle was written at Garsten."

[71] in the twelfth century, Further Hansiz says, treating of St. Vitalis P. 72: "On what occasion the sepulchre of the blessed man became renowned for miracles, no one relates; nor in the more ancient monuments of the monastery of St. Peter before the twelfth century is the title of Blessed or Saint given to him. From the said year 1181, therefore, in which his body was found and revealed, of miracles and veneration

the epoch is deservedly drawn": although it seems certain that the fame of his holiness flourished among the people of Juvavum from antiquity. For from that was conceived the piety and confidence of the faithful in invoking him, which is wont to be the beginning of heavenly benefits. And I for my part judge that the detection of the tomb of St. Virgilius in the aforesaid year contributed much to exciting and quickening this piety: as this became renowned by very many miracles, confidence and zeal would have accrued to the faithful for invoking more ardently the other holy prelates of Salzburg too, and among these Vitalis.

[72] but uncertain whether even before, For the rest Abbot Amandus agrees sufficiently with Hansiz, except that he also marks the year 1171, when, having proposed to himself the question whether St. Vitalis was renowned for miracles immediately after his death, he speaks thus Disquisition VI, chapter I, p. 113 and following: "This disquisition is not superfluous, although from the subjoined miracles the truth of the question is clearly evident of itself. For it is certain that from the year 1171 he was renowned for many miracles; but it is not so clear that any miracles were worked by him before that year. In the most ancient panel, which in the year 1462 was seen hung publicly at the tomb of St. Vitalis, which is indeed still present, but broken, which I have had described in MS. A, panel I, no mention is made of any miracle performed before the year 1171, but it has these formal words…: 'In the year, therefore, of the Incarnation of the Lord 1171, the signs written below had such a beginning.' Afterwards it goes through the miracles… Whence I think … that Blessed Vitalis was indeed in the repute of sanctity immediately after his death, nay even in life, but that his miracles shone forth more clearly about the year of the Lord 1171 or 1181. Whence also no miracle in particular, except perhaps that of the lily, is found noted before these years." So he. But as to his testifying that the year 1171 was inscribed on this ancient panel, I suspect it comes from the omission of one mark X: for in Canisius these words precede the same series of miracles brought forward from the notable book by the procurator of the canonization Place cited, p. 358: "In the year, therefore, of the Incarnation of the Lord 1181, the signs written below had such a beginning and commencement"; and all the Chronicles which I praised a little before declare the same year 1181, that one alone disagreeing which Canisius published, where under the year 1171 Place cited, p. 480 the miracles not of St. Vitalis only but also of SS. Virgilius, Hartwic and Pilgrim (Eberhard being omitted) are affixed: from which very conjunction of those Saints the error of writing or transcription is evident; since the restoration of the church of Salzburg by Archbishop Conrad and the finding of the body of St. Virgilius connected with it, from which the beginning of those miracles is to be taken, are marked by the narrator of the miracles of St. Virgilius with chronological indications which agree with the year 1181, but not with 1171. There are noted there, namely, the fourteenth indiction, the twenty-first and last year of the Apostolate of Pope Alexander III, the twenty-eighth year of the reign of the Emperor Frederick: nor, while these indications are thus duly composed among themselves, ought we to be delayed by the evident slips, whether of the copyist or of the compositor, which any reader will easily detect have escaped Canisius and likewise Basnage Compare ibid., pp. 289 and 399.

[73] The lily which from his breast But the last words of Abbot Amandus which I was just reciting admonish us to speak of the lily of St. Vitalis, concerning which there is read in the process of canonization Ibid., p. 354: "That when a certain man after the death of the same Father, distrustful of his miracles, had said that he would not believe these things unless he saw a lily growing from the tomb of the same; on a certain occasion, as he came close to the tomb, he beheld with his own eyes a white lily rising from the heart of the holy man, and believed. Likewise that in memory of this spectacle from the most ancient times up to now Saint Vitalis is found painted with a diadem after the manner of other Saints and with a white lily growing from his heart, and today is painted under the same form." And Martin Hättinger in the encomium of St. Vitalis speaks thus Ibid., p. 349: "The lily grew up from the heart of the most holy confessor through the extreme hardness of the marble with such fertility that it could not be cast down from the flower of its greenness by the force of summer or winter, of heat or cold"; which a somewhat older manuscript book asserts to have happened in testimony of his purity, chastity and innocence Novissimum Chronicon, no. 73. On this matter Hansiz comments thus P. 72: "The symbol of a lily issuing from his heart is commonly painted with him. Yet Simplicius, a monk of St. Peter's, in the points and indications of the sanctity of Blessed Vitalis written in the year 1462, says 'that nothing certain is found in the writings on this matter.' Likewise he reports that in the great Passional, where his miracles are written, it is had thus: 'Saint Rudbert, therefore, the first teacher of the people of Juvavum, when about to pass to Christ, designated as his successor the venerable confessor of Christ Vitalis on account of the eminent grace of his chastity and holy way of life.' Whence the suspicion has come upon someone whether on account of this very prerogative of chastity the ancients did not paint for him a lily growing out of his heart, from which afterwards among the unskilled there arose the report of the miracle so much celebrated, by which it was thought that a lily at some time really grew up from the heart of the dead man."

[74] they relate grew up over his sepulchre, But the monk of St. Peter's replied to Hansiz Observations, § I, in Hansiz, p. 986: "The tradition of the lily of our virginal and wonder-working patron St. Vitalis … is reputed most ancient; since already before the year 1459, when the process of his canonization was begun, our brother Simplicius wrote such things of this lily: 'It makes for his commendation that, after he was buried, old men from their elders and the very oldest have left to the memory of posterity that a white lily grew up from his most chaste breast: whence also in the most ancient'" (so this learned critic indicates that these images were already most ancient for his time) "'paintings he is seen so depicted…' Moreover he is seen depicted in this figure in that panel of our church which the process of canonization, drawn up in the form of an instrument in the year 1462, names most ancient. And how would the most wise men to whom the business of the inquiry into the sanctity of the same Blessed Vitalis was granted by the supreme See have dared to bring forward so great a miracle for signifying the sanctity of Blessed Vitalis, unless they had judged it supported by the greatest arguments of truth?" To which Hansiz briefly Reflections, no. 188, p. 1009: "Concerning the lily of St. Vitalis, of which the tradition is received from the elders and the very oldest, as he speaks, yet certainly not older than those earlier ones" (on the age of St. Rupert, on the body of St. Martin laid up at Salzburg): "to which I indeed added an obelus in the Acts; but this is no more than a suspicion, which I would not wish to stand in the way of pious credulity. Let this tradition also, then, concerning the lily … stand in its place: it is no concern of mine that anything be decided."

[75] it is deservedly doubted But Abbot Amandus Pachler, disputing much on both sides after his manner Disquisition VI, chapter II, p. 117 and following, says: "If a lily grew out of his heart, where is it today, especially if it could be cast down neither by heat nor by cold…? Why in the ancient sepulchre was not some indication seen or noted where the lily penetrated? Finally, if it withered, could it not have been preserved in the sacristy at least for a time? Moreover, this lily either grew up immediately after his death or first after the year 1181, when his miracles began to become renowned: but that this single miracle happened immediately after his death is not credible; for he seems not to have been renowned for miracles immediately after his death, since his miracles first began in the year 1181… But this miracle of the lily happened for this reason, because someone had doubted of the miracles of St. Vitalis: therefore, when this happened, his miracles had already been divulged. But if this happened about the year 1181, when his miracles began to be divulged, it is surely to be wondered at that this single and only one, since it is almost the most excellent among the rest, was not noted in that most ancient panel in which were read noted the other miracles which happened from the year 1181. What is to be said to these doubts I hesitate in doubt. I say, however, that where credence is to be given to tradition alone, similar reasons are of no avail unless they expressly prove the contrary. For that lily could have been preserved in the first years either in the sepulchre or in the sacristy: it could also in so long a time have been wholly corrupted. This certainly agrees, that the marble stone was made by St. Ansologus over the sepulchre of St. Vitalis, through which perhaps this lily grew out. Who can know what was done in this matter over a thousand years and more? Whether this miracle alone or others also happened immediately after his death has been handed down to memory by no writings; although we may think that many were worked by him, which nevertheless were first noted from the year 1181. Certainly our monastery has suffered several fires, in which very many antiquities perished: only very few fragments and manuscripts are present going back scarcely beyond six hundred years, which nevertheless do not treat of these matters: there were perhaps other codices, in which the old monks also noted these things, which perished with others in the fire.

[76] whether it was true "Nor does it matter that that ancient panel makes no mention of this miracle, but only enumerates those which happened from the year 1181. For from this very fact it seems to be confirmed that that of the lily is more ancient, and was derived to posterity by tradition alone: for if it had happened about the year 1181, the writer of those miracles would certainly not have forgotten this one. Certainly the most ancient images, which two hundred years ago" (Pachler was writing in the year 1663) "were produced to demonstrate the sanctity of Blessed Vitalis, since all were adorned with that lily, indicate that this tradition is not new nor vain or invented, but on account of its venerable antiquity most worthy of much faith and credence." With these words of Abbot Amandus Mezger agrees, from whom I shall copy only these things Work cited, book II, chapter III, p. 172: "But if that lily existed as wholly natural, as they call it (not merely symbolic), although a work of heavenly grace, where is it now? where is it kept among the treasures? why is it not shown? In the silence of the ancients I have nothing to answer. Perhaps, the Godhead so working, that it might be a symbol of an untouched mind and virtue, it did not suffer itself to be touched, or, violated by human contact, it withered. Perhaps, drawn out, laid up, preserved, it afterwards perished, either consumed by length of years, or destroyed by some other chance, perhaps by a fire, like some other of our things. However it perished, that it was seen is so constant a tradition of antiquity that it is wrong to doubt. All the paintings, images, statues speak,

the stones marked with the effigy of the Saint, the modern marble stone itself, more than a century old" (rather fairly recent, as was shown at no. 32), "expressing in notable work the carved form of the great pontiff, Vitalis existing in heaven honoured with an earthly lily: this symbol is dedicated to him by God, that Vitalis should never be seen without his flower, without the lily."

[77] or rather symbolic. Truly, that to convince those incredulous or doubtful of the sanctity or miracles of the servants of God wonderful prodigies have often been effected by divine power is related by truthful histories; and a notable example of a thing of this kind is reported in the narrative of the miracles of St. Virgilius In Canisius, place cited, pp. 290, 291, 400 and 401, of which there was talk before. But this is surely of a nature to move wonder, if a white lily really grew out of the breast of St. Vitalis, and indeed so that it broke out through the marble, that the whole credit of a fact so far surpassing the powers of nature was entrusted to oral tradition for so long that absolutely no writing older than the year 1459 is held which mentions that fact; but only paintings existed representing St. Vitalis with a lily issuing from his heart: which, whether they are tokens of a miracle really once shown, or rather were originally ordained to set before the eyes of the faithful the chastity of St. Vitalis by the symbol of the lily, it is permitted to doubt without sin. Meanwhile this must stand according to what has been said thus far, that there are no certain miracles of our Saint earlier than the year 1181.

[78] In the year 1459 Pope Pius II "But from the year which I named," says Hansiz Pages 72 and 73, "when graces obtained at his tomb had become renowned, and thenceforth most frequent concourses of the multitude took place to venerate him; when Offices also and Masses in his honour were procured by devout pilgrims; when votive offerings, panels, waxen figures and various images of human limbs, witnesses of recovered health, and other signs of benefits received were heaped up daily; when a lighted lamp also hung continually, and candles shone again and again upon the iron grating which covered the monument; when effigies of the blessed man were seen depicted here and there with a diadem; when prayers written out in set words were recited to implore his help; and when other things were continually done which are wont to be applied only to heavenly ones exposed to public veneration: at length in the year 1459 Burchard von Weissbriach, provost of the church of Salzburg, on the occasion of the embassy which he was discharging in the name of the Emperor Frederick Compare Hansiz, p. 510 and following, petitioned Pope Pius the Second that he would duly enrol Vitalis among the Saints." In these words you have, sketched in synopsis, the increases which the veneration and devotion of the faithful toward St. Vitalis received in the lapse of almost three centuries: the same will be explained more in detail in the very process of canonization, of which we must now speak.

[79] ordered an examination to be instituted Burchard therefore, sent into Italy by the Emperor Frederick III to congratulate Pius II on receiving the dignity of the supreme pontificate, in order to satisfy his own piety toward St. Vitalis, with the licence of Sigismund von Volkensdorf, prelate of Salzburg, set forth to the same Pius by a petition the signal miracles which God had long since worked through the merits of St. Vitalis, and the honours which that Saint had consequently obtained from the people: to which he asked that the supreme approval of the highest See be applied. The Roman Pontiff assented to his wishes, and presently directed two apostolic letters to John Tulbeck of Freising, Ulrich Plankenfelser of Chiemsee and George Überacker of Seckau, bishops; of which the former sound thus [In Canisius, volume cited, pp. 351 and 352; in Hansiz, pp. 511 and 512; in the Novissimum Chronicon, pp. 74 and 75]: "Pius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our venerable Brethren the bishops of Freising and of Seckau and of Chiemsee, greeting and apostolic benediction. That the heavenly King may kindle the hearts of the faithful to the love of Himself, and convert the unbelieving to the faith, He magnifies His Saints with glorious miracles. For the faithful are rendered more devoted to the Most High when they see His elect shining with powers after the happy departure from this life; and the rest desire to follow Him, since He bestows eternal rewards on those who follow. Truly, from the excellence of the merits with which Saint Rupert, formerly prelate of Salzburg and glorious confessor of the Lord, led a most holy life in the habit of our mortality, it came about that the Apostolic See enrolled him, shining after his death with frequent miracles, in the catalogue of the Blessed; and, as our beloved son Burchard, provost and archdeacon of Salzburg, has set forth to us, Vitalis of happy memory, whom God, who ever makes His Church fruitful with new offspring, caused immediately to succeed in the aforesaid church of Salzburg, when he had lived piously in this world, teaching the way of salvation by words and example alike, at length, the course of the present life being happily consummated, God has from that time adorned with many miracles, and has deigned to show them to the faithful, in reward of the sanctity of that bishop, up to the present day: so that, there remaining both his writings and the traces of his works, the faithful of Christ frequent his relics with devout and assiduous visitation, as if he were already held enrolled in the aforesaid catalogue. Since therefore it is not fitting that he whom his merits and miracles show to be a Saint should be left among men without veneration; We, whom providence teaches to be found swift in things certain and slow in things doubtful, inclined to the devout supplications of the said Burchard in this behalf, commit to your fraternity, in which we have fuller confidence in the Lord, by the authority of these presents, that, if public fame on these things has so prevailed in those parts that inquiry seems to be needed into the life and miracles of the same Vitalis, whose body rests in the church of the monastery of Saint Peter at Salzburg, you, inquiring diligently into the virtue of his conduct and the truth of the signs, namely his works and miracles, according to the interrogatories which we send to you enclosed under our bull, should remit what you shall find concerning the premises, faithfully written down, under your seals and with the testimony of the tenor of your letters. Given at Siena in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand four hundred and fifty-nine, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of May, in the first year of our pontificate."

[80] concerning the virtues and miracles of St. Vitalis: And of the letters by which the norm of questioning the witnesses was prescribed, these are the words: "Pius, bishop, etc. It having been learned by us today that Vitalis of happy memory, formerly prelate of Salzburg, whose body rests in the church of the monastery of Saint Peter at Salzburg, continually works so many and so great miracles that the bishops and faithful of those parts invoke the suffrages of the same Vitalis and visit his relics with devout veneration, as if he were held enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints: We then, wishing to be fully certified on this, committed and gave in mandate to you by other letters of ours that, the truth being more diligently inquired into by you concerning the life and merits of Vitalis and miracles of this kind and the other circumstances, according to the interrogatories to be transmitted to you under our bull, you should take care faithfully to intimate to us by your letters what you shall find. You shall therefore take care diligently to examine the legitimate witnesses whom you ought to receive concerning the premises, an oath having first been taken by them; and concerning all that they say, you shall ask them how they know, on what day, in whose presence, in what place, at whose invocation and with what words interposed, and concerning the names of those about whom the miracles are said to have been done, and whether they knew them before, and for how many days before they saw them sick, and for how many days they were sick and for how long a time they were seen healthy, and from what place they are sprung; and let them be questioned diligently about all the circumstances, and let the aforesaid questions be put, as is expedient, concerning each head, and let the tenor of the testimony and the words of the witnesses be faithfully reduced to writing. Given at Siena, etc., as above."

[81] which command, three years later, Nevertheless the business hung for almost three years; until, Sigismund von Volkensdorf having died, Burchard von Weissbriach himself, elected by the unanimous vote of the chapter on the 16th day of November 1461, took possession of the archbishopric of Salzburg on the 28th of February 1462, thereafter was consecrated bishop on the 9th day of May, and on the last day of the same month was published (for Pius II had reserved him in pectore for two years) Cardinal Presbyter of the Holy Roman Church Compare Hansiz, p. 514. He therefore, as soon as he was designated to rule the church of Salzburg, appointed Master Caspar Westendorffer as procurator to promote the preparation of the process; who duly delivered the apostolic letters to the three bishops already named. And the bishops of Chiemsee and Seckau each for himself accepted the commission given him by the Supreme Pontiff; but the bishop of Freising, hindered by legitimate causes, lawfully entrusted his part to Peter Klueghamer, abbot of the Salzburg convent of St. Peter, to George, abbot of Michaelbeuern, and to Benedict Trauner, provost of Höglwörth of the Order of Canons Regular, by the following letters In Canisius, p. 352: "John, by the grace of God bishop of Freising, judge and commissary of the cause written below, specially delegated by the Apostolic See together with our colleagues, to the venerable and religious N., abbot of Saint Peter's at Salzburg, and N., abbot in Peurn, of the Order of St. Benedict, and also to the provost in Höglwörth of the Order of St. Augustine, of the diocese of Salzburg, greeting and sincere charity in the Lord. Know that we have received with the reverence that befitted, the letters of our Most Holy Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord Pius, by divine providence Pope the Second, bulled with his leaden bull hanging on a hempen cord after the manner of the Roman curia, sound and entire, not vitiated, not cancelled, nor in any part suspect, but wholly free of every fault and suspicion, presented to us, of this tenor: 'Pius, bishop,' etc. But because we, legitimately hindered by the business and various causes both of ourselves and of our church, cannot conveniently at present give our time to the cognizance of a cause and business of this kind and attend to it usefully: therefore, fully trusting in the lawfulness and religiousness of all of you, we commit to you fully our place in this behalf; wishing nevertheless that in business of this kind you should proceed according to the form handed down by the Apostolic See, and otherwise as it should be proceeded by law. In testimony of which we have ordered and caused the present letters to be fortified on the back by the impression of our seal. Given in our castle of Freising on the eighth day of the month of March in the year of the Lord 1462."

[82] with much zeal This subdelegation having been received, Peter, abbot of Salzburg, ordered Simplicius, a monk of his convent, a learned man and versed in the sacred canons, to collect certain points and indications of the sanctity of St. Vitalis: which command he having executed, he delivered to the abbot a little commentary, in which he takes the arguments of sanctity first from the praises with which the biographers of St. Rupert adorn Vitalis; then from his miracles, and especially from the prodigious lily; then from the fact that he is always and everywhere found with a diadem, "and especially," he says, "on the circumference of the high altar of our church, among six other holy bishops he himself is placed seventh and first next to the image of St. Rudbert; on which circumference the metres written below are painted in black colour:

'These grateful Fathers, born of sweet stock, While they lived, ruled here the cathedral right.'

And these are Rudbert in the middle, and at the sides Vitalis, Ansologus, Savolus, Ezzius, Flobargisus and John." These words of his I have adduced because I do not see this painting mentioned specifically in the process of canonization. Finally he adds an argument from the lamp lit day and night at the tomb of the Saint, and from the frequency of the faithful taking refuge there. These points, which may be read at length in the Novissimum Chronicon P. 76, the praised abbot afterwards communicated to Caspar Westendorffer, who from them composed the proof of the holiness of Vitalis, as we shall presently see.

[83] was obeyed. Namely, through the procuring of the same Caspar, the process was at length instituted in lawful rite and manner during eight whole days, from the 16th to the 23rd day of the month of March of the year 1462. Its whole course it will be worth the trouble to take from the authentic report itself sent to Rome, some things however being passed over (as I shall advise in their place), partly already given, partly more conveniently to be placed at the end of this Commentary. It runs, then, thus In Canisius, p. 351 and following: "To the Most Holy Father in Christ and our Lord, the Lord Pius, by divine providence Supreme Pontiff of the Sacrosanct Roman and universal Church, our most clement Lord. Ulrich of Chiemsee and George of Seckau, bishops of the churches, humble creatures of the same your Holiness, executors delegated by your Holiness for the matters written below; Peter, by divine permission abbot of St. Peter's at Salzburg, George, of St. Michael's in Peurn, abbots of monasteries of the Order of St. Benedict of the diocese of Salzburg, and Benedict, provost in Höglwörth of the Order of St. Augustine of the canons regular of the same diocese, subdelegated by the Reverend Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord John, bishop of Freising, delegated together with the said Lord bishops by your Beatitude for the matters written below, humble and devout petitioners of the same your Holiness: obedience and most devout kisses of the blessed feet.

[84] The procurator of the cause "Most Blessed Father, we, Ulrich and George, the aforesaid delegated bishops, the two letters of your Holiness, and we, the subdelegated abbots and provost, the letters of subdelegation of the aforesaid Lord bishop of Freising together with the aforesaid apostolic letters, presented to us on the part of the Most Reverend Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord Burchard, elected and confirmed of the holy church of Salzburg, legate of the Apostolic See, by the provident man Master Caspar Westendorffer, lawful procurator of the same Lord elect and confirmed, as full faith was made to us of the mandate of this his procuration, before the notaries public and witnesses written below, we have received with the reverence that befitted, of this tenor." There follow the letters themselves, such as we gave them at nos. 79, 80 and 81. After which the report is continued in these words: "After the presentation and reception of which letters we were required with due instance by the above-said Master Caspar, procurator, in the procuratorial name as above, that we should deign to proceed to the execution of the same letters. We, therefore, Ulrich and George, delegated bishops, Peter and George, abbots, and Benedict, provost, subdelegated as above, having joined to ourselves learned men and men skilled in law, deliberated maturely on the aforesaid; and because we recognized the requisition of the aforesaid procurator to be just and consonant with reason, therefore we offered ourselves ready with willing minds to proceed to the aforesaid execution, so far as our sufficiency would avail for so great and holy a work.

[85] to the designated judges "Which done, Master Caspar, the above-said procurator, exhibited and produced before us certain articles and petitions touching the business of the prescribed inquiry; the tenor of which articles follows word for word and is such: 'Before you, the Reverend and Venerable Fathers and Lords in Christ, the Lord Ulrich of Chiemsee and the Lord George of Seckau, bishops of the churches, delegated by our Most Holy Lord, the Lord Pius, by divine providence Pope the Second, together with the Reverend Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord John, bishop of the church of Freising, and also the Lord Peter of St. Peter's at Salzburg, the Lord George in Peurn, abbots of the Order of St. Benedict, and Benedict in Höglwörth, provost of the canons regular of the Order of St. Augustine, of the city and diocese of Salzburg, subdelegated and deputed by the aforesaid Lord John, bishop of Freising, the procurator, and in the procuratorial name of the Most Reverend Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord Burchard, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See elected and confirmed of the holy church of Salzburg, for the inquiry into the fame and truth, the sanctity and miracles of the Blessed Confessor Vitalis, formerly prelate of the same church of Salzburg, gives, exhibits and sets forth publicly the chapters and articles written below; to the necessary, not superfluous, proof of which he offers himself and asks to be admitted. And before the articles of the fame of sanctity and miracles of this kind are submitted, the procurator protests, in the procuratorial name as above, that the aforesaid Most Reverend Lord elect and confirmed, in that matter of the canonization of the said Blessed Vitalis, formerly prelate of the church of Salzburg, which his Most Reverend Paternity has greatly at heart and is prosecuting, has never been nor is moved by any sinister intention of avarice and temporal advantage, or of ambition, honour or anything else whatever: nay rather, which he could even confirm by oath if need were, that he wills and desires that all these things be done, made and prosecuted solely for the praise, glory and honour of God and His Saints, the devotion of the peoples, the salvation of souls, the accumulation also of merits, and the diminution and repulsion, by the merits of the same Blessed Vitalis, of the present adversities and the unspeakable persecutions on every side, and not otherwise than as has been premised.

[86] articles "This protestation, then, being premised, the said procurator puts first, and intends to prove as above, that the church of Salzburg from its beginning and foundation has had many and various prelates and holy fathers and pastors for the time: of whom some long since, as Rudbert the first and Virgilius the eighth, are held enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints and canonized, the pre-eminence of whose sanctities also flourished and flourishes today; and also the church of Salzburg above other churches has been called and today is acclaimed holy. Likewise that these two most holy fathers Rudbert and Virgilius, among their other great works, also brought back Bavaria and Carinthia to the faith by their preaching and teaching, first baptized the nations, founded the first churches of those parts and instituted clerics: whence also they are named by all and are the apostles of those parts. Likewise that of the premises there was and is such fame that neither a boy nor a man of other age using reason is ignorant of these things. First, then, the sanctity of Blessed Vitalis is established and taken from the sanctity of him who set him over it. Second, from the purity of his life and conduct. Third, from the fruit and edification of his neighbours. Fourth, from divine approval, both in life and after death, through the operation of many miracles. Fifth, from the continual, unintermitted veneration of the people and the visitation of his tomb, and also from the offering of candles and other things and gifts and insignia, nay and from a most certain faith never at any time to be plucked out of the hearts of the faithful.

[87] concerning the sanctity of St. Vitalis "It is said first, that from the sanctity of him who set him over it. For ancient books and old writings testify, and there is report and fame of this, that when the departure from this world of the Most Holy Father Rudbert was imminent, namely on the holy day of Easter" (rather, the anniversary of the Lord's Resurrection), "the divine rites having first been performed by him, while his most happy spirit was now about to penetrate the heavens, among many perfect men of his congregation he singularly appointed Blessed Vitalis as his successor, according to the content of his Life, which says thus: 'He commended the city of Juvavum and the people of the Noricans to almighty God, and chose Vitalis, a holy man and acceptable to all the people, to become his successor.' Second and third, the sanctity of Blessed Vitalis is said to be established from the purity of his merits and life, and also from the fruit and edification of his neighbours. For it is held certain that Blessed Vitalis was a contemporary and disciple of the most holy Rudbert. And what can be concluded from this more certainly than that the renowned merits and illustrious life and salutary doctrine of the Father overflowed and shone forth in so capable a disciple? For so great a holiness of the master ought in no way to be believed to stand without overflowing: for while the most holy man Rudbert, running about, was disseminating the faith of Christ as far as the bounds of Hungary, no likelihood admits that he left this his beloved disciple absent, but rather he is believed to have had him as a companion and faithful coadjutor among the rest. Fourth, the sanctity of Blessed Vitalis shone back and shines back by divine approval, namely from the showing of miracles both in life and after death. For antiquity hands down, and the same is found described in old books, codices, and also in many various registers, panels, figures and paintings, that after the passing of the Blessed pontiff Vitalis many and various possessed persons, blind, lame, crippled, oppressed also with various other ailments of the teeth and of other members, even coming from afar, by invocation of the same and prostrated at his tomb, were suddenly restored both to wholeness and to perfection. And because to describe these things specifically one by one would be too protracted and extended, therefore in producing them he referred himself to the books and old and approved writings, designating however one to those present, THE MIRACLE OF THE WHITE LILY: 'That when a certain man,' etc., as above at no. 73.

[88] and fame of sanctity "But that St. Vitalis is held a Saint from the continual veneration and concourse of the peoples and their undoubted faith, in the fifth manner prescribed, no one of the city of Salzburg and of all the neighbouring cities and parts using reason is ignorant, and it is set before the eyes of those who look on. Without intermission men and women, young and old, and men of every age and condition prostrate themselves here and there in that place before and upon his tomb; nay, falling prostrate they kiss the tomb. Now they offer and light candles: now images of iron, now of wax, now of wood, feet, hands or figures of other members they offer there and leave. Into the alms-box also adjoining his tomb they put money; and, his name being humbly invoked, they depart consoled: as these and other things appear more by the testimony of those who look on than by any writing. To the same effect, that strangers at certain times of the year come there for the veneration of St. Vitalis, make processions, arrange for Masses and Offices to be read and sung in his honour and for obtaining his suffrage; and their vows being paid and finished, they return consoled to their own homes. Likewise that from the most ancient times far exceeding the memory of all men, and from age to age, and also from generation to generation, this always has been, was and is said, believed, reported, held, preached and recognized of Blessed Vitalis by the clergy and people of the city of Salzburg, nay and by the people of the surrounding parts, that the said Blessed Vitalis would be a Saint and to be canonized and to be enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints; and there was public report and fame of his sanctity. Likewise at the tomb of Blessed Vitalis there are made here and there by persons of both sexes

acts of veneration, and offerings of candles and lights and other things. It is set forth moreover before your paternities that, because the veneration of the aforementioned Vitalis has lasted without intermission up to present times and does not cease today, he has also not only effected the old miracles long since written down, but indeed works them without intermission today according to the merits and disposition of those who ask: although through the negligence of the moderns they are not noticed, nor is inquiry made of them, nor are they commended to memory in writing. For unless the suffrages and succour of this kind of Saint were felt by various persons, no likelihood or cause would underlie the veneration and adoration of the same. For the truth of which things also the producer, producing witnesses, asks that they be examined on oath. Likewise, that concerning all and each of the things written above there was and is today common and popular speech and true reputation and firm belief, also faith and everywhere public report and fame.

[89] he set forth; "The aforesaid producer therefore asks, in the place and name of the Most Reverend Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord Burchard, elect and confirmed of Salzburg, etc., aforementioned, that by you, Reverend and Venerable Fathers and Lords in Christ, delegated and subdelegated or commissaries of the Apostolic See, a diligent and exact inquiry be made concerning all and each of the premises and the things connected with them, emerging, incidental and dependent, and also that the old books and codices and whatever writings made thereupon, registers and panels, old paintings and all things serving for these be diligently inspected and surveyed; that the witnesses to be named also be cited and examined, and that the persons likewise to be named be compelled to exhibit the books and any monuments serving; that all the other things also be done that are contained in the bulls and apostolic letters transmitted; and that, after full cognizance of all, the things inquired be transmitted, closed in due authentic form, under your letters and seals, to the aforementioned our Lord Pius, by divine providence Pope the Second, the delegator: that the most holy work, salutarily begun, may be most happily terminated for the glory and praise of God and the Saints and the salvation of the peoples. Of and upon all and each of which premises the said producer requires you and each of you, with protestation of adding, supplying and extending, if necessary, the premises, and also of correcting, changing or diminishing them, as was and is of custom and style and common observance.'

[90] and he proved them "These articles having been received by us at the instance of the above-mentioned procurator, the same procurator set forth before us how certain books or codices and authentic writings, making and serving for the verification and proof of the articles inserted above, were in the power of the venerable Fathers and Lords in Christ the dean and chapter of the metropolitan church, and also of the prior and convent of the monastery of St. Peter at Salzburg, and of the Lord Bernhard von Krayburg, doctor of decrees, chancellor of the curia of Salzburg: asking with due instance that we would deign, by the apostolic authority granted to us in this behalf, to compel the same chapter and convent and chancellor by ecclesiastical censure to exhibit and deliver books and writings of this kind for the aforesaid purpose. We therefore, assenting to this petition as just and consonant with reason, caused the aforenamed Lords, chapter and convent and chancellor, to be required and admonished, by a certain courier of ours deputed for this in form of law, concerning the exhibition of the aforesaid books and writings within a certain term assigned to them by us. Who, being thus admonished and required, at once caused certain books and writings, to be specified below, to be exhibited before us: which the aforementioned procurator produced by way of proof and verification of the articles written above.

[91] since from old Legends "First, indeed, upon the articles concerning the sanctity of Blessed Vitalis, the aforementioned procurator produced certain notable and precious books, and, as he asserted, authentic, written in ancient and excellent letters, as appeared to our eyes, in which are contained the legends of the Lives of many Saints; among which that of St. Rudbert, patron and first bishop of the church of Salzburg, is found concordantly, of this tenor": of the kind, namely, that Papebroch inserted into our work at the 27th day of March from the Florentine manuscript collated with the Canisian edition. "Likewise, upon the truth of the articles commemorating the miracles of Blessed Vitalis the bishop, the said procurator produced a certain notable and precious book of old writing in no way suspect, but wholly free of every fault and suspicion; at the beginning of which are contained in order the miracles written below, beginning thus: 'Saint Rudbert,'" etc. Which prologue of the miracles I have already furnished to be read at no. 52: the series of miracles itself I shall subjoin to this Commentary.

[92] and Chronicles, "After these, for the purpose expressed above, the procurator mentioned above produced four Chronicles in ancient letters, also in no way suspect, but elegant and precious; one of which among other things chants thus: 'In the year of the Lord 1181 Pope Alexander died; Lucius succeeds: the bishops Vitalis, Virgilius, Hartwic, Eberhard were renowned for signs.' And another Chronicle contains among other things these words: 'In the year of the Lord 1181 Pope Alexander died, in whose place Lucius is appointed: Manuel, emperor of the Greeks, died: Hermann, duke of Carinthia, died, to whom his son Louis succeeded: Louis, king of France, died: Henry, duke of Bavaria, through the action of the Emperor Frederick, not undeservedly fell from the highest honours; to whom Otto of Wittelsbach, count palatine, succeeded: at Salzburg, by frequent powers of miracles, the bodies of the holy pontiffs of the same city were revealed, namely of Virgilius, Vitalis, Eberhard, Conrad: at Passau the sepulchre of Blessed Pilgrim began to become renowned by miracles.' And the third Chronicle chants thus: 'In the year of the Lord 1181 Pope Alexander died; Lucius succeeded: the bishops Vitalis, Virgilius, Hartwic, Eberhard were renowned for signs.' The fourth Chronicle says thus: 'Vitalis, Virgilius, Hartwic of Salzburg and Pilgrim of Passau, bishops, were renowned for miracles.'

[93] then from the things placed at the Saint's sepulchre "After these, Master Caspar, the often-named procurator, by way and effect of proof of the articles written above, referred himself to the tomb or burial-place of Blessed Vitalis, which he said was in the monastery of St. Peter at Salzburg on the right side of the choir toward the southern quarter, and also to the panels and to the writings containing the miracles of Blessed Vitalis, the effigies also, paintings and images, the figures also of various members made of wax, iron and wood and other materials, offered there, and to whatever other things concerning the same tomb and placed, hung, annexed or in any way applied to the same; and he produced all and each of these for the end and effect written above: which, that they might be established for us more clearly and evidently, the said procurator besought us with due instance that we would deign to approach the aforesaid tomb, and to look upon and survey its site with all and each of the things required for it, as is set forth. We therefore, the delegates and subdelegates above-said, at the instance of the aforementioned procurator, entering the said church of St. Peter with the notaries public and witnesses written below, approached the place of the aforesaid tomb, and saw with our eyes, surveyed, read and looked upon it together with the paintings, figures and panels, the suffrages also and prayers of St. Vitalis written there, and the other aforesaid things relating to the tomb itself and demonstrating the miracles of Blessed Vitalis, together with the candles offered and lit there: which are found to be such.

[94] lights, "In the church of St. Peter of the monastery of Salzburg of the Order of St. Benedict, which it is established is most ancient and was erected by St. Rudbert, first bishop of Salzburg, outside the choir of the same on the right side, toward the southern quarter, the burial-place of Blessed Vitalis is found formed thus: in the corner, namely, of the said part of the choir, beside the altar of St. Andrew facing the east, in the manner of a monumental stone, there is a wall flat on its surface, built of small stones after the manner of the ancients, raised to the height of half a cubit from the ground, touching on two sides the wall of the aforesaid church. And this monumental wall or sepulchre is fortified by a certain iron grating three cubits high, half-square, also fixed on two sides into the wall of the church; through which grating there is a little door for going in and out. Within the same grating there hangs one lamp continually burning, and upon the tomb are placed candlesticks, on which tapers and candles offered by the faithful of Christ are set and lit. There appear also there ashes in great quantity, which have remained over from burnt candles. And on the grating there are fixed in order sharp little nails, on which tapers are fixed and lit.

[95] votive gifts, "Likewise on the wall of the church within the tomb there is a certain very old painting, yet beautiful and artful, by which it is shown that the body of Blessed Vitalis is laid down there in the presence of priests standing around, of whom some lay down the body, some cense it, some sprinkle holy water, and the rest are intent on prayer. Likewise within the aforesaid grating there is placed a heap of staffs and straps on which the lame and sick came to the tomb, and, having received health, left them there. There are also there in great number iron rings and the iron shoes of horses and iron fetters, with which captives are said to have been bound. Likewise within the grating and above and outside it all around, in great abundance, images of men made of wax and iron, of which some appear in mitres and pontificals, some in arms, the rest in the clothing of men of both sexes. There are present also almost innumerable figures of various members, namely of heads, eyes, teeth, jaws, arms, hands, legs, feet and other members, made of wax, iron and wood, offered and left there by the faithful of Christ to whom the Lord, through the merit of Blessed Vitalis, restored the health of their ailing members.

[96] painted panels, "Likewise above the tomb, on the wall of the southern quarter, there is one panel in two parts, broad and precious and made with artful work; in whose upper part is seen painted how St. Rudbert, first bishop of the holy church of Salzburg, chose and appointed Blessed Vitalis as his successor, and how the church of Salzburg, in the presence of the clergy and people willing and asking, is committed to Blessed Vitalis. And below are seen depicted the miracles of Blessed Vitalis, among which these are the chief: first, he restores the lame and withered; second, he frees demoniacs and the possessed; third, he restores light to the blind and hearing to the deaf; fourth, he saves one shipwrecked at sea. And in each instance the image of Blessed Vitalis is seen depicted after the manner of a Saint under mitre and diadem. In like manner the same image is seen painted on a certain most ancient panel set upon the altar of Blessed Andrew, adjoining the aforesaid tomb; where under the feet of the image it is written in ancient letters: Saint Vitalis. And in the glass window about the same tomb toward the east the image of Blessed Vitalis is seen painted under mitre and diadem and with a white lily growing from his heart.

[97] prayers "Likewise outside the grating of the aforementioned tomb there is a large alms-box, in which the faithful of Christ are wont to offer money in veneration of the same Blessed Vitalis. Similarly outside the aforesaid tomb under glass

aforementioned there hangs a panel containing a certain prayer concerning Blessed Vitalis of this tenor: 'Rejoice, city of Juvavum, which art fortified by such a patron, retained bodily for thy labours. O happy soul of the holy man, full of delights in all things, the brightness of whose flower shines with glory on earth. O wondrous body, whose ancient miracles are renewed by the grace of God. The south wind of the Holy Spirit blows through thy garden, that the spices may flow out, which may suffice for the strong and refresh the weak. V. The just shall spring as the lily: R. And shall flourish for ever before the Lord. Collect. O God, who gladdenest Thy Church with the flowering miracles of Blessed Vitalis, the glorious Pontiff: grant, we beseech Thee, by his suffrages, that through a peaceful life we may be able perpetually to cleave to Christ Jesus, the unfading flower. Who liveth with Thee,' etc.

[98] and other writings "Likewise on the wall of the church beside the tomb of Blessed Vitalis toward the south there is a certain great panel, which is opened and closed in the manner of folding doors; in which many things are contained concerning St. Rudbert and the beginning of the church of Salzburg: to which are subjoined those thirty-nine miracles of Blessed Vitalis inserted word for word above in the present process. And after miracles of this kind, on the same panel, prayers or suffrages and an epitaph concerning Blessed Vitalis are contained in this manner: 'Saint Vitalis, chosen confessor of God, who, full of the Holy Spirit, didst merit by thy temporal life eternal life and mercy, who didst please God by holiness and the virtue of chastity, who didst worthily preside over the people by teaching and the example of thy life: grant us, we beseech thee, so to venerate the merits of thy holiness that, freed by the grace of the Holy Spirit and by thy prayers from the heat of burning lust, we may be formed by thy example to the love of continence, obedience and the other virtues. Amen. Thou distinguished prelate and prudent steward, who by teaching and miracles didst show the way of truth, and didst call back many from the error of their way: make us sinners forsake our evils, and, running with a glad heart in the way of the commandments of God, ever cleave to the divine fear and love. Amen. Thou, O beloved of God, who didst illuminate the blind, cure the weak and lame, command the demons, and perform other illustrious mighty works: illuminate, we beseech thee, the eyes of our heart, lest we ever sleep in death through impotence, ignorance or malice: direct our steps into the way of justice, dash the counsels of the demons, and confirm us in every good and holy will.

[99] attesting his miracles: "'Saint Vitalis, good and faithful servant of God, increase in us faith, hope and charity with perseverance in good works, and grant us happily the necessaries of the present with increase of religion, and by a blessed end make us pass from this world to the heavenly country, where we may see and glorify Him reigning for ages of ages. Amen. Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison. V. The Lord loved him and adorned him: R. He clothed him with a robe of glory. V. O Lord, hear my prayer: R. And let my cry come unto Thee. Prayer. Almighty everlasting God, who in the merits of St. Vitalis, Thy confessor and pontiff, art always and everywhere wonderful: we beseech Thy clemency, that as Thou didst confer on him eminent grace, so Thou wouldst grant us to be helped by his prayers to merit Thy mercy. Through our Lord Jesus Christ,' etc. The Epitaph of Saint Vitalis.

[100] to which was added the hearing of witnesses "And consequently Master Caspar, the procurator, appearing before us, the delegates and subdelegates, in the procuratorial name as above, set forth how he intended, for the legitimate proof of the articles inserted above, beyond what had been produced before, to produce some suitable witnesses." These witnesses were in all eighty-nine, of most of whom we shall afterwards bring forward, from the epitome made by Pachler, the declarations confirmed on oath concerning miracles done to themselves and to others. And these being inserted in the process, the report of the commissaries is closed thus: "It is to be noted also that we, Ulrich and George, delegated bishops, Peter and George, abbots, and Benedict, provost, subdelegated, executors written above, have diligently questioned all and each of the aforenamed witnesses, whom we examined summarily for the sake of brevity, as is premised, concerning the fame of sanctity of Blessed Vitalis and his burial, concerning the paintings, prostrations and prayers, the lighting of candles, the offerings of images and figures, the venerations and adorations, as is set out above in the articles. Upon which each of the witnesses written above says singly that all these things, as they are contained in the articles, are true; and that throughout the city of Salzburg and the towns of Hellel, Hall and Lauffen and the whole neighbouring country it is a common saying, firm belief, common reputation and assertion, and public report and fame, that Blessed Vitalis is a Saint, who in former and modern times was renowned and daily is renowned for very many miracles, and that recourse was had and is today had to the same by the faithful of Christ as to a worker of miracles, and that he is venerated as a Saint, and is therefore to be canonized and ought to be enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints.

[101] duly and lawfully carried out. "In faith and testimony of all and each of which premises, we, the delegates and subdelegates written above, at the instance and petition of the often-mentioned Master Caspar Westendorffer, procurator, have ordered and caused our present letters, or this present public instrument, containing in itself this our process, to be made therefrom, and to be subscribed and published and also closed by the notaries public subscribed, received and deputed by us for this, and to be fortified by the appending of our seals. These things were done partly in the court of the metropolitan provostship, partly in the monastery of St. Peter at Salzburg, and partly in the court of me, George, bishop of Seckau, situated in the city of Salzburg: in the year from the Nativity of the Lord 1462, in the tenth indiction, on Tuesday, the sixteenth of the month of March, and on the following days up to the twenty-third day of the same month inclusive, in the fourth year of the Pontificate of your Holiness: there being present there the venerable and circumspect men, the Lords Paul Meck, licentiate in decrees, canon of Regensburg, vicar general in spirituals of the church and official of the curia of Salzburg, Heinrich von Pegnitz, licentiate of decrees, protonotary of the chancery, John Stubmer, master of the aforesaid curia, and John Paumgartner, bachelor in decrees, rector of the parish church of the Holy Cross near Landstrost, of the dioceses of Salzburg and Aquileia, and very many other witnesses worthy of credence, called and specially requested for the premises." At the end Ulrich Prossinger and John Berner of Rosenheim, clerics, the former of the diocese of Salzburg, the latter of Freising, both notaries public by imperial authority, attest that the instrument of the whole process, written on thirty-three leaves of parchment by the hand of John Berner, was reduced by them into public form and duly signed: whose words, since they consist more of formulas than of matters, it would not be worth the trouble to adduce.

§ V. Of the ecclesiastical cult of St. Vitalis, the detection and elevation of his body, his images and relics.

The decree of canonization of St. Vitalis The inquiry into the sanctity and miracles of St. Vitalis having been lawfully brought to its conclusion, Burchard von Weissbriach, archbishop of Salzburg, at once began to think of sending the authentic acts of the matter to Rome to obtain the canonization. That Peter Klueghamer, abbot of St. Peter's, the same who had been present at the institution of the process as subdelegate in place of the bishop of Freising, was designated by the archbishop as their bearer and procurator of the cause before the Supreme Pontiff, is reported in MS. R by Abbot Martin Hättinger Novissimum Chronicon, p. 77; but however true this may have been, yet it is nowhere read that that journey was in fact undertaken by Abbot Peter: who, I would readily believe, declined that office, whether on account of the heavy old age and infirmities with which he laboured Ibid., p. 396, or also because the archbishop had intended in mind to effect, with the assent of Pius II, not only the canonization of St. Vitalis, but also his translation to the metropolitan church; which thing could not but befall the monks of St. Peter's as no less unwelcome. Indeed his very Epitaph sang that Vitalis had never been translated even within the church of St. Peter itself; although otherwise, as Hansiz notes P. 72, this solemnity was formerly applied to those whose cult was growing among the people. And so a tradition received from their forebears flourished there, as Amandus Pachler reports Disquisition V, chapter III, p. 106, that the translation of the body of St. Vitalis had indeed been attempted quite often before, yet could never be carried into effect, because whoever had laboured to do it had been prevented by death, either at once or shortly, from executing their purpose.

[103] is indeed dispatched by Pius II, The instrument of the inquiry, therefore, was carried to Rome by the sending of the archbishop by Master Ernest de Nataga; who, as Pachler narrates, whose words I shall use Ibid., chapter II, pp. 104 and 105, "at Rome so happily accomplished everything that, having seen the process of inquiry, the Supreme Pontiff consented to the canonization and translation of St. Vitalis from place to place. Meanwhile, when the pontifical bull had been dispatched at Rome, Ernest de Nataga returned with it to Salzburg. Yet for certain causes none of the counsellors would advise Archbishop Burchard to proceed in the cause: nay rather they dissuaded the archbishop from proceeding further in this business; of whom one, Master Stephen Schröttl, said to the archbishop's face: 'Most Reverend Father, what do you wish to do? Do not lay hands on St. Vitalis: truly I say to you, he will defend himself, and will not suffer himself to be transferred from his house.' Which words sharply moved Burchard to desist from the whole business. A little after, scarcely half a year having elapsed, Master Ernest de Nataga died. Archbishop Burchard himself also died a little after Ernest, in the year 1466 on the sixteenth of February; while two years before the Supreme Pontiff himself had departed from life in the year 1464 in the month of August. And so this whole business both of the canonization and of the translation was lulled to sleep and interrupted, and 'Blessed Vitalis to this day (says MS. R) sleeps with his Fathers, and in the church of St. Peter awaits the last trumpet.'

[104] but it is not altogether put into execution. "In this business our religious, of whom there were not a few, namely twenty-six in number, as I read in the often-mentioned MS. R, were affected partly with joy, partly and more with grief. They congratulated Blessed Vitalis indeed on such honour and glorification; but that he was to be transferred from our monastery they lamented inconsolably, as one whom they venerated as one of their most powerful patrons and guardians. From which perhaps it came about that St. Vitalis was unwilling to be transferred from his sons, who followed him with the tenderest affection. And so it happened that our religious rejoiced for a twofold cause, both that Blessed Vitalis had been held worthy by the Apostolic See to be canonized, and that, the translation being prevented, they could still enjoy hereafter the presence of their most blessed patron. Further, when the bull and signature had been brought from Rome by Ernest de Nataga, without any other further licence Burchard caused through his chaplains, at the altar of St. Vitalis, which of St. Andrew otherwise

was called, a solemn Mass of St. Vitalis, Statuit ei Dominus, to be sung; although he was reproved by his counsellors on that account, because licence to do this had not yet been obtained from Rome": so I read in MS. R.

[105] The Benedictines of Salzburg Some time later, namely about the year 1495, in which year, Abbot Rupert Keutzel having died, Abbot Virgilius Pichler succeeded, the monks of St. Peter's at Salzburg were urging that the faculty be granted them by the Roman Pontiff, who was then Alexander VI, of keeping the day of St. Vitalis as a feast by the recitation of the Office and Mass of him; and for this Father Henry Institoris of the Order of Preachers had promised his help, inquisitor of heretical depravity, who, as Quétif and Échard testify Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, volume I, column 896, discharged the office of lector of the church of Salzburg for several years: while he was exercising which, he was called by the master of the Order, Fr. James Torriano, to Venice about the year 1495, to hold public disputations on the sacred cult and adoration of the Eucharist on the occasion of a certain contention which had arisen there, of which this is not the place to speak. There are extant, concerning this business of the cult of St. Vitalis, letters of Institoris dated at Rome on the 21st day of March 1496 to the abbot of Salzburg Pachler, Disquisition VII, chapter I, pp. 180 and 181: from which it is gathered that licence to venerate St. Vitalis publicly by canonical Office had not yet been granted up to that time. Wherefore, as an Annotation transmitted to Hansiz by some monk or other of St. Peter's teaches In Hansiz, pp. 1022 and 1023, although the Calendar of the Breviary written in the year 1495 attaches to the feast of St. Vitalis the mark "greater double," by which at that time the highest festivals were distinguished, whose rite is now called double of the first or second class, yet in the very body of the same Breviary there is extant absolutely no memorial of this Saint at the 20th day of October. "Again," adds the monk cited, "in the Breviary printed under Archbishop Leonard" (who sat from the year 1495 to 1519) "these formal words are set in the Calendar: Of Vitalis, Confessor; and again in the Breviary itself deep silence thereon," namely for the reason just alleged.

[106] from Leo X So the matter stood up to the year 1519, when at the repeated prayers of the Benedictines of Salzburg, over whom Abbot Simon Garchanez then presided, Pope Leo X granted it, an apostolic brief being given on the 4th day of November; in which, after a summary allegation of the things which had been done before in the cause of St. Vitalis, and after the pious petitions of the said monks had been praised, the Pontiff makes this concession [In Canisius, volume cited, pp. 383 and 384; Novissimum Chronicon, pages 78 and 79]: "We therefore … inclined to supplications of this kind, and having understood the report made to us by our beloved sons Achilles, of St. Mary across the Tiber, and Dominic, of St. Clement, of the titles, presbyters and cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, upon the examination of the life, miracles and works of the same Vitalis made formerly by certain subdelegates of the said bishops by force of the letters of Pius our predecessor of this kind, grant in perpetuity, by apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents, of our certain knowledge, to you and to the religious of the said monastery existing for the time, that for your and the people's spiritual consolation and devotion you may freely and lawfully be able and have power, in the church of your said monastery, to sing Masses of one Confessor and Pontiff in honour of the said Vitalis, as often as devotion shall move you or any of you to it, and on the day of the said deposition in his honour the canonical hours in the church of your monastery likewise of one Confessor and Pontiff, not omitting, however, the hours occurring on the same day, with prayers, responsories and antiphons befitting it, until the said Vitalis shall be enrolled by us or our successors the Roman Pontiffs in the Catalogue of the other Saints."

[107] obtain the faculty But what those monks, either not providently enough or out of abundant zeal for the cult of St. Vitalis, had asked and so obtained, that it should be lawful for them to sing publicly the hours of this Saint together with the Office of the current day, this they felt from the first trial to be too burdensome and scarcely able to be done well; especially since at that time it was still the custom there to discharge in chant all the hours of the ecclesiastical Office by day and night. Wherefore by a petition sent to Rome they earnestly requested, since on the 20th day of October no feast occurred and accordingly the Office of the feria was then wont to be recited according to the rubrics, that the faculty be granted them of thereafter omitting this ferial Office when the same 20th day of October recurred, so that they might hold it enough to have discharged the ecclesiastical task of that day by the sole recitation of the solemn hours of St. Vitalis. This was easily obtained from the Supreme Pontiff, who assented to the wishes of the monks by the oracle of the living voice; as Lorenzo Pucci, cardinal presbyter of the title of the Four Holy Crowned Ones and major penitentiary, wrote back to them on the 5th day of March 1521 Novissimum Chronicon, pp. 79 and 80.

[108] of reciting the Office and Mass Thenceforth, as the monk already mentioned reported to Hansiz In Hansiz, p. 1023, "whenever the feast of St. Vitalis occurred on the 20th day of October, the canonical hours of St. Vitalis were recited most devoutly by the convent of St. Peter's publicly in choir, and in the first times indeed with modulated voices, yet in choral chant, … all the hours, even the nocturnal, were discharged, with a proper collect, which is: 'Almighty everlasting God, who in the merits of St. Vitalis,'" etc., the same, namely, which it was shown above (no. 99) was inscribed on the great panel near the tomb of the Saint. "This same collect was printed in the monastic Breviary for the diocese of Salzburg in the year 1610, where for the lessons of the 1st and 2nd Nocturns there was assigned the Sermon of St. Augustine: 'Being placed in this life, brethren of Christ, so act that when you shall have departed hence,' etc.; the Gospel 'Let your loins be' with the Homily of St. Leo: 'The father of the household is each one.'" Thus indeed the Office stood before the reformation of the monastic Breviary approved by apostolic letters of Paul V in the year 1612: so that accordingly it is not to be wondered at that in the first Nocturn lessons not from Scripture but from a Sermon of St. Augustine were assigned there; a thing of which kind is often met with in old Breviaries. "But in the present age," the same monk continues, writing in the year 1729, "the feast of St. Vitalis on the 20th of October is celebrated as a double of the 2nd class: the Lessons of the 1st and 2nd Nocturn from the common of a Confessor Pontiff from the 1st place; the Gospel 'A certain man'": which I think is "A certain man going into a far country," as is read in many Missals both written and printed, while today the word "certain" is absent from the Roman and others; since it is especially this Gospel, and not that other, "A certain nobleman went," that befits the Mass Statuit, of which presently. Concerning the Mass, namely, that was wont to be said among his brethren, the same notes: "The Masses which the process of canonization solemnly instituted in the year 1462 testifies were offered in very great number in honour of St. Vitalis were ordinary rather than particular ones of St. Vitalis himself. For in no older Missal is any special Mass of St. Vitalis read up to the year 1519, in which special licence was given to our monastery by Leo X, the Supreme Pontiff, to read a public Mass of St. Vitalis; which is still said today in our congregation, the Mass Statuit. Collect: 'Almighty everlasting God, who in the merits.' Secret: 'Graciously hear our supplication, we beseech Thee, O Lord; and through this immaculate victim, Blessed Vitalis Thy Confessor and Pontiff interceding, may we be freed among the innumerable dangers of the present life from the bonds of our sins. Through our Lord.' Postcommunion: 'O God, who Thy Church,' etc.," as above in the process of canonization (no. 97). "Formerly also a Sequence of St. Vitalis was said."

[109] in honour of St. Vitalis. This Sequence or Prose, which was common to St. Vitalis with SS. Rupert, Virgilius and Amandus, so that only the names had to be varied, sounded thus Ibid., p. 1022: "The glorious day shines: let the Church exult. To Angels, to men, peace and gladness. With immortal memory shines forth Vitalis the Pontiff, our hope, salvation and glory. Heaven rejoices in the renowned soul of the prelate: the earth, happy Juvavum, triumphs in the merits of his body. The odour of sanctity, the living fount of heavenly grace. Forthwith flows out power to the sick, consolation to the sorrowful, pardon to the fallen. The trophies of holiness, of life, of doctrine, of signs, by which he was renowned in the pastoral see, the province of the Noricans sings. O Vitalis, glorious olive of piety. By this branch bearing very much fruit the apostolic vineyard flourished more widely. O sacred, innocent, living victim of the supreme Father, which, immolated to God by the sword of the spirit, merited the triumphal rewards of the Martyrs. Having advanced by an angelic life to the fellowship of the Angels, he is fed with the Saints on the inmost contemplation of the eternal light. Thence now, best Father, look upon us: transfer and cleanse vessels of iniquity into vessels of grace. Reconcile sinners, save them, receive our vows, and make our patronages pleasing to God: that we, by the gift of thy deposition (or festival) snatched from the flocks on the left, placed at the right hand, may be transferred to the pastures above, where, mitred with the golden robe of gladness, with thy peers thou hearest how famous a voice: Well done, enter into the eternal joys. O Vitalis, glory of the priests of Christ."

[110] He is renowned here by new miracles, Meanwhile, while in this way the cult of St. Vitalis was becoming more splendid, he did not cease to bestow daily very many benefits on those who invoked him; of which in the year 1602 John Stainhauser, secretary of Salzburg, in the Life of St. Vitalis written by him speaks in this manner Chapter V, as the Novissimum Chronicon reports from the manuscript, p. 74: "Not only many hundreds of years ago did the miracles of St. Vitalis shine forth; but the same also openly become renowned up to this present day: although in these iron times of ours the hearts of many faithful are so cold that they do not show due devotion and cult; whence it happens that sometimes they do not obtain their wishes either. Nor in these times is that diligence applied that the miracles should be made manifest and noted down; as nevertheless our forebears diligently observed: who were not ashamed to have received such benefits of cures in their infirmities, but publicly and of their own accord professed their diseases and healings. But if this were still done today, so great an abundance of miracles of Blessed Vitalis would be gathered that they would easily fill a codex." And that after these things were written by Stainhauser other miracles were continually added to miracles, especially concerning women in childbirth, a monk of St. Peter's of Salzburg is witness, who in the year 1651 wrote back among the answers to the questions of our Bollandus Among the manuscripts of the Burgundian Library at Brussels, no. 8915: "Every year some miracles are worked at the intercession of this St. Vitalis with pregnant women, who ask of us the girdle of St. Vitalis, and gird themselves with it in difficulty of childbirth, and immediately feel relief and have a happy

delivery: and we afterwards require of them a slip and attestation of the benefit received, and such slips we have and keep not a few." A witness likewise is Amandus Pachler, who in his Disquisitions described not only the ancient miracles of St. Vitalis, but also many worked from the year 1462 to the year 1663, in which he published his little work Disquisition VI, chapters V and VI. A witness is Mezger, whose Historia Salisburgensis saw the light in the year 1692; who says Book II, chapter IV, page 176 that it is almost a daily thing for the girdle of St. Vitalis to be asked for from the sacristy of St. Peter's, carried to women labouring in childbirth, and brought back with thanksgiving: "which," he says, "even if we do not reckon it among prodigies, yet it befits to be numbered among the benefits and heavenly graces of Blessed Vitalis." Witnesses finally, about the year 1772, are the authors of the Novissimum Chronicon, who, having recited the words of Mezger, say P. 74: "What he truthfully wrote in his time, we likewise confirm, after eighty and more years, of the same beneficence of St. Vitalis."

[111] and adornment is added to his sepulchre. The same John Stainhauser whom I praised above had in the year 1601 experienced St. Vitalis as beneficent toward himself, being namely freed from a grave disease by his intercession. Hence the pious man burned singularly with love of the Saint, his preserver. And not only did he write a book on St. Vitalis; but also, as Mezger testifies Place cited, "he erected at his own expense the ancient altar of St. Andrew near the sepulchre of the Saint; he adorned the chapel, as it then was, with new seats: thus by his example he carried the torch before the piety of many and the heavenly benefits which then followed." I do not know whether on that occasion, or certainly not long thereafter, there happened that change in the appearance of the sepulchre of St. Vitalis of which we heard Hansiz speaking above (no. 32). Namely, in the year 1462, as the process of canonization teaches (no. 94), over the sarcophagus sunk in the ground there stood a square work of masonry of small stones raised to the height of half a cubit from the ground, with a flat surface, enclosed by iron gratings: and in like manner John Stainhauser described it in the year 1602 [Compare Mezger, work cited, book II, chapter III, p. 170; Novissimum Chronicon, p. 67]. But it is not credible that both in the Acts of canonization and by Stainhauser the other things pertaining to the form of the monument were omitted, if they had already then existed, as the authors of the Novissimum Chronicon contend. And so that change must have taken place within the space which elapsed from the year 1602 up to the year 1627. Namely, that square brickwork being removed, or certainly parts taken away from it, there was placed over the tomb, at a height of about three feet, the marble stone bearing the carved effigy of St. Vitalis (on which see no. 32), and it rested on six little columns likewise of marble, under which, an empty space being left, people could creep in for the sake of devotion and piously kiss the pavement of the sepulchre.

[112] In the year 1627 Thereafter, when by the pious endeavours of Archbishop Paris Lodron and Abbot Albert Keislin, on the 22nd day of June 1627, there were detected the parts of the body of St. Rupert which St. Virgilius had formerly left in the monastic church of St. Peter when he translated the more important bones of the same into the cathedral built by himself [Mezger, work cited, book V, chapter XXV, pp. 730 and 731; Hansiz, pp. 770 and 771; Novissimum Chronicon, p. 545]; a desire came upon the same abbot of investigating also the remains of St. Vitalis, which were known to be hidden still in the original tomb and to have been seen by no one up to then: to which it was opportunely added that about the same time a new altar was being prepared to replace the old one of St. Andrew; that it might hold its due site, it was necessary that the sepulchral stone adorned with the effigy of St. Vitalis be moved back two feet. Keislin without difficulty obtained his wish from Archbishop Paris, who himself also had a singular inclination toward the honour and cult of St. Vitalis and a zeal for bringing antiquities to light. There was therefore deputed by the prelate as commissary for this matter the same man who had lately been present in the same capacity at the detection of the tomb of St. Rupert, Christopher Schref: in whose presence, and other notable men being employed as witnesses, what was done concerning the tomb and relics of St. Vitalis the following instrument drawn up by a notary public teaches [Mezger, book VI, p. 1068 and following; Hansiz, p. 774 and following; Novissimum Chronicon, pp. 68 and 69].

[113] with the consent of the archbishop "In the Name of Christ. Amen. To all and each who shall see, read or hear read this public instrument, be it known and evidently manifest: that, when in the year from the Nativity of Christ one thousand six hundred and twenty-seven, in the tenth indiction, in the fourth year of the Pontificate of the Most Holy Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord Urban VIII, by divine providence Pope, on the ninth day of the month of July, the very Reverend Lord Albert, abbot at St. Peter's in Salzburg, had decreed to set up, toward the southern quarter of his church, to the true God, an altar renewed in memory of St. Andrew the apostle, he was hindered by the unexpected narrowness of the place, as the workmen judged; because in the corner at the Epistle horn the stone of a monument stood in the way, of red marble, resting on six columns likewise of marble and set at intervals, touching the wall on the fourth side, nine feet long, five broad, of the depth of one foot, on which is seen carved in relief work the image of St. Vitalis, radiate about the temples, and on whose border, along the side which faces the people, this epigraph is read cut: 'The prelate Vitalis lies here, and heals the sick. In the year 646, on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of November.' In order, therefore, that the altar might be set up more becomingly, the marble was moved back almost two feet, and this lest the ministers should be hindered in the service of the newly erected altar. After this the Reverend Lord Abbot Albert, reckoning in his mind how much would accrue to the devotion of the people if the relics of Blessed Vitalis were exposed to the veneration of the pious, judged that the Most Illustrious Prince should be petitioned that the monument might, by his good leave, be unsealed, and the sacred bones, if any remained, be taken up. The consent having been obtained from the well-disposed Prince, and the very Reverend, noble and most distinguished man, the Lord Christopher Schref, counsellor of the Most Illustrious Prince and commissary deputed for this, having been called in, the craftsmen and masons with great labour rolled away that most heavy marble stone, together with the six columns by which it was sustained. They also removed the stone of the pavement which supported the aforementioned six columns.

[114] the body of the Saint is uncovered "Then, when all impediments had been removed from the midst, labour began to be spent on reading a most ancient writing: for the craftsmen noted something of letters shining out from the masonry surface of the sepulchre, as indeed there were characters of plaster painted through the brick incrustation. At this report several prudent and learned men ran up, and put much labour into drawing out the sense of the writing, gently soaking the pavement with oil; until this inscription was clearly brought out: 'St. Vitalis, bishop, and three others.' Then, as they went on digging, two stones, but rough and unpolished, were met with: these being removed, the desired relics showed themselves, one body indeed (doubtless that of St. Vitalis) in a more honourable and separate place toward the altar, divided from the other bodies by two stones; while the bodies of three anonymous persons lay together and as it were at the feet of St. Vitalis. These, with the relics of St. Vitalis, were raised up onto the altar of St. Andrew, and again wrapped in a clean linen cloth: the cloths themselves I, the doctor and notary, sealed with my seal. The aforesaid bodies were finally committed again to the former sepulchre, yet distinctly, as they had lain before. Meanwhile, while there was public rejoicing over this inestimable treasure, a doubt arose whether the aforesaid bodies were complete in all their parts. Accordingly, by the mandate of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Prince of Salzburg, the very Reverend Lord Abbot Albert and the Lord Commissary cited above summoned the noble and most distinguished man, the Lord Antonius a Colle, court physician, on the eighth day before the Ides of August of the same year, that he might set each bone and part in its place, and seriously declare whether anything of the requisite bones was wanting: which he also faithfully performed, attesting of the body of St. Vitalis indeed that, besides the radii of the arms, the middle part of the lower jaw, the cheekbone, the inner parts of the ears, temples and head, a small part of the right shoulder-blade and both clavicles, nothing was wanting; and also that it is not to be doubted that all the aforesaid parts and members of the whole body were laid away together and never diminished; but that now those which are wanting for completeness have been worn away through length of time: as was established from several fragments, sufficient in the physician's judgment to make up the defects. Besides this, the three remaining bodies were by the same physician, like the relics of St. Vitalis, until they should be more solemnly exalted, laid again in a tin sarcophagus in order as they had lain before, and sealed anew in several places with the seal of me, the doctor and notary.

[115] and is recognized. "Upon all these things the aforesaid Lord Commissary asked me, the doctor and notary, that a public instrument be made: to which most equitable petition, since by the office committed to me I willingly assented, I have deservedly made and dispatched this present public instrument upon the taking up, exaltation and recognition inserted above. These things were done in the often-said monastery at St. Peter's in Salzburg, in the year, indiction, month, day, pontificate and time as above: there being present there the very Reverend and noble, most learned men, the Lord Jacob Kneissl, licentiate of Sacred Theology, chaplain of Salzburg, the Lord Augustine Faber, parish priest in Kestendorff, and the Lord Master Melchior Scheid, civic chaplain, witnesses worthy of credence and singularly summoned and called for the premises. And because I, George Reitter, doctor of both laws, advocate of forensic causes at Salzburg and also notary public by both authorities, was always present, together with the aforementioned Lords witnesses, at the unsealing of the sepulchre inserted above, the taking up, exaltation and recognition of the Holy Relics and all and each of the other things, while they were done as is premised; I myself sketched the painted figure to the life, as it were, from the brick incrustation itself; I accurately ascertained the site and place of the sepulchre, and finally sealed several times with my own seal the sacred Relics laid in order in the tin sarcophagus: therefore I have thereupon made and published this present public instrument, faithfully engrossed indeed by the hand of another, and have subscribed it with this my own hand; and also have fortified it with the accustomed sign and seal of my notariate in faith and testimony of the premises, being specially called, asked and required, at the time and place noted above. George Reitter, doctor of both laws, notary public." A copy of the inscription drawn by Reitter is to be seen in Hansiz Page 74, and another more exact (if I mistake not) to the original in the Disquisitions of Pachler Page 110.

[116] Thereafter his cult is extended to the whole archdiocese, Nor did Abbot Albert's piety toward St. Vitalis stop here; but shortly afterwards he moved Archbishop Paris that the public cult of the same Saint, which up to then within the convent of St. Peter alone

had obtained, should be extended to the whole diocese; which was granted in the year 1628 by the following decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites In Hansiz, p. 770; in the Novissimum Chronicon, p. 80: "The Archbishop of Salzburg has petitioned that the privilege granted to the Benedictine monks of St. Peter's of the diocese of Salzburg, of reciting the Office and celebrating Masses in honour of Blessed Vitalis, formerly archbishop" (rather, bishop) "of Salzburg and abbot of the aforesaid monastery, be extended to all the priests of his diocese; and the Sacred Congregation judged that it should be granted, if it shall please His Holiness: on the 12th day of June 1628. And His Holiness assented. John Baptist, Cardinal Bishop of Porto." Thenceforth St. Vitalis is venerated by the whole clergy of the diocese of Salzburg with the Office from the common of a Confessor Pontiff without proper lessons; and the same cult afterwards obtained also in the suffragan bishoprics founded in the thirteenth century by Archbishop Eberhard II, namely of Seckau, Lavant and Chiemsee, the last of which, the government of the territory being changed, was extinguished in this century.

[117] and greater honours are paid him by the people of Salzburg Already in the said year 1628, on the 24th day of September, with a most solemn procession, which Mezger Book V, chapter XXVI, p. 733 and following and Hansiz P. 772 and following described from Duker, and which it is not my concern to describe here, the relics of SS. Rupert and Virgilius were carried to the cathedral, erected from the foundations as a new work and to be dedicated with sacred rite on the following day by Archbishop Paris Lodron. In this celebration its own place was not lacking to St. Vitalis. For among the five triumphal arches which the prince archbishop, the metropolitan chapter, the convent of St. Peter's, the academic youth and the civic magistracy had magnificently prepared, four in all bore the effigy of St. Vitalis. In the court arch, whose lowest part was opened by three gates, the images of SS. Rupert and Virgilius occupied the middle one; above rose by degrees seven columns, on the highest of which St. Vitalis stood, having on the right and left SS. Amandus, Augustine, Thiemo, Martin, Wolfgang and Eberhard. Among the decorations of the triumphal gate erected by the monks were seen the images of SS. Rupert and Vitalis crowned with green leaves. The college of the university had likewise inserted in its arch St. Vitalis, conspicuous with a lily bursting from his heart, with the motto attached "Plant"; as also to St. Virgilius was attached "Preserve," to St. Eberhard "Cherish," to St. Thiemo "Rule." Finally, in the arch of the magistracy St. Vitalis likewise shone with lilied heart, addressing the citizens thus: "Not one flower only grew from my breast: as many of you as are pious citizens, you are my flowers." Moreover the praised Archbishop Paris signified his piety toward St. Vitalis when, among the works with which he fortified the city of Salzburg and its castles, he placed under the name and protection of this Saint the gate of the city beside the Juvavus or Salzach river, whence it is also known by another name as the water gate (commonly Wasserthor), furnished with a tower and bulwark; where also a marble statue of St. Vitalis was placed within a little shrine or niche [Hansiz, p. 1061; Geographisches Lexikon von Baiern, volume III, under the word Salzburg, column 162]. The same prelate, when a male child had been born to his own brother Christopher Lodron, offered a thousand imperial coins (commonly called thalers) at the tomb of the Saint for adorning the altar [Pachler, Disquisition IV, chapter II, p. 81; Mezger, book V, chapter XXV, pp. 732 and 733].

[118] are paid to him. From that time also, as the writers of the Novissimum Chronicon testify Page 80, the feast-day of St. Vitalis began to be kept more splendidly every year in the abbey of St. Peter's, the abbot himself presiding at the sacred Offices (which is peculiar to the more important solemnities) and some preacher pronouncing a panegyric oration on the Saint; besides which in the year 1727 afternoon Litanies were introduced for a whole octave. There were added, as was written to Bollandus in the year 1651 by a monk of St. Peter's, plenary indulgences granted in the year 1647 by Innocent X for seven years to all who, having confessed and been refreshed with holy communion, should devoutly visit the church of St. Peter on the feast-day of St. Vitalis, beginning from first Vespers, and there pour forth pious prayers to God for the accustomed intentions of the Roman Pontiff. And the altar, for whose placing a site was already being prepared in the year 1627, and which Mezger says was set up by Wolfgang Flekhamer Book VI, p. 1114, was consecrated in the year 1642, as the same writer testifies, in honour of St. Vitalis by John Christopher von Liechtenstein, bishop of Chiemsee; and thence it began to be given its name from this Saint, as is done by Pachler Place cited, Mezger Place cited and Hansiz P. 1065: although the instruments presently to be adduced will show that the title of St. Andrew, which it bore before, had not yet ceased in the year 1762. And up to that year indeed the sepulchral monument of St. Vitalis remained such as we saw it described before; except that after the detection of the relics made in the year 1627 it was contracted into a somewhat narrower space, lest it should be an impediment to the new altar: namely the stone bearing the carved effigy of the Saint, whereas before it had lain wholly parallel to the horizon, was then placed in such a position that with its hinder part toward the wall of the church it was higher, and with its front part toward the people sloping. A lamp burned continually beside the sepulchre, which, having been discontinued for some time, was restored in the year 1662: there were seen there the old two-part panel, votive images and offerings of every kind; of which we have very many recorded above in the Acts of canonization.

[119] At length in the year 1762 The one thing which almost remained for completing the cult of St. Vitalis among the people of Salzburg, namely that his sacred bones, which had rested so long beneath the pavement, should at some time be exalted above the earth, was at length effected at the close of the year 1762, as the authors of the Novissimum Chronicon, eyewitnesses, report P. 69 and following. "While then," they say, "after so many years our ancient church was in need of internal and external renovation, and therefore put on another, more regular appearance, the abbot of this monastery, Beda (surnamed Seeauer), offered a petition to the Most Eminent prince and archbishop Sigismund, of the counts of Schrattenbach, that it might be permitted not only, in the presence of a Most Reverend commissary and a notary public, the great marble stone being removed, to raise the relics of St. Vitalis and to transfer them for a time, but also in the same place, for greater beauty, in perpetual memory of a sepulchre renowned for so many benefits, to build a new altar of marble: so that under a marble and more ornate tomb that tin sarcophagus containing the bones of St. Vitalis and of the three others might be laid away, and at the same time in this new altar, where the sepulchre of St. Vitalis is, the sacrifices of the Mass might be celebrated. The Most Eminent Ordinary most clemently assented to the most humble prayers; and for the first elevation and respective translation the third day of November of the same year was designated: but for the second translation, by the time that heavy stone had been removed and the new marble tomb of the altar prepared, the thirteenth day of December. And what was done in this twofold elevation and respective translation two instruments drawn up on the faith of a notary public will teach."

[120] his body raised from the earth The former of these instruments runs thus: "In the name of Christ. Amen. To all and each who shall see, read or hear read this present public instrument, be it known and evidently manifest: that in the year from the Nativity of Christ one thousand seven hundred and sixty-two, in the Roman indiction X, in the fifth year of the Pontificate of the Most Holy Father in Christ and our Lord Clement XIII, by divine providence Pope, the Most Serene Prince Francis I, Emperor of the Romans ever august, reigning, in the eighteenth year of his rule, on the third day of the month of November, at the prayers offered to the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Archbishop and Prince of the Holy Roman Empire of Salzburg, etc., by the Most Reverend and Most Ample Lord Beda, abbot at St. Peter's, the Most Reverend, illustrious and most distinguished Lord Joseph Christopher Mayr, doctor of both laws, privy counsellor of his aforesaid Most Reverend Highness, consistorial director and canon of the collegiate church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Snows, as most clemently deputed commissary, was received in the abbey of the monastery by the Most Reverend Lord abbot and the whole venerable chapter assembled in their cowls, and was led through the sacristy to the sepulchre of St. Vitalis situated in the church of the same monastery: where from about half past one in the afternoon to half past two, the walls being broken on either side, a tin tomb six feet long, two broad and one and a half deep, laid there one hundred and thirty-five years before, appeared; which, being still fortified with one old seal, and recognized by the Most Reverend Lord commissary, was sealed by me, the notary, with new seals, and, the sacred relics having first been censed by the aforesaid Lord abbot in pontificals, was translated meanwhile by six Fathers of the same convent onto the altar of St. Andrew, and was covered over with a new wall on the front side of the altar, a crowded throng of persons of both sexes and of every state looking on. These things were done in the often-named monastery and church at St. Peter's in Salzburg, in the year, indiction, month, day, pontificate, reign and time as above: there being present there the very Reverend Lords Benedict Schmuzer and Antony Schipfl, vicars of the metropolitan choir, witnesses worthy of credence and singularly called and asked for the premises. And I, Francis Leopold Stegmayr, doctor of Sacred Theology, canon of the collegiate church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Snows, consistorial counsellor and secretary and notary public matriculated in the archive of the Roman curia, because I was present at all and each of these things, while they were done as is premised, together with the aforesaid Lords witnesses, have therefore made a public instrument thereupon, subscribed it with my own hand, and affixed the accustomed signet of my notariate together with my seal in faith of the premises, being specially called and required. Francis Leopold Stegmayr, notary, as above."

[121] into the marble tomb of a new altar The words of the other instrument, those being omitted which can sufficiently be gathered from the former, are the following: "In the name of Christ. Amen. To all … be it known … that … on the thirteenth day of December … the Lord Joseph Christopher Mayr … as most clemently deputed commissary, was most courteously received about two o'clock in the afternoon in the abbey of the monastery at St. Peter's by the Most Reverend and Most Ample Lord Beda, abbot, and by the whole venerable chapter assembled in their cowls, and was led through the sacristy to the altar of St. Andrew, under which in a tin tomb the relics of St. Vitalis had been laid away for a time: where, the wall which up to then guarded the tomb with the relics being destroyed, the aforesaid tomb, the Most Reverend Lord abbot appearing in pontificals with the accustomed ministers, was set by six Reverend Fathers vested in stoles from its place at the foot of the altar in the middle, the seals having first been recognized, and was opened, the lid being removed; and in the same, in the sight of the Most Reverend Lord commissary, of me the notary and of the witnesses, St. Vitalis in a more honourable place, separate from the others,

divided, and those of the three anonymous persons found together and as it were at the feet of St. Vitalis, the sacred relics were exposed to the eyes of all in an innumerable concourse of people; and the tomb thereafter was sealed anew by me, the notary, with new seals, and, the antiphon 'Priest and Pontiff,' etc. being intoned and the hymn 'Iste Confessor Domini,' etc. being intoned in figured music by the musicians, it was raised by six priests of the same convent and with due reverence placed again, the sacred relics having been censed once more, in the marble tomb; and the sepulchral stone, or table of the altar, by which the tomb itself in which the relics are is guarded, was laid upon it; finally, a seemly carpet with a footstool and cushion having been prepared for the Most Reverend Lord commissary in the middle before the high altar, the Ambrosian hymn 'Te Deum laudamus,' etc., was intoned by the Most Reverend Lord abbot and solemnly sung by the musicians, and so an end was put to this solemnity. These things were done, etc., as in the other instrument."

[122] erected under his name, is enclosed. "A little after," the historiographers just named add, "when this tin tomb, containing the bones of St. Vitalis and of the three others, was enclosed in the marble tomb, a whole new altar rose of new marble in honour of St. Vitalis to preserve the perpetual memory of the sepulchre; in which is seen placed a statue of St. Vitalis in proper figure, and above a painted image representing three blessed men, whoever at length they were, with the inscription: 'Saint Vitalis, bishop, and three others'; and below these words are read: 'The Sepulchre of Saint Vitalis, bishop of Salzburg.' And that the memory of the sepulchre may remain the more firmly in the minds of the faithful, in the middle of the marble tomb an open place has remained, covered with gilded gratings, through which at all times a view lies open to the tin sarcophagus itself, to which is affixed an image of St. Vitalis resting in the tomb, and in which sarcophagus the bones of St. Vitalis and of the three others, as we have often said, are contained. And that great stone of red marble was placed behind, that its memory too might not be wholly abolished." Namely behind the altar, not within the church of St. Peter itself, but in the chapel of St. Catherine, which we said above (no. 67) adjoins the southern side of the church, that stone is fixed in the wall by its upper part, sloping at its lower part, so that that epigraph cut on the lowest border lies open to the view of the people: "The prelate Vitalis lies here and heals the sick," etc. [Pillwein, Legenden Heiliger Gottes, p. 243; Geographisches Lexikon von Baiern, volume III, under the word Salzburg, columns 194 and 195]. And at the present time, as the Reverend Father Michael Filz, prior of Michaelbeuern of the Order of St. Benedict, lately wrote back to us, the sepulchre of St. Vitalis still stands to be seen in the same place and in the same condition as in the year 1762.

[123] Various effigies of St. Vitalis, both painted It remains that we add from the little book of Amandus Pachler some things concerning the images of St. Vitalis and his (as some will have it) sacred vestments and relics. Pachler enumerates eleven images Disquisition IV, chapter III, p. 82 and following, of which four are mentioned in the process of canonization. The first is that which represents the ordination of the Saint and some of his miracles (see above, no. 96); of which the praised writer says: "Concerning this image I would wish you to note that in the upper part of the panel two bishops are seen holding a church in their hands before the altar and in the church, two in copes assisting, and very many monks of our Order present in monastic habit, a certain princely person standing at a distance in a black habit and a long gown reaching to the ankles and a mantle, courtiers and very many secular persons attending him: by which accordingly it is understood that the church was handed over by St. Rupert to St. Vitalis in the presence of clergy and people, and, on the testimony of MS. G, folio 75, §14, that prince seems to represent Theodebert, duke of Bavaria, with his courtiers; which is credible, because St. Rupert died under Theodebert, and Blessed Vitalis succeeded." The second is the image of the funeral of St. Vitalis (no. 95), which, as Pachler says, whether it was painted on some movable panel or on the very masonry ground of the wall is not known; and it is more probable that it was a painted work laid on the wall itself, and that accordingly, the sepulchre being changed and the wall renewed, the painting was effaced and whitewashed: for nowhere today do even traces of this painting appear. The third is the image formerly hung on the altar of St. Andrew (no. 96); and of this image or of the altar of St. Andrew no trace any longer exists, a new altar of St. Andrew having been erected in the year 1627 and entitled with the name of St. Vitalis. The fourth is that which was seen in the glass about the tomb (number cited); and of it Pachler writes: "Of this glass image John Stainhauser says, in chapter II of his Life, folios 9 and 10, that that window or glass image was taken away by Abbot Martin and honourably kept, lest it should perish, since on account of its antiquity it could scarcely hold together any longer. But although we have sought it most diligently in our whole monastery, yet we have no longer been able to find it." The same author calls the fifth that which was seen in the old church of St. Peter, before it was renovated, about the high altar with the images of St. Rupert and five others, as we have already indicated above (no. 82).

[124] and carved, Then he proceeds: "VI. An image, though small and slight, yet old, is affixed to a certain wooden panel with a lily and a pastoral staff, on which is inscribed an Ode composed in honour of St. Vitalis by John Panetianus Compare Disquisition VII, chapter IV, p. 203 and following… The panel is still present, written in a scarcely legible character, and formerly seems to have been hung at the tomb of St. Vitalis. VII. There is also present in the sacristy a more recent silver-gilt bust image of St. Vitalis with a silver lily about the breast. VIII. There is present a painted image before the chamber of the lord abbot among other abbots, which however does not seem to be very ancient, representing St. Vitalis in pontifical habit with a lilied heart, with this inscription below: 'St. Vitalis, abbot of St. Peter's and successor of St. Rupert in the episcopate, renowned for sanctity and miracles, departed from life in the year 646.' The ninth image is the stone of the sepulchre itself, which bears the figure of St. Vitalis in pontifical habit, radiate about the temples, with a lily set at the breast. Finally, today in our church an effigy of St. Vitalis skilfully carved in wood is seen both on the high altar at the Epistle horn and on the altar of St. Vitalis itself; on which altar wretched persons of every kind, the sick, the withered, the lame, etc., are offered to Blessed Vitalis seated in the clouds: there are present also very many votive images hung about his tomb and altar, which were offered by the faithful to St. Vitalis, and which stand exposed to the eyes of all, in almost all of which St. Vitalis is depicted with a lily or a lilied heart." Thus far he. That now also on the new marble altar erected in the year 1762 a statue of the Saint exists was said a little before (no. 122); and we long ago mentioned the marble statue erected by Paris Lodron, archbishop of Salzburg, at the water gate, or gate of St. Vitalis, of the city (no. 117).

[125] sacred vestments, Of the vestments, whose origin some have derived from SS. Rupert and Vitalis, Pachler writes the following Disquisition IV, chapter IV, p. 86 and following: "There are in our sacristy first of all two ancient copes or chasubles made in the ancient fashion, closed all round like a bell, open only about the neck, so that the head alone can emerge: one chasuble of this kind is of black colour, and very torn and weak; the other is of green colour, and of a firm and strong material, which no merchant today can call or name. On the black chasuble, along the borders, letters inserted in Phrygian work are read:

'This bright vestment at the altar of Peter Henry the sinner made: may he be his helper.'

There are present also three most ancient mitres, low in the ancient form, of silken material interspersed with threads of gold, and somewhat adorned with silver ornaments, on one of which small letters woven in golden threads can scarcely be read, yet these verses still appear legible:

'Star of the sea that goest before, rightly art thou called the way for the fallen, Give to the heart light to know the true Godhead, And bring in the ardour that nourishes the love of things above. Hail, give me thy name as solace and omen. From me, pious Virgin Mary, drive out the threefold Enemies, and come, soothe me with the sacred breath. Rising above the ethers thou shalt applaud the divine praises.'

There is present moreover a pastoral staff, with a pennon hanging from it, of most ancient work resembling plaster, laid over a wooden staff: there is present also a smaller staff with an ivory handle; likewise a silver chalice with paten of most ancient form; moreover a leather girdle, adorned with silver plates and clasps, wrapped in network lest it be broken.

[126] which some derive from him, "These monuments, I say, in our age are exposed and hung up every year on the feast of the death of St. Vitalis, the 20th of October, at his altar to be seen publicly, as most devout monuments of holy antiquity: whence it has come about that all these things are today thought to have been left by St. Vitalis, as his relics. But I find in MS. R, folio 497, under Abbot Peter, that all these things indeed, except only the girdle, were preserved in our sacristy about the year 1462, yet that not all were at that time held to be relics of St. Vitalis… The same description of the sacred things made under Abbot Peter and Fr. Stephen, vice-custodian, in the year 1462 I found on a separate slip, … where the same words of the Lord Abbot Peter concerning these holy vestments are found, and no mention is made of the girdle of St. Vitalis; which is perhaps an indication that this girdle was formerly kept not in the sacristy but perhaps in the archive of the monastery. For that in the time of the Lord Abbot Peter that girdle was already held in great honour is clearly evident from two letters given to Abbot Peter by the most serene duchess of Bavaria Anna, wife of Duke Albert the Pious, who in the year 1448, being near childbirth, asked this girdle by letter from the Lord Abbot Peter, and sent it back; again she asked it in the following year, being near childbirth. Both letters we have in the original." And Pachler copies them out entire in the German idiom in which they were written; but we, since they contain nothing worthy of note, pass them over. "From these letters," he proceeds, "it is gathered that this girdle was already at that time held in the highest honour, and was very often applied to women in childbirth; which also to this day many near childbirth

women ask, devoutly gird themselves with it, and for the most part are happily delivered, as we shall bring forward very many testimonies below… Moreover this is to be noticed, that this girdle at that time was held not as the girdle of St. Vitalis, but of St. Rupert, as those letters openly say (where it is called S. Rueprechts Gürtl St. Rupert's girdle); although at this time it is commonly called the girdle of St. Vitalis. But it could have been of both: for what was left by St. Rupert St. Vitalis too certainly held in the highest honour and left to posterity."

[127] and particles of his bones Further, concerning the treasures already enumerated, the Reverend Father Michael Filz wrote back to us thus on the 27th day of June 1852 from his convent of St. Michael at Beuern: "There still remain in the treasury of the monastery of St. Peter two ancient copes or chasubles and mitres with pastoral staffs, a silver chalice and a leather girdle. But whether they are to be ascribed to St. Rupert or to St. Vitalis, already the ancients hesitated in doubt. Neither the one nor the other opinion pleases me. That the cope was left in memory of himself by Henry I, abbot (who presided over the monastery from the year 1147 to 1167, then over the bishopric of Gurk up to the year 1174), the verses inserted in Phrygian work along the borders sufficiently indicate… To the same Henry one mitre also seems to be ascribed on account of the verses of the same metre. Such remains I do not dare to refer back to the age of St. Rupert or St. Vitalis, on account of the too great antiquity indeed, which to us coming so late has left nothing but bones." And of the bones of St. Vitalis themselves these things are noted by Pachler Place cited, pp. 90 and 91: "I find in MS. T, an ancient codex, the most ancient consecrations of the altars and chapels and churches of ours, in which however up to the year 1629 I nowhere found that relics of St. Vitalis were enclosed in any altar; whereas of our other Patrons, as SS. Martin, Rupert, Amandus, Virgilius, Chunialdus, Gislarius, Chrysanthus, Daria, Hermes, etc., whose relics Salzburg preserves, I find several times that particles were enclosed in the sacred altars: which doubtless arises from this, that there were no relics of his holy body outside the sepulchre before the year 1627. For when in the year 1627 the body had been found, the Lord Abbot Albert kept some particles, small ones however, outside the tomb, of which he caused some in the year 1629 to be enclosed in the altar consecrated in the chapel in Peterslind erected by the same, likewise also in the year 1642 in the altar of St. Vitalis newly consecrated, and in the same year in the altar of SS. Wolfgang and Benedict in the chapel near the entrance of our church; as is gathered from the tables of consecrations in the same MS. T."

ANCIENT MIRACLES OF ST. VITALIS

produced in the process of canonization Compare the Preliminary Commentary, nos. 72 and 91.

Vitalis, bishop and confessor, at Salzburg in Germany. (S.)

BHL Number: 8706

FROM THE ACTS OF CANONIZATION.

From the year 1181 In the year, therefore, of the Incarnation of the Lord 1181, the signs written below had such a beginning and commencement ^a. A certain woman, the wife of a certain citizen of Salzburg, was very much swollen, and had her belly so inflated as if, as she herself confessed, she were pregnant with twins. With pain so biting her and instantly threatening death, she came to the sepulchre of Blessed Vitalis, and asking with great faith for her health, she stretched her whole body over the sepulchre of the Saint, and through prayers received full health. A certain youth, dwelling not far from the city, possessed, was brought there by his parents, and being placed upon the sepulchre of the aforesaid Confessor, through the many prayers and tears of those standing around he was freed from the demon with a casting out of blood. Likewise the wife of a certain baker of the city had fallen into so great a sickness that she asked for and received the viaticum from the priest. Having received it, she began to be contracted in hands and feet and to become dumb, and vowing in her mind a candle to the sepulchre of Blessed Vitalis, in the same hour she recovered both voice and strength. A certain man of the household of the church of St. Peter, out of his mind, when after frequent visitation of the Saints he had not at all been healed, was at length led by his father to the tomb of the same Confessor, and by his merits intervening recovered his former health. A certain boy sprung from the place which is called Putlingen ^b, crooked in his left foot and right hand, came there, and having poured out prayers there for a little while, was perfectly cured in both. Likewise a boy from Krayndorff ^c, when he was vexed by an unclean spirit, was brought to the sepulchre of Blessed Virgilius and was cured: then, having returned home, he was agitated by the same infestation of the evil spirit as before; when at length he was carried by his mother to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, he received wholly perfect health. Not long after, a certain energumen girl from St. Florian ^d was brought there, who, very many persons both religious and lay being present before her, was cured by the mercy of God.

[2] the patronage of St. Vitalis A certain honourable widow from the market-town of Creynburck ^e had a child of almost five years, who from birth had lacked all power of walking; and being placed upon the sepulchre of the aforenamed Confessor, having received the power of walking through the merits of Blessed Vitalis, he followed after his mother, who had withdrawn a little for the sake of prayer, and came up to her. Likewise a certain blind man from Eringen ^f in the bishopric of Passau, when he had prayed devoutly there for his illumination, received light. Likewise another boy from Taghartingen ^g, grievously vexed by a demon, when he had been brought to Blessed Vitalis, was fully freed by his merits intervening. A certain girl also, the daughter of a certain woman of Eckstatt ^h, had become dumb and weak in her feet; and while her mother implored for her the grace of God and the prayers of Blessed Vitalis, while still remaining at home she began to speak, and being brought to his sepulchre she also recovered her walking. A certain woman from Ulspruch ⁱ, weak in the foot and having a crooked hand, poured out prayers there; then, when she had withdrawn a little, she was cured not far from the sepulchre. Another poor little woman from Nendilszkirchen, when she had come there for the sake of prayer, having only one coin, doubted whether she should offer it to Blessed Vitalis or spend it for her need: being thus placed in doubt, she at length resolved to offer it to the Saint of God; which done, touching again the edge of her veil, from which she had untied it, she found there, wonderful to say, another coin.

[3] the sick Likewise a woman of the city of Salzburg laboured with so great a sickness that, contracted in her legs, she was wholly despaired of: who, when, prostrate at the sepulchre of Blessed Vitalis, she had offered a candle made to the measure of her body, being led back home between hands, rested a little in her bed; and being released from her trouble, running back to the church with a great crowd of the faithful, she gave thanks to God and Blessed Vitalis for the health received. Likewise at another time a girl who had been dumb from birth, brought to the sepulchre of the holy man, after the entreaty and offering of her parents, while she was withdrawing from the sepulchre, began to speak in the vestibule of the church. Moreover a certain blind boy from Osterhoffen ^k, carried there by his parents, recovered his sight; at which miracle venerable parish priests were present. A certain woman from Leibnitz ^l, who, as her parish priest and other neighbours testified, had been blind for three years, coming to the sepulchre of Blessed Vitalis, after prayers poured out there merited to be heard and illuminated. Likewise a certain blind woman from Pruckkirchen ^m, remaining at home, was admonished in sleep that she should visit the sepulchre of Blessed Vitalis and pour out prayers there to the Lord for her health: then, making a candle to the measure of her head, before she had arrived there she recovered her sight. Another woman likewise from Erdendorff ⁿ was seized by a demon: but as the signs at Salzburg at the sepulchres of the Saints were growing more frequent, her friends brought her there; and when for the sake of obtaining health she frequented the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, and implored his help with continual prayers, by his merits she obtained the effect of her prayers. A certain man from Purckhausen ^o was so dissolved by paralysis in his whole body that he was carried between the hands of friends to the thresholds of the Saints: but at last, when he had been carried to the Blessed one, he commended himself with inmost prayers to God and to the aforesaid Confessor; and having returned home, he was restored to the desired health.

[4] and from various evils There were certain three men who by a common vow had determined to visit the Saints at Salzburg: but when on that very journey they needed to cross the Danube, in the middle of the river, the ship being sunk with all their things and the wares of the merchants which they were carrying, they were in peril; but by the will of God, when in that very crisis of death one had implored the help of Blessed Rudbert, the second of Blessed Vitalis and the third of Blessed Virgilius, each of these Saints came to the aid of the one calling upon him, and so they escaped shipwreck, so that they lost nothing of what they were carrying, except the wares of the merchants [p]. A certain parish priest from the March, from the place which is called Stubenberg [q], accompanied by his parishioners, had come to Blessed Vitalis; where, when among the offerings of the rest a certain man had offered a denarius, it leapt out of the vessel in which he had placed it, the priest and others seeing and being astonished: and a certain woman who was kneeling nearest to it in prayer, stretching out her hand, seized the offering itself, and having poured out prayers to the Lord that He would deign to receive it from her, put it back in its place. Another man from the parish of Stulfelden [r], about to make an offering there, was carrying in his right hand a candle and in his left myrrh; but in the offering of the candle he suddenly found the myrrh adhering to his lips and teeth: which done, that faithful man, turned to wonder, took it from his mouth and suppliantly placed it on the tomb of Blessed Vitalis. A certain man from Volckenmarckt [s] brought his blind daughter to Blessed Vitalis: when he had persevered in prayers for her for three days, he resolved to return home, hoping to be heard by God for the illumination of his daughter through the merits of Blessed Vitalis; nor was he frustrated of his hope: on his very return, approaching his home, he obtained what he had asked for his daughter [t].

[5] various A certain Carantanian also had an arm wholly disabled by withering: he, having learned of the power of the signs of Blessed Vitalis, determined to visit his memorial for his health with prayers and offerings, and by the merits of the aforesaid Confessor, while still remaining at home, obtained the desired health. A certain beggar from Helingersperge [u] came to the sepulchre of the aforementioned Confessor, who for some time already had lacked the use of his eyes: he, when he had continued three days there in prayers, effectually obtained the sight which he faithfully asked. A certain woman of the citizens of Salzburg, affected with a long languor, at length took to her bed, and began to be contracted in the whole framework of her members: having therefore invoked the help of Blessed Vitalis, she obtained a sudden cure, his merits intervening. Likewise a certain sick woman from the town of Hall [x], for the sake of obtaining health, had visited St. Vitalis; but after prayers she returned home, held nevertheless by the same infirmity as before: but on the day before the anniversary of the same memorable Father, she was divinely admonished in sleep that she ought the same day of the anniversary with

devout fasting; and when on waking she distrusted that she could fulfil this on account of her weakness, yet, strengthened by the help of God and the exhortations of her mother, to whom she related the dream she had seen, she discharged the appointed fast on bread and water, and thereupon in the following night was restored to perfect health by the merits of her Patron.

[6] affected The abbot of a certain venerable monastery which is called Mosnize [y] had fallen into adverse health, and when he had spent much expense on physicians, he was at length despaired of by them, who said that only the sepulchre remained for him. But when some of the brethren suggested to him that he should implore the help of the Saints whose memorials are kept at Salzburg, he pleaded that formerly, while still sound in body, he had paid them no veneration. The brethren on the contrary exhorted him that he ought not for that reason to despair, but that the help of God through the merits of the same Saints should be implored in so great a crisis. He therefore acquiesced in those who counselled him as brothers, and by the will of God choosing Saint Vitalis before others, he commended himself to his patronage to be healed; whom God with wonderful speed restored to the desired health by the intervention of His Confessor. A certain matron of the city of Salzburg had a little infant labouring with a grave sickness; when she had brought him with faithful vows to the memorial of Blessed Vitalis on his anniversary day, she paid prayers and offerings to the Lord there for him: then she betook herself home with the infant, and, consigning him under the protection of the aforesaid Confessor, she laid herself in bed and the boy in the cradle to sleep. All, then, being sunk in slumber, a lighted candle, which had been left too incautiously beside him, caught the infant's wrappings, and enveloped both him and the clothes in flames: but the mother, waking at the crackling of the fire, the clothes being now burned off all round, snatched out unhurt, by the merits of Blessed Vitalis, the infant, whom the wonderful power of God preserved like the three boys in the furnace of fire. Likewise a certain woman of the same city, contracted in her legs by paralysis, had taken to her bed; she, affected with long pain, had a candle made to the measure of her body, to be carried to Blessed Vitalis for obtaining health, and, it being completed, she was restored to the desired health.

[7] experience. The wife of a certain citizen of Salzburg, who had been blind, was assiduously imploring Blessed Vitalis for her illumination: on a certain night, therefore, the same Confessor of God appeared to her in a vision, carrying in his hand a medicinal powder; which sprinkling on her eyes, he seemed to have driven away all blindness. Awakened then from sleep, she found herself so fully restored to the use of her eyes as if she had never suffered anything amiss in them. Another woman likewise, of approved life, was most grievously held by the pain which they call by the physician's name phthisis, so much that often, as if suffocated, she was believed about to expire: when it had occurred to her mind to implore the help of Blessed Vitalis for that weakness, she came to his sepulchre, and praying to the Lord there, was wholly snatched from that ailment. A certain woman of Austria, a citizen of Vienna, seized by a demon, was miserably vexed: who, when she had been brought to the memorial of the aforesaid Confessor, was freed by his merits and prayers. The little infant of a certain poor woman, now almost five years old, had been both lame and dumb from his mother's womb: who, when he had been carried by his mother to the tomb of the Blessed man with frequent vows of prayers, was saved by the divine clemency from the trouble of both infirmities. In like manner also, when another woman had a blind daughter, she visited the sepulchre of that Holy Confessor with her; where, when she had offered prayers and oblations to the Lord, she returned home, and obtained the grace of the desired illumination in her daughter. Likewise a certain woman of Flossingen [z], having a son lame by contraction of the knees, arranged with pious devotion of mind that for the veil which she had heard was to be made for the Blessed one she too would send some small portion of thread from the labour of her hands for her son's health. With the same threads, then, in hope of the merits of St. Vitalis, she wrapped the boy, and presently, by the intervention of the Blessed Confessor and the faith of the Martyr, the boy, saved, received the power of walking. The fame of which miracle indeed came to the ears of a certain matron who, through a pain of the head by which she was exceedingly vexed, had been deprived of the sight of one eye. She too therefore arranged to send to his tomb a like portion of threads, which she had vowed to be devoutly offered to Blessed Vitalis, and wrapping the same threads likewise about her head, she obtained the remedy of health. Likewise a certain boy named Frederick, of the household of St. Peter's, contracted and dumb, was carried by his parents to the sepulchre of St. Vitalis; where, when prayers were made for him by the faithful, the merits of the Saint himself intervening, he was freed from the trouble of both ailments [aa].

ANNOTATIONS.

p. The deliverance of this shipwrecked man is probably that which was seen depicted at the sepulchre of St. Vitalis, as we saw at no. 96 of the Preliminary Commentary.

q. By the March understand here Styria, commonly Steyermark, in which lies the castle of Stubenberg, not far from the town of Hartberg, near Hungary.

r. The parish of Stuhlfelden is near the village of Mittersill in the Pinzgau, on which see no. 65 of the Preliminary Commentary.

s. It is permitted to doubt whether there is question here of the village of Vöcklamarkt, which has its name from the stream Vöckla, and is met by those going from Salzburg to Linz, or rather of the little town of Völkermarkt on the river Drava in Carinthia.

t. To this twenty-fourth miracle Pachler subjoins Place cited, p. 127: "These things were read on the first wing or leaf of that panel. And on the other, the following."

u. To the name Helingersperge, which I for my part have sought in vain, Hilgartsberg or Hilkersperg in the diocese of Passau seems sufficiently near.

x. The township of Hall is the town of Reichenhall, three leagues from Salzburg on the river Saale. It is most celebrated for its very copious salt-works.

y. I would wish to be taught what that monastery called Mosnize is or was, which for my part, investigating, I nowhere met with. The name Muschnitz is noted in the Map which accompanies Zeiller's Topography of Styria in Matthäus Merian's Frankfurt edition, and a village of that name seems to lie on the borders of Styria and Carinthia on a stream which not far from there is joined to the river Lavant, between Obdach and Reichenfels.

z. The village of Flossing is situated near the right bank of the Inn opposite the town of Mühldorf in Bavaria.

aa. This last miracle, which is the thirty-ninth, is absent from Basnage's edition of Canisius; but it is brought forward by Amandus Pachler from the old panel: and that the miracles were in fact thirty-nine in number is established from the process of canonization. Compare the Preliminary Commentary, no. 98.

MIRACLES OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

reduced to a compendium from the process of canonization by Father Amandus Pachler Disquisitions on St. Vitalis, Disquisition VI, chapter IV, p. 130 and following.

Vitalis, bishop and confessor, at Salzburg in Germany. (S.)

BHL Number: 8706

BY A. PACHLER.

Miracles in the process of canonization are reported by the first witness, When in the year 1462 eighty-nine witnesses had been required under oath to bear testimony concerning the fame of the miracles and sanctity of Blessed Vitalis, these in no small number spontaneously deposed some benefits of cures which they themselves, either in themselves or in others, as living and eye-witnesses, saw and experienced; which indeed are described at greater length in Canisius, volume VI, in the process itself: these I am not loath to insert briefly into this disquisition, that it may shine forth how great at that time was the public opinion and fame of the sanctity of Blessed Vitalis ^a. And first of all the Lords delegates began to seek out testimonies of miracles from the Lord Abbot Peter himself; who indeed was present at the inquiry into the miracles not as a witness, but as subdelegate: but the Most Reverend Lords delegates thought they would receive the best information from the Lord abbot of the place in which Blessed Vitalis rests in body. Whence the Lord Peter himself also took the oath, and as first special witness deposed that 45 years before he had been a novice in the said monastery of St. Peter; where, when afflicted with a grievous toothache

he had been, so that his face swelled up so that no one recognized him, and having been held by this infirmity for almost a month, at length on the advice of another fellow-novice he took the tapers which by the custom of the monastery were given to the novices for the night, and offered and lit them at the tomb of St. Vitalis, and himself prostrated himself at the tomb, and devoutly invoked the patronage of Blessed Vitalis: whence, the pain being presently mitigated, a few days after he was fully restored. The Lord Abbot Peter having been thus examined, and having been taken up again as subdelegate inquisitor, he received with the other Most Reverend Lords delegates and subdelegates the oaths of the other witnesses and their testimonies of miracles.

[9] the 2nd, 12th, 16th, 17th, The second witness required was the Reverend Lord Hadmar, of the Order of Canons Regular, dean of the cathedral church of Salzburg: who confessed that he had been freed from a most grievous pain of the head by invoking the patronage of Blessed Vitalis, and that on this account he venerated him as a special Patron ^b. The noble Lord Ulrich Panichner, required and examined as the 12th witness, confessed that he had seen by chance in the market-place a countryman who was carrying two feet, one of wood, the other of iron. The countryman, being asked whither he was going with these feet, answered that he was carrying them for the sake of a vow to the tomb of St. Vitalis, having been long lame in both feet, and now cured by the merits of Blessed Vitalis without other medicine. The Reverend Lord John Saller, 16th witness, dean of the vicars of the cathedral church, when in the year 1457 he was affected with no moderate pain in the right leg and the sinews, vowed that he would offer ten tapers to Blessed Vitalis. Scarcely was the vow completed when the pain diminished, and a few days afterwards John was restored to entire health. The Reverend Lord John Impach, a priest of the diocese of Salzburg, 17th witness, confessed that, being already initiated in the priesthood, he had been for almost seven years so deprived of the use of his eyes and of the light of day that he could not see a letter, much less read; that, various medicines being applied, he had made no progress: but that, having conceived a vow to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, and prayers having been paid with the greatest devotion, that he might acquire at least so much light that he could read Mass and the canonical Hours, he presently received some light, and a few days after was gifted with so perfect a sight that he could read the canonical Hours and Masses according to the wish of his heart; and therefore he reckoned Blessed Vitalis among his special Patrons.

[10] the 18th, 19th, 20th, William Pirger, a citizen of Salzburg, 18th witness, familiar with and agreeable to Archbishop Burchard, a prudent and well-known man, testifies under oath that he has several children, who, when held by various infirmities, as often as their mother had vowed them to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, were always restored to health; moreover that he himself, formerly seized with a grievous pain of the eyes, devoutly paid prayers at the sepulchre of Blessed Vitalis and was restored to health a few days after. The Reverend Lord Henry Plaichueber, a cleric of the diocese of Salzburg, in the 60th year of his age, 19th witness, testified under oath that 40 years before he had been affected with such pains of the eyes that in the judgment of the physicians natural remedies no longer remained by which he could be relieved and freed from the three years' blindness into which he had on that account fallen. But having conceived hope in Blessed Vitalis, the fame of whose miracles was then spreading in the neighbourhood, he went to his tomb; where, prayers having been made and wooden eyes offered, the pain being at once wiped away, he received a little light, and, prayers being then continued for several days, he was fully restored to health. The noble man Sigismund Keuzel, 20th witness, of 58 years of age, deposes under oath that in his youth, 46 years before, he served the Lord Otto, abbot of St. Peter's: at which time very many demoniacs and possessed persons were brought to Abbot Otto; whom when the abbot had led to the tomb of St. Vitalis and had devoutly poured out prayers for them, all were freed from the demons. Moreover he confessed that he had had in his house a respectable person who had a daughter weighed down by a long infirmity; wherefore the matron, named Margaret Karterin, on the advice of other women friends vowed the girl to the tomb of St. Vitalis, and, prayers being made, obtained entire health for her daughter.

[11] the 21st, 22nd, 23rd, George Clauser, merchant and citizen of Salzburg, testified in the 21st place that he had had a wife, of whom he had had some children, whom however cruel death had all taken away; that at length five years before he had got a little daughter, which infant so abhorred her mother's breasts for fourteen days that she was near to death through weakness. But at night in sleep the wife seemed to be admonished to take something of the earth of the sepulchre of Blessed Vitalis and to anoint her breast. The woman, awakened, related the dream to her mother: who presently, running to the sepulchre, took up earth and anointed her daughter's breast; whereby it came about that the infant thereafter sucked, and grew strong to firm health. Burchard Nestler, astronomer and citizen of Salzburg, 22nd witness, confessed that he had seen many children who had been freed from various ailments through the merits of St. Vitalis. Moreover he said that he had been present when Ulrich Panichner (as was said in the third miracle) questioned the countryman, and that he had heard from the countryman that miracle, that, being lame in both feet, he had been restored to health through the merits of Blessed Vitalis. The Reverend Lord Conrad Fischer, a priest of the diocese of Salzburg, 23rd witness, of 60 years, professed under oath that 30 years before, while he was in charge of the school in the monastery of St. Zeno near the town of Hall (today Reichenhall), he had heard from John Kessner, an honourable and wealthy layman, that for a whole year he had lain in bed with a grievous infirmity, and, many medicines having been applied, nay and invocations of the Saints, had felt no relief of the disease: until at length, admonished in sleep to vow himself to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, he had a bed made of wax, with the figure of the sick man laid upon it; which waxen likeness being finished, he so recovered that he betook himself on foot to Salzburg to offer his vow at the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, where at length, his prayer completed, he obtained perfect health, and returned joyful to his own home, and thereafter venerated Blessed Vitalis every day as a powerful Patron. Moreover he attested that he had seen several little children held by various infirmities, and that they, brought to the sepulchre of Blessed Vitalis, had recovered: that he had also heard from Henry Balckner, a citizen of Salzburg, that in a grievous inflammation of the genitals he had been suddenly healed through the invocation of Blessed Vitalis.

[12] the 24th, 25th, 26th, Alban Haug, sacristan of the cathedral church of Salzburg, 24th witness, confessed that many pilgrims had often come to him and asked where the tomb of St. Vitalis was; and when he had shown it to them, and had asked for what cause they were hastening to his tomb, they answered that, being held by various ailments, they had vowed themselves there and hoped for deliverance, nay that some, health having been obtained, were paying the vow conceived to Blessed Vitalis. Martin Abmesser, a lay citizen of Salzburg, 25th witness, required under oath, testified that eight years before he had been affected with a grievous pain in one leg, so that at length, the flesh also putrefying, it dripped with matter: wherefore, being fixed to his bed for a year, since the hand of the surgeon could not help, on the advice of other friends he limped to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis on crutches or supports which he had received from the sepulchre itself. Prayers having been poured out and this visitation of the sepulchre repeated several times, having at length obtained perfect health, he restored the crutches, and glorified God in the merits of Blessed Vitalis. Wonderful to say is what Catharine, wife of John the goldsmith of Salzburg, deposed as 26th witness. She had borne a little son so badly crooked in one hand that near the joint of the hand there seemed to be cartilage in place of the little bones which make the hand firm: whence, although the hand was raised by force, yet it turned inward on account of the weakness of the cartilage and joint. The mother, badly affected by the misfortune of her most beautiful little boy, when for six weeks she had bound the boy's hand with little sticks and wrappings as with a kind of support, yet perceived that she was beating the water in vain. One evening, when the piety of Blessed Vitalis toward the wretched came by chance into her memory, she conceived a vow that she would offer the little one with a waxen hand at the tomb: presently the mother falls asleep with the little one; but in the morning the boy's hand was found so perfectly sound that the mother for joy forgot which hand of the little one had been crooked, and could not, when required as witness, declare which hand had been healed. The mother accordingly carried the little one with a waxen hand to the tomb, and rendered immense thanks to God and to Blessed Vitalis.

[13] the 27th, More wonderful is what Elizabeth, wife of John Weildorfer, citizen of Salzburg, deposed as 27th witness, who confessed that 30 years before she had received a little son from her husband; who, when he was a year old, swallowed a silver ring which a maidservant for the sake of a joke had put on the little boy's finger, the mother being absent in church: and the ring sticking in his throat, the little boy was suffocated and died. The mother, being in church, was admonished by an inward motion to go home, that things were not going right about the little one. The mother went away, and when she was in the market-place, she was again moved by an inward and hidden instinct to hasten: she ran therefore, and with unaccustomed running the honourable matron was borne home through the midst of the crowds; where, the maidservant meanwhile running away, she found the little boy lying on the ground dead and already stiff with the cold of death. The wretched woman shuddered, and amid the household and neighbours running together to this spectacle she fills everything with lamentations, and learns from them the cause of so sudden a death. But at length it came into her memory that she had had a great-aunt, Gertrude, who had followed Blessed Vitalis with much veneration; trusting therefore in his patronage herself too, she vowed the little one in a certain manner to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis. Scarcely had she conceived the vow in her mind, and lo, the ring leaps back from the throat by a hidden force and violence, the little boy breathes and revives, and all who were present glorify God in His Saint. The mother, full of confusion and joy, could not, when required as witness, say who had been present at this spectacle.

[14] the 28th, 29th, Rupert Tixel, citizen and furrier by trade at Salzburg, 28th witness, required under oath, narrated that when still a boy of five years he had been so contracted in his feet that he could no longer walk at all. His feet being at length drawn back to his hinder parts, and his calves and legs putrefying, and miserably afflicted with fetid ulcers for 24 years, the evil rejecting all the labour and remedies of physicians and surgeons, the physicians too despairing of the recovery of his health, he calls Blessed Vitalis to his aid, of the fame of whose miracles he had heard much. He therefore vows himself to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis with a waxen image of himself and a denarius which he was to pay every year as a tax, and presently he is a little better; but that he might be entirely healed, he limps to the tomb on two supports, not without great pain, and leans his putrid foot on the tomb, and devoutly implores Blessed Vitalis as a powerful physician. Scarcely had he finished his prayers, when, all pain and stench vanishing utterly, the crutches being left at the sepulchre, he returned home sound, only holes remaining in his foot; which however a little time afterwards, living flesh growing up, were healed, and his feet made firm

without any outside remedy being applied. To this miracle also Margaret, wife of Conrad the butcher, required under oath as 29th witness, swore credence and bore testimony.

[15] the 30th, 31st, Ursula, wife of Martin Abmesser (of whom mention was made above in miracle 13), 30th witness, deposed that 26 years before she had felt a most grievous pain in the sinews of the right leg, so that she lay in bed for six weeks; but when the pain became more intense, she vowed herself to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, and went there and leaned her badly affected foot on the tomb: where, prayers being poured out, presently all pain vanished, and within a few days she was entirely healed. Moreover she testified that that miracle happened to her husband, of whom mention was made at no. 13, and that she saw it and was present. Henry the falconer, 31st witness, a layman and inhabitant of Salzburg, deposed under oath that 12 years before he had felt a grievous infirmity in his eyes, so that he now feared the danger of blindness; but amid these anxieties he vowed himself to Blessed Vitalis, wooden eyes being offered: scarcely had he paid the vow, and he departed sound from the sepulchre and returned home with great consolation. Moreover the same witness confessed that four years before he had acquired a very hard tumour in one testicle, so that he feared he would die of it; but, mindful of the former benefit received from Blessed Vitalis, he betook himself with wax in a certain quantity to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, and the wax being offered, and prayers poured out to God, the tumour vanished. Moreover this witness also confessed that 20 years before there had been in his house at Salzburg George the trumpeter, who, lame in both feet, had lain in bed a long time: who at length took up two crutches from the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, leaning on which he went to the tomb; and votive prayers being paid, perfectly healed, leaving the supports, he returned home, and glorified God in Blessed Vitalis from the joy of his heart.

[16] the 32nd, 33rd, Margaret, the widow left by Stephen Kartner, 32nd witness, had four years before a girl of eight years, who was so contracted in hands and feet that for two months, through the vehemence of the pain, she could not move from one side to the other. The widow had put her hope in Blessed Vitalis, whose tomb she had visited quite often, and each time she put one penny, since on account of poverty she could do no more, into the treasury beside the tomb: at length she also bought a portion of wax with some denarii and offered it to Blessed Vitalis on the day on which the girl was affected with pains more grievously than usual. Scarcely was the offering made, when by an inward motion she hastened home, lest the girl should die in her absence: but when she had returned home, she found the girl walking about beside the bench on the floor of the house, fairly well; who a few days after was entirely restored to health. Elizabeth, wife of George Seznagl, 33rd witness, confessed that she had a girl named Magdalen, of 12 years, whose eye a certain youth by unforeseen chance had so injured with a stone that the pupil of the eye withered and flowed away. She was at length despaired of by the physicians and surgeons, who with fatal judgment predicted blindness. But Elizabeth, having pity, vowed the girl with two eyes fashioned of wax to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis: scarcely was the vow and offering made, and prayers poured out at the tomb, when the girl's eye was so restored in the same hour that she could use the eye without any defect.

[17] the 34th, 35th, 36th, Elizabeth, wife of Henry, a tanner by trade, examined under oath, 34th witness, deposed that eight years before she had had a little son of 16 weeks, so weak with continual infirmities that on the feast of St. Margaret she doubted whether the infant was dead or alive; and she thought more truly that he was dead. But having conceived hope in Blessed Vitalis, she carried the little infant on a cushion to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis and laid him on the tomb for an hour, many being present, among whom a certain priest came up and asked the woman what had happened to the infant; and when she had narrated everything to him in order, the priest, unknown to the woman, anointed the infant's forehead and lips with earth taken from the sepulchre: which done, the little boy at once opened his eyes and revived, and lived unharmed for eight years. But the mother for joy could not notice or say who had been present at this spectacle. The noble Laurence Seereuter, 35th witness, confessed under oath that two years before he had felt a most grievous pain in the left leg, by which the foot was so contracted that it was shorter than the other by two fingers. The physicians judged that the pain indeed could be cured, but not the contraction. But Laurence, relying on hope, invoked the patronage of Blessed Vitalis, a taper being offered at the tomb: scarcely was the vow paid when the pain vanished, and he went home sound with joy. He testified that the master of the huntsmen at Salzburg and a certain woman surnamed Oekerlin had certain knowledge of this miracle. Margaret, servant of Elizabeth Seznaglin, citizen of Salzburg, 36th witness, confessed that three years before she had felt a grievous pain in her teeth, which a huge swelling followed: wherefore she vowed herself to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, and offered a gum of wax; and presently all pain and swelling vanished.

[18] the 37th, 38th, 39th, 40th, Elizabeth, an old woman from the citizens' hospital of Salzburg, 37th witness, being required, deposed that 16 years before she had laboured with grievous epilepsy, now for the fourth time; but when certain matrons of her acquaintance took pity on Elizabeth, they offered for her a pound of wax to Blessed Vitalis. The vow being completed, she was entirely freed both from the falling sickness and from the frenzy into which she had on that account fallen, and up to now has felt nothing more; and she has not ceased to venerate Blessed Vitalis also with special prayers every day. Elizabeth, wife of Christian Pechlinger, inhabitant of Salzburg, 38th witness, confesses that at thirteen years, serving in the castle of Radeck ^c, she became deaf in both ears, so that she heard little more: but as the deafness increased, she vowed that she would recite every day one Our Father and Hail Mary to Blessed Vitalis; which vow being made, she was at once better, and in a short time was entirely restored. Margaret, wife of Conrad, butcher, citizen of Salzburg, 39th witness, confessed that she had a little son of six years, whose chest two years before was contracted, so that from the constriction he felt grievous pains: but the mother, having compassion on her little son, anointed the chest of the little boy, carried to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, with oil from the lamp of St. Vitalis; and presently the little boy, free from all pain, was a few days later also freed from all trouble. Barbara, wife of Frederick Stadlmayr, of the household of the Illustrious Archbishop Burchard, 40th witness, declared that her husband three years before, on a journey in Gastein ^d (which the Production of the miracles calls Castuna), fell under a loaded wagon, which so injured his chest and arms that he was carried to Salzburg with danger of his life. But the wife, saddened by her husband's misfortune, vowed a taper to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis; which being offered and lit, presently Frederick was better, and within eight days was sound and unharmed.

[19] the 41st, 42nd, 43rd, 44th, Erentrude, widow of Jacob Schaurer, 41st witness, confessed that ten years before she had had a little one of two years named John, whom epilepsy had once seized, so that he lay prostrate and senseless with danger of death. In the same hour, on the advice of a certain matron, the mother offered for her son to Blessed Vitalis a taper of the length of the boy; and the vow being made and not yet fulfilled, the boy so recovered that he was never afflicted any more with the wretched disease. Margaret, daughter of the late N. Weinzurl of the castle of Halbenbang in the dominion of Salzburg, 42nd witness, confesses that from her youth she suffered a discharge from the right ear, which in the year 1460 had lasted continuously from the feast of the Nativity of the Lord up to the feast of the Purification of the Most Blessed Virgin, whereas at other times she suffered it a few days in the year. Wherefore she vowed herself to Blessed Vitalis, that she would visit the tomb of Blessed Vitalis with a taper every year as long as she lived; and when she paid the vow the first time, the discharge ceased entirely. Frederick of Weining, a farmer of Kestendorf ^e in the diocese of Salzburg, 43rd witness, said under oath that 30 years before, in his youth, being affected in the right thigh above the knee with a grievous impetigo and scab, and suffering grievous pain from it, he vowed himself with a taper of a certain quantity to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis; which being offered and lit beside the sepulchre, he was freed from the pain, and a little after also from the scabby affection. Erentrude, wife of John the dyer, 44th witness, confessed that some years before her little one of two years, contracted in one foot, could not be helped by any remedy of the physicians: but when she had carried the little boy to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis and had caused a Mass to be celebrated in his honour, while she was praying before the tomb, the Mass being finished, the divine power so restored the foot of the little one that it seemed in all things like the other foot.

[20] the 45th, 46th, 47th, Barbara, wife of Giles the kettle-maker or potter, citizen of Salzburg, 45th witness, confessed that she had a son of eight years, to whom at three years the falling sickness had come, which quite often threw the wretched boy to the ground: but the mother, having compassion on her son, since no other remedy was at hand, offered and vowed the boy with a taper of a certain quantity to Blessed Vitalis, and bound herself to offer a taper every year at the tomb: the taper therefore being lit and the prayer performed, the boy recovered, because up to now he has never suffered that kind of evil. Barbara, wife of Martin Staynmüller, citizen of Salzburg, 46th witness, declares that three years before, affected with a most grievous pain of the head, she vowed herself with a certain iron ring of the size of her head, with this obligation also, that she would fast one day every year of her life in honour of St. Vitalis: the ring being therefore offered, and a Mass read through and prayers poured out by her, all pain vanished, so that she was entirely healed the same day. This witness also related another miracle: for when two years before, being near childbirth, she had met in the street a raging man carrying a knife in his hand, being terrified she fled; by which terror and agitation the foetus, moved from its place, was trying to anticipate its time and come forth: wherefore the wretched woman, tortured with pains for eight days, mindful of the other benefit received from Blessed Vitalis, casts her hope on him, and promises that she will offer to the Blessed Patron a waxen image of a little infant: she had not yet offered the votive image, and she had given birth to a fine infant, who survived half a year, when already the life both of the mother and of the infant had been given up for lost. Diemudis, widow of Martin the tailor, 47th witness, suffered grievously for twenty years from ringing in the ears: but when in the last week she had heard that Blessed Vitalis was to be enrolled among the Saints, she came with a taper to the sepulchre of Blessed Vitalis; which being lit and prayers paid, that sound troubling the ears like a bell wholly ceased, no other remedy being applied.

[21] the 48th, 49th, 50th, 51st, Margaret, the widow left by John, carpenter of the nuns of Nonnberg ^f, 48th witness, deposed that her husband 15 years before, having been long held by a grievous infirmity, had at length come to extremity. The wife

taking pity on her husband went to Blessed Vitalis, and with great devotion implored his help in extreme necessity: but presently she returned home; and lo, she found her husband out of bed, praying, fairly well, who a few days after obtained entire health: wherefore the woman was astounded, and glorified God from her heart in Blessed Vitalis. Christina, widow of Christian Schön, 49th witness, confessed that her husband 40 years before suffered a grievous pain in the right foot for 18 days: but when both spouses had offered a wooden foot to Blessed Vitalis as a vow, a devout prayer being paid at the tomb, Christian near the tomb suddenly so recovered that, leaving on the tomb the staff with which he had come lame to the sepulchre, he returned home sound. Agnes, the widow left by Andrew Schaurer, 50th witness, confessed that eight years before she had felt a grievous pain in her eyes from a hot discharge, which so overshadowed her eyes with glaucoma and pustules and films that she could no longer see. She vowed herself therefore to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, waxen eyes being offered; and devout prayers being poured out, the pain was taken away, and a little time after the blindness also was wiped away. Christina, widow of John Schmälzl of Teusendorff ^g near Salzburg, 51st witness, testified that eight years before her left arm had so wasted away with foul ulcers that the skill of the physicians was exhausted, and at length the evil was judged incurable. Wherefore, employing a higher physician, she suppliantly laid her arm on the tomb of Blessed Vitalis for the space of an hour: where the arm ceased to drip matter, and a few days afterwards, only scars remaining, it was perfectly healed. Likewise the same Christina confessed that from her youth she had contracted a pain in the joint of the right knee; afflicted with which she vowed herself to Blessed Vitalis with certain prayers to be paid every day of her life: whence she said that on whatever day she paid that prayer she was free from pain; but on whatever day she neglected it, on that day she was affected with pain. And this Christina held for the greatest miracle.

[22] the 52nd, 53rd, Plainly wonderful is what happened to Dorothy, wife of Andrew Erman, dwelling in Müln ^h outside the city of Salzburg. She, called as 52nd witness and questioned about the miracles of Blessed Vitalis, deposed under oath that in the autumn just past, weighed down by a grievous sickness, she had experienced such pain about the heart that she could not speak, and was already believed by those standing by to be about to die. But amid the pains, she said, there appeared to her, so placed, a certain man, whose appearance indeed she could not see and notice for pain, who however named himself Vitalis, and admonished her to vow herself to his tomb. Wherefore, since she could express nothing with her mouth, she conceived in heart and mind a vow of going to the sepulchre: which done, she presently began to open her eyes and to call out to her husband, and to ask that he meanwhile should hasten to the tomb and invoke Blessed Vitalis for the recovery of her health. Scarcely had the husband completed his prayers at the tomb, when, returning home, he found his wife out of bed, fairly well; who within eight days, having obtained her former health, herself went to the tomb and most devoutly gave the highest thanks to God and to Blessed Vitalis. In like manner Blessed Vitalis appeared in sleep to Anna, wife of Jacob Schaller, inhabitant of Salzburg, 53rd witness, when three years before she was suffering grievous pains of the head; and he admonished her to come to his tomb with a taper of a certain quantity, being most certainly about to be healed. She, awakened, inquired of matrons of her acquaintance where the tomb of Blessed Vitalis was: and when, the tomb being shown, she had carried a taper there, the very great pain still being in force, and had poured out prayers at the tomb, the taper being lit, all pain of the head so vanished that up to now she has not felt a similar pain any more.

[23] the 54th, 55th, Catharine, wife of Henry Todt, citizen of Salzburg, 54th witness, attesting under oath a truly stupendous miracle, said that 18 years before she had had a little one affected from his mother's womb with so great a hernia that the scrotum of one testicle extended, inflated, down to the knees: there came afterwards also the pain of the stone and a most acute retention of urine, by which the little belly was inflated beyond measure, with grave danger to the little boy. The mother, pitying him, commends the little boy to a well-skilled surgeon, that he might be healed by incision or in some other better way; but the surgeon asserted that he could not cut the boy except with danger of death. When further the little boy had felt grievous pains, especially one night, the mother, despairing of human remedies, from the affection of her heart implores the patronage of Blessed Vitalis, and vows that on the morrow she would offer the little one, whether alive or dead, with a taper at his tomb. Meanwhile the mother fell asleep; but waking in the morning she found the boy laughing with a cheerful face, and the hernia so pressed down and taken away that nothing of tumour or inflation was noticed. The woman therefore, astounded, cried out, and acknowledged the miracle, and highly praised the ineffable piety of God in the merits of Blessed Vitalis, and with pious devotion offered the boy with a taper to Blessed Vitalis according to her vow. Catharine, widow of Erhard Denck, 55th witness, declares that twenty years before her son of five years was so sick in the head that he lay in bed for half a year: but the mother, instructed by other women, carried the boy in his little bed with a taper to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, where she laid the little boy in his little bed on the tomb; and the taper being lit and votive prayers paid, the little boy rose from his little bed, and returned home on foot with his mother unharmed.

[24] the 56th, 57th, 58th, The noble Lord Martin Reuter, prefect in Radek near Salzburg, 56th witness, deposed under oath that his wife Clara some years before suffered a grievous pain and as it were a cancer in one breast, so that also ulcers and five holes ran with matter; nor did the remedies applied help anything: wherefore on the advice of others Martin offered a waxen breast for his wife to Blessed Vitalis at the tomb; and Clara a few days after was entirely restored. Margaret, wife of Stephen the hatter of Lauffen ⁱ, 57th witness, deposed that 30 years before she had suffered a menstrual flux without intermission for a whole year with great danger of life: but human remedies being applied in vain, on the advice of a certain devout matron she vowed herself to Blessed Vitalis with a six days' fast; and when she had fasted once, she betook herself to the tomb, but, not yet healed, when the fast was fully performed she obtained perfect health. Barbara, wife of Philip of Trübnbach ^k near Lauffen, 58th witness, confessed that one year before she had been afflicted with a pain of the head, which gradually extended through the limbs down to the legs, which at length swelled so much that she could scarcely move, much less walk. She invoked the patronage of many Saints; but being helped nothing by them, at length she seemed in sleep to see a pilgrim, who said: "I am Blessed Vitalis: vow yourself to my sepulchre with a taper, and you will be well." The woman, awakened from sleep, since she did not know the sepulchre of Blessed Vitalis, learned from her housemates where it was: wherefore, only the vow of offering a taper having been conceived, the pain being taken from her legs, she began to walk: a little after she came to Salzburg with a taper to the tomb; which being offered, restored to perfect health she returned to her own home.

[25] the 59th, 60th, 61st, 62nd, 63rd, 64th, Magdalen, wife of Frederick Tunkl, citizen of Salzburg, 59th witness, reported that three years before she had held out a golden ring to her little daughter, an infant of one year, weeping inconsolably, for the sake of quieting the girl from weeping: which the girl, putting it in her mouth, swallowed; but the ring sticking in her throat, the girl seemed to the mother and the others who were present to be on the point of suffocating, her face already growing black. All, terrified at the spectacle, falling on their knees suddenly call for help from Blessed Vitalis; and lo, the ring leaps back of its own accord from the throat, and the girl revives, all being astounded and glorifying the mercy of God in the merits of Blessed Vitalis. Testimony of this miracle was also borne by the daughter of the said Magdalen, who was taken as 60th witness, although a girl of only fourteen years; who says that she was present when that miracle was done. Agnes, the widow left by Jacob the swordsman, citizen of Salzburg, 61st witness, related that the said Jacob suffered so grievous a hernia that in the 50th year of his age he could no longer walk for pain; and the necessary means of living were lacking, which he could no longer procure for himself on account of the hernial pains: wherefore Jacob, afflicted, destitute of human aid, fled to the help of Blessed Vitalis, and vowed himself to the tomb; and presently, no other remedy being applied, the hernia perfectly disappeared, and he himself survived sound for several years. Credence is added to this miracle by another swordsman, Andrew, who had knowledge of Jacob's rupture, but did not know by what means he had been suddenly healed; moreover John Kleindienst asserted that he knew that the ruptured Jacob had been suddenly healed, but that he did not know the means and manner: who accordingly were required as the 62nd and 63rd witnesses. Peter Emersdorfer, citizen of Salzburg, 64th witness, maintained under oath that six years before he had had a little son of two years named Erasmus, who laboured so with the stone that a little stone sticking in the orifice of the bladder hindered the urine; and when the mother tried to draw out the stone from the little boy's member with her mouth, she grievously increased the pain, so that the little boy fell into danger of death. Destitute therefore now of human help, the parents flee to Blessed Vitalis, and vow votive wax of a certain quantity to his tomb: but scarcely had they conceived the vow in mind, when a little stone like a middling bean leapt out with much force with the urine. Whence also the witness showed the little stone to the inquisitors.

[26] the 65th, 66th, 67th, John Psandler, inhabitant of the town of Lauffen, 65th witness, related under oath that 20 years before he had had a grievous fall from the window of a house in the same town, so that he was compelled to lie in bed for four months; but when the medicaments applied did no good, on the advice of others he promised Blessed Vitalis that he would have one Mass read in his honour at his tomb: to which end, carried by boat to Salzburg, leaning on two props, he went with pain to the tomb; and the Mass being read and devout prayers poured out, he came away so sound and unharmed that he no longer needed the supports, but offered them on the tomb as a votive gift, and returned home rejoicing. Stephen, a shoemaker, townsman in Lauffen, 66th witness, confessed that he had a boy of five years, who when he was eight days old acquired so grievous a hernia that in the judgment of all he was believed about to die. He fled therefore to spiritual aid, since human counsels failed, and vowed his little one to Blessed Vitalis, a living animal being offered: accordingly, the vow being only conceived and not yet fulfilled, the hernial opening being closed up, the boy was wholly healed; and to this day, said the witness, he is strong and sound. Cecilia, wife of Simon Penninger, townsman of Lauffen, 67th witness, deposed that many years before she had laboured with a grievous pain of the head for a whole

year without interruption, so that from time to time she became mad and raging; and when she had invoked many Saints as Patrons, she could obtain nothing. At length in sleep she seemed to hear someone saying to her: "Vow yourself to the tomb of St. Vitalis." Awakened, therefore, she vowed to Blessed Vitalis that she would pay a certain tax every year as long as she lived. The vow being made, she was indeed better, but was not perfectly healed until she betook herself to the tomb; where, prayers being poured out to God, all pain vanished, so that up to now she has felt nothing more.

[27] the 68th, 69th, 70th, Christina, wife of Laurence Stadler, townsman of Lauffen, 68th witness, reported that her husband eight years before, oppressed by a grievous infirmity, contracted in hands and feet, was fixed to his bed for nine months; and since both were poor together, they became faint-hearted and despairing on account of this misfortune: but on the advice of another woman Christina offered for her husband to Blessed Vitalis a hand made of wax for his safety; and when she had returned home from the journey, she found her husband so restored that he could at least raise both hands, who a few days thereafter was restored to full health. Agnes, widow of Simon, sacristan of the cathedral church of Salzburg, 69th witness, professed that 20 years before, from the spring season through almost the whole summer, she had suffered from dysentery, which she could check by no remedy: wherefore she offered wax of a certain quantity to Blessed Vitalis; and that night indeed she still felt a little, but on the next day she obtained entire health. Brigid, widow of John Astgern, 70th witness, confessed that three years before she was staying in the village of Veklacstorff in the diocese of Passau; where on a certain night by I know not what chance her lips were so twisted and loosened and bent that she had no hope of their being set right: but she vowed herself with a taper to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis; which being lit and a votive prayer paid, her mouth was entirely restored before she departed from the tomb.

[28] the 71st, 72nd, 73rd, Christina, widow of John Hinderlechner, 71st witness, of the village of Haldenbang in the diocese of Salzburg, confessed under oath that 14 years before she had had a little boy of three months, whose umbilical cord, loosened, hung out from his belly to the measure of one finger; but remedies being applied in vain, she offered the boy to Blessed Vitalis, and received him back unharmed. Elizabeth, widow of Bernard, toll-collector of Salzburg, 72nd witness, swore that for 25 years she had suffered continually from pains of the head: but when eight days before she had first heard of the inquiry into the miracles of St. Vitalis, having made up her mind she went to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, leaned her head full of pain on the tomb, and as soon as possible, with a certain notable sound and noise, all pain was taken from her head, nor up to now has she felt anything more. Plainly to be wondered at is what Barbara, wife of Leonard the tailor, citizen of Salzburg, 73rd witness, examined under oath, reported before the inquisitors. For she confessed that 12 years before she was afflicted with so great an infirmity of the whole body that all doubted of her life and almost despaired: but one day, when she had only so much strength, leaning on a staff she went to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, as if, near to death, to bid farewell to her Patron, whom she had venerated for a long time. The great Patron did not fail her grateful mind: for while she was pouring out prayers at the tomb, she fell down as if senseless and dying, yet so present to herself inwardly that she said in her mind: "O Blessed Vitalis, intercede for me before God my Creator." And lo, in the same moment the pain began to be drawn out from within through the outer members with such violence that she thought all her clothes were being violently drawn off her. So at length, restored to herself, she rose; and leaving at the tomb the staff as witness of the miracle, she went home sound and without support, and related everything to her husband, who together with his wife glorified God from his heart in Blessed Vitalis.

[29] the 74th, 75th, 76th, Erentrude, widow of Daniel the cook, 74th witness, reported that 13 years before, in autumn, she had fallen into an incurable dropsy, by which, swollen and wretched, she lay in bed for half a year; but when once at night she was awake, she seemed to be instructed in her mind to go to the sepulchre of Blessed Vitalis, certainly to receive health: wherefore a few days after, having recovered her strength, she went to the tomb, and, prayers being poured out to God, she was wholly cured of the dropsical flux by the merits of Blessed Vitalis. Barbara, wife of Conrad the tanner, citizen of Salzburg, 75th witness, deposed that she had had a sister named Catharine, who in her 18th year had fallen into deafness, so that she could not hear a gentler sound: but Barbara, instructed concerning the frequent miracles of St. Vitalis, made a vow for her sister that she would visit the tomb of Blessed Vitalis once every year thereafter if hearing were restored to her sister; and with that intention both betook themselves to the sepulchre, where Catharine was bidden to lean her head upon the tomb: whereby it came about that within eight days the entire sense was restored to the sister. Elizabeth, wife of John Kochermacher, 76th witness, confessed that seven years before she had felt so great a sickness of body that she was as it were withered in hands and feet; but when she had heard much about the miracles of Blessed Vitalis, she vowed that, if she recovered health, she would offer to Blessed Vitalis the first money which she could acquire by spinning, since on account of poverty she could do nothing else: scarcely was the vow uttered, when, entirely healed the same day, a little after she brought 60 denarii acquired by spinning and offered them at the tomb, and handed them to the custodian of the monastery of St. Peter to be applied to Blessed Vitalis.

[30] the 77th, 78th, 79th, Ursula, a widow, formerly wife of Christopher Hopfer, citizen of Salzburg, 77th witness, confesses that she had had a son of four years who laboured so with the stone that, the urine being hindered, the little boy's belly swelled; wherefore, when the little boy, placed in danger of life, had been carried to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis and laid on the tomb, a votive taper being lit and prayers devoutly performed, the little one asked to be lifted from the tomb; and when the mother took him from the tomb, he passed urine copiously, and was led back home sound by his mother. Anna, wife of Ulrich Grabner, citizen of Salzburg, 78th witness, sworn, declared that she has a daughter named Anna, now married, who from her mother's womb had acquired a red spot under the left shoulder-blade, which at length degenerated into a foul pustule and a purulent ulcer. In the judgment of the physicians it was reckoned Persian fire and an incurable disease. When therefore the mother saw her daughter destitute of human help, she vowed her with certain tapers to be lit at the tomb of Blessed Vitalis. Scarcely had she made the vow when the matter ceased to flow: and being led to the tomb, and the tapers being lit, she was better, and that ulcer within a few days without other remedy was perfectly healed, only a scar remaining. Credence was added under oath to this miracle by Margaret, widow of George the shoemaker, citizen of Salzburg, who at that time was Anna's maidservant and present when that miracle was done concerning Anna's daughter: whence she too was examined and required as 79th witness.

[31] the 80th, 81st, 82nd, 83rd, The noble lady Barbara, wife of Jacob Pfeffinger, 80th witness, confessed that as a girl still of thirteen years she had been seized with such pain of the head and frenzy that the physicians judged the brain to have been consumed, and the evil therefore incurable; but her parent, pitying his daughter, placed confidence in Blessed Vitalis, and vowed her that she would offer a denarius every year thereafter to the Blessed Patron: scarcely had he made the vow when Barbara was at once restored to most entire health. There was in the court of the Illustrious Archbishop Burchard a trumpeter; whose teeth pained him so much that he had them drawn one after another; but when, one being pulled out, another began to ache, he feared that, if he pulled them all out, he would become wholly toothless: wherefore he made a vow to Blessed Vitalis that he would offer at the tomb a waxen gum with waxen teeth; whence, while he was going to the sepulchre, on the way the pain of the teeth wholly vanished. And having attested under oath that this happened to him two years before, he was constituted and required as 81st witness for that miracle. Ulrich, a tanner by trade, of the village of Gaylnbach near Salzburg, 82nd witness, confessed that from colic pains and gripings, which he suffered for almost a year, the pain ceasing at few intervals, being destitute of human help, a certain little gift being offered at the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, he was wholly freed. Ursula, wife of John Faber, citizen of Salzburg, 83rd witness, declared that a year before she had been seized with so great a pain of the head that she had almost fallen into madness and frenzy; nor could any remedy applied relieve the pain: whence she devoutly asked help from Blessed Vitalis, and a taper being offered and lit at his tomb, the pain being taken away in the same hour, she was made safe and sound.

[32] the 84th, 85th, 86th, 87th, Worthy indeed of admiration is what Margaret, wife of Wolfgang, butcher of Salzburg, 84th witness, deposed, who attested under oath that on the same day on which she had been taken as witness the following great miracle had happened to her. She said that three months before she had been afflicted with so grievous an infirmity, which the physicians from the indication of the urine called a hepatic sickness, that at length, destitute of strength, amid most grievous pains and corrosions, she was thought by the household to be consumed and almost dying, who already for several nights had been attending the woman with the fatal taper and light, and were expecting her to die at every moment. Meanwhile she had heard something of the inquiry into the miracles of Blessed Vitalis; whence she conceived in her mind the desire of visiting the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, if only her strength would admit it: her confessor forbade it, as impossible that with such strength she could reach the tomb. "But today" (says the Production of the miracles), after she had been tormented with dire torments from the middle of the night, about midday, having felt the pain mitigated, she resolved, all dissuasion being set aside, to go to the tomb and implore Blessed Vitalis her Patron for the recovery of her health; and while she was revolving these things in her mind, she felt her strength restored to her by a hidden power: whence she at once rose from her bed, and barefoot did not walk, but ran to the sepulchre of St. Vitalis, all who were present being astounded and wondering. She came, then, to the tomb, and bowed and prostrated herself upon the tomb: whence, prayers having been poured out for a little while, she rose sound and unharmed, and called as witness the same day before the inquisitors, she recounted the great miracle with joy; whence also the inquisitors add in this testimony the following words: "We too, the aforesaid delegates and subdelegates, beheld the aforesaid woman sound, narrating all the premises with gladness." To this miracle her husband Wolfgang himself also adds credence under oath; who, called on this account as 87th witness, affirmed under oath that what had suddenly been done concerning Margaret was true, and that he had been present and seen that for three days she was near to death in the opinion of all, and suddenly rose from her little bed: but by what power this was done, he said he did not know. Similarly also Catharine, wife of Henry Krappenmacher, reported

that she had followed Margaret running to the sepulchre of St. Vitalis, and had seen her lying on the tomb, and, prayer being made, rising sound and unharmed; likewise also Veronica, daughter of Margaret, confirms under oath that everything concerning her mother happened so, and that she had been present and seen her near to death, and freed from all sickness at the tomb of Blessed Vitalis: whence these two persons also were called as witnesses and reckoned among the witnesses as numbers 85 and 86.

[33] the 88th and 89th, John Schumel of the town of Hall, 88th witness, deposed under oath that some years before by an accidental chance he had so broken his arm that he scarcely any longer had hope of its restoration; but he placed his confidence in Blessed Vitalis, whose tomb he approached, and devoutly offered an arm of wax, and, prayers being poured out, in the same hour at the tomb he received the perfect health of his arm. Finally the last witness, the 89th, Margaret, wife of Leonard Stoffer of the town of Hall in the diocese of Salzburg, deposed under oath that as a girl of three or four years she had laboured in one arm with a grievous discharge, so that the arm became lame and useless; but when she had been vowed by her parents to Blessed Vitalis, the vow being fulfilled at the tomb, she was perfectly healed in the arm. And these are the miracles manifested in the public inquiry in the year 1462.

ANNOTATIONS.

MIRACLES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

reported by Pachler from John Stainhauser Disquisition VI, chapter V.

Vitalis, bishop and confessor, at Salzburg in Germany. (S.)

BY A. PACHLER.

By the help of St. Vitalis are healed Infinite is the treasure of the divine Goodness, from which, as through certain rivulets, through the hands and patronages of the Holy Heavenly Ones streams of graces flow from heaven upon wretched mortals, when they fix their confidence not on the vain and perishable things of this world, but cast their heart, as the anchor of true faith, upon the Lord, who is mighty to snatch us from all infirmity and misery. This we have seen clearer than the sun in the miracles and stupendous prodigies shown by God at his tomb through the merits of St. Vitalis; but there is not yet an end of his wonderful works, which he does not cease to show up to this present day: for I read in the Life of Blessed Vitalis published by John Stainhauser, chapter V, that another little panel hung in his time at the tomb, on which the following miracles were described, which happened after the public inquiry into the miracles. Which panel indeed no longer exists: perhaps it was removed in the change of the sepulchre, as other panels too were taken down from the walls here and there for the greater adornment of the new altar erected in honour of St. Vitalis. The most distinguished man John Stainhauser, an eyewitness, a diligent writer of the antiquities of Salzburg, described it in German in the cited little book on the Life of St. Vitalis, chapter V, and in MS. L, folio 669. And the panel began thus: "Praise ye the Lord in His Saints: these words the royal Prophet David speaks in the book of Psalms; and therefore to the praise of almighty God there are here briefly narrated some miracles which He Himself has worked and daily works through St. Vitalis, who was here abbot at Salzburg," etc.

[35] a certain woman Walpurga Osannerin was afflicted for some days with St. Anthony's fire, which they name the sacred fire, by which the little finger of the right hand and the next, infected, teemed with pustules like a nut up to the elbow. But when the labour of the physicians failed, honourable persons persuaded Walpurga to vow a waxen hand to St. Vitalis, which she also did; and as soon as she had offered the waxen hand, in the same hour the hand was perfectly healed. But after two years she was again seized by so grievous a sickness that she lay in bed for seven weeks, and was scarcely in her right mind, and moreover became blind and dumb and withered and immovable in hands and feet: but being a little better, on the advice of a devout person she again vowed herself to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, went to the tomb, scarcely conscious of what she was doing, and at once near the tomb on the right side began to see and hear. Then she leaned her left side also on the tomb, and presently in this side too she recovered the lost senses, and gradually from day to day began to be better, until she was perfectly healed and cured.

[36] and others from diseases A certain maiden of ten years suffered evil pustules and a withering of the sinews, so that for two years she could not walk. Meanwhile she devoutly commended herself to Blessed Vitalis, and vowed that she would offer a waxen foot. Scarcely had she made the vow, the vow not yet fulfilled, when she could move her feet and walk: wherefore she herself carried the waxen foot to the tomb and offered it with great humility and thanksgiving, on the Tuesday after the feast of St. Catherine in the year of Christ the Lord 1494. Another person, contracted in hands and feet, vowed himself to St. Vitalis and offered two knees, and presently from that hour was better. Likewise a certain little one held by various ailment, vowed by his relatives to Blessed Vitalis, at once, the various sicknesses being diminished, recovered. Another devout woman from Werfen for four years lay teeming with evil pustules and matter, by which she was so enfeebled that she could not move herself at all, except where she was carried by others. To her once in sleep Blessed Vitalis appeared, saying: "Come to my sepulchre, and you will obtain health." At once the woman rose from her bed sound and unharmed, and offered something to Blessed Vitalis at the tomb, and gave thanks to the divine goodness in the merits of Blessed Vitalis for the health obtained. The witness of this miracle is the sacristan of the monastery of St. Peter, on the feast of St. John the Baptist in the year 1502.

[37] and with various pains Margaret Wagingerin of Straswalchen ^b had fallen into a dangerous disease, by which she was also made bereft of mind and so raging that four men could scarcely hold her. But when she felt an interval and easing of her frenzy, she vowed to Blessed Vitalis one Mass and a fast of seven days, and that she would thereafter live by alms: which vow being made, she was immediately restored to health; and she caused this miracle to be promulgated from the pulpit, ready to attest it before all under oath, if this were asked by anyone, in the year 1503. Jacob Schott, a citizen of Hall, lay oppressed by a grievous sickness, so that he was wholly deprived of the use of his feet; nor had he any longer hope of recovering. Wherefore, things being desperate, he placed his confidence in Blessed Vitalis, and vowed to his tomb one Mass with two waxen feet. A little after, all languor being wiped away, he came out sound and unharmed, in the same year 1503. Peter Wagner, citizen of Salzburg, afflicted for four weeks with a grievous disease of contraction of the sinews, vowed and offered a waxen girdle to Blessed Vitalis at the tomb, and presently was freed from all sickness. George Brungürtler in Staindorff ^c had a little one who lay so seized with frenzy that for a whole hour no sign of life was any longer noticed in him; but he vowed the little one to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis with some offering, and presently the little one began to live and be sound.

[38] afflicted, And these things were read on that ancient panel. To which John Stainhauser himself adds some things which happened in his age and memory ^d … In the year 1593 a carpenter had broken his arm at Salzburg: wherefore he bound himself by a vow that he would offer to Blessed Vitalis a certain gift if he recovered his former health, necessary for his labour. Scarcely had he completed the vow in mind only, and already he felt a diminution of the sickness, and therefore he himself cut an arm out of wood and offered it to Blessed Vitalis, in the year 1594, on the 2nd of April. A certain man was so afflicted with a most grievous pain of the head that he thought he would become raging and out of his mind; but human counsel and help failing, he vowed to Blessed Vitalis that he would offer something: a little after, all pain being taken away, he paid the vow at the tomb in person. Likewise a certain man with many temptations

reduced even to faint-heartedness, when he had invoked the divine grace and mercy and the patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of the Holy Heavenly Ones, especially of Blessed Vitalis, in a short time his inward affliction was much mitigated: wherefore he gave the highest thanks to Blessed Vitalis, and most devoutly paid his vow at his tomb. "These and other similar signs," adds Stainhauser, "are done to this day at the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, although they are not noted down with due diligence; and from these it appears clearer than the sun in how great glory Blessed Vitalis is with God, by whose merits the merciful God works so many and so great miracles. For Blessed Vitalis never fails with his powerful patronage those who choose him for themselves as a venerable Patron, and praise, honour and love him as a Holy Confessor and friend of Christ the Lord." Thus John Stainhauser in his little book of the Life of St. Vitalis published at Salzburg in the year 1602.

[39] among whom John Stainhauser, senator. One thing more it has pleased me to add here, which our Lord Abbot Martin noted about this same John Stainhauser on a certain separate slip, which is written by his own hand and is preserved in the archive with the other attestations of miracles. I copy out his words. "In the year of the Lord 1601 there was in this city a certain citizen and senator named John Stainhauser, a lettered, pious and devout man, who, after he was burdened with a certain infirmity, commending himself with prayers and vows to St. Vitalis, formerly bishop of Salzburg, laid up at St. Peter's, made a vow for obtaining the restoration of his health. God regarding his desire, being freed from the disease not long after by the intercession of St. Vitalis, he was restored to entire health. Thenceforth the said Stainhauser, kindled with a certain singular love toward the aforementioned St. Vitalis, at his own expense erected the altar of St. Andrew (which today is called of St. Vitalis) near the sepulchre of St. Vitalis, excellently adorned with a crucified Saviour with other carved images and colours, and adorned the chapel with new seats ^e. Moved by his devotion very many began to frequent the sepulchre and chapel of the same St. Vitalis; and the help of his intercession being implored there, many sick persons obtained the benefits of cures, as the gifts of wax and other material offered as honoraria testify. The alms-box also placed in the chapel from that time, opened twice, showed a fairly large alms cast in by the faithful: for first, on the fourth day of June 1602, 40 florins were taken from it, which sum was afterwards spent by the abbot for the renovation and painting of the whole chapel; then in the year 1606 in October, unlocked a second time, it bestowed on us 112 florins, 5 pence, 10 coins, from which a new grating was made; in the year 1607, on the 21st of August, 90 florins, 18 kreuzers, one coin; in the year 1610, on the 11th day of August, 156 florins, 7 pence, 2 coins," etc. These things were read on the slip.

ANNOTATIONS.

MIRACLES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

collected by Pachler from written testimonies Disquisition VI, chapter VI.

Vitalis, bishop and confessor, at Salzburg in Germany. (S.)

BY A. PACHLER.

Miracles done in the years 1623, The miracles which have happened in the sixty-one years just past are of a twofold difference: for some are gathered only from votive panels offered and hung up at the tomb by the faithful; but others moreover have been confirmed and published through attestations and handwritten statements by the faithful to whom they happened. Whence, lest we confuse them, we shall set down in this chapter the attestations of various faithful to whom various benefits of cures came through the patronage of Blessed Vitalis. And first of all in the year 1623 the most worthy Lady Cordula N. was abbess of the monastery of St. George at Längsee in Carinthia, of the diocese of Salzburg, of the Order of St. Benedict, who on the 30th day of September sent a letter to the Lady Maria Magdalena Schneweissin, abbess in Nonnberg at Salzburg, in which she confesses that for eighteen months she had had in one ear a little glass bead as large as a chickpea, which by I know not what misfortune or chance had fallen so far into the cavity of the ear that it could not be extracted by any human art. A surgeon had tried three times to extract it with his instruments: but he so injured the inner parts of the ear that blood flowed out, not without grievous pain. The matter seemed plainly desperate. Wherefore the Reverend Lady Cordula had placed her hope in Blessed Vitalis, whom accordingly she devoutly invoked that in this tribulation he would deign to succour her with his patronage, whom she knew to have brought wonderful help suddenly to many sick persons. Scarcely had she conceived the vow in mind, and after half an hour, of its own accord, she herself noticing nothing, the bead leapt out of the ear. On which account she, astounded at the novelty of the thing, acknowledged and highly praised the kindness of God in the merits of Blessed Vitalis; and as a thanksgiving she sent to Blessed Vitalis a little silk mantle with a corporal, and at the same time money for one Mass to be read in honour of St. Vitalis. The letter is present in the original, marked no. 1, dated 1623, the 30th of September.

[41] 1624, In the year 1624, on the 16th of August, Elizabeth Lospichlerin, an honourable matron of Salzburg, testifies by a slip that, freed by the girdle of Blessed Vitalis ^a in the dangerous pain of childbirth, she was happily delivered. In the same year 1624 Jacob Praschler, citizen and cloth-shearer in Mühldorf ^b, confesses by a special testimony that he had so lost the use of his feet through the sacred fire that for pain he could neither walk nor stand: placed therefore amid grievous pains, he vowed that he would offer to Blessed Vitalis at the tomb two burning tapers with a pound of wax. The vow being made, the pain vanished, and the sacred fire disappeared from his feet. In the year 1625 Martin Selner, chamber messenger at Salzburg, offered a testimony, who confesses that about the feast of the Purification of the said year he had been sent to Vienna, where he was afflicted with such a contraction of all his members that for half a year, wholly deprived of the use of his feet, he felt no help even when various medicaments were applied: wherefore, things being as it were desperate, he fled to the patronage of Blessed Vitalis, and vowed that he would offer something at his tomb and pay certain prayers with one Mass if he recovered his former health. Whence day by day he presently began to be better, and in a short time, fully restored, he devoutly performed his vow. As witnesses of this matter he adduced the honourable men John Kimpfler, procurator of the court kitchen, and Matthew Kumpfmülner, messenger of the court chamber.

[42] In the year 1625 Veronica Koppin, lawful and honourable wife of Samuel Koppen, citizen of Salzburg, attests by a special handwritten statement that in this year, on the 16th of March, 1625, the girdle of St. Vitalis being applied and certain votive prayers paid to St. Vitalis, she was happily delivered, after, being now placed for the third day amid the pains and labours of childbirth, and destitute of human counsels and aids, she had been in present danger of life. In the same year, on the 14th of July, Master Wolfgang Strobel, notary public, candidate of both laws at Salzburg, testified that his wife Magdalen, the girdle of St. Vitalis being devoutly applied, was happily freed from a dangerous childbirth; and that on this account he gave the highest thanks to God and His Saints for so great a benefit conferred, and that the son born from it was named Bonaventure. Of the same year there is present a slip of parchment, which reports that a certain honourable man had been held a long time by a grievous fever, and that his little son had laboured with pustules of the lips: but when many remedies had been applied in vain, on the advice of their kinsfolk both went to the tomb of St. Vitalis, carrying two images of wax and offering one Mass. From that day the fever ceased, and the boy's sickness also, although the boy had also used the labour of a surgeon, was mitigated. In thanksgiving for and memory of which matter that slip was affixed to the tomb.

[43] 1626, In the year 1626 the honourable man Jacob Scheibl, tailor of Salzburg, brought an attestation on the 12th of March, in which he confesses that his wife in a dangerous childbirth, as soon as she had girded herself with the girdle of St. Vitalis, was suddenly freed from the pains of childbirth and happily delivered. In the same year, on the 15th of September, her husband testified by a slip that a like benefit happened to Elizabeth, wife of Christopher Graser, and that, the girdle being applied, she was released from childbirth. In the year 1628 in our parish of Gredich ^c there dwelt a certain parishioner named Mark Weiszflekhner, whose wife had already been struggling for three whole days amid the pains of childbirth; and when the infant was perceived to be already dead in the womb, all now despaired also of the mother's life, nor could human aids any longer forward the delivery, the mother being now totally exhausted and weakened. Wherefore when the vicar of the place, the Reverend Lord Peter Sartorius, had perceived the mother's danger, he sent the husband to the Reverend Lord Abbot Albert, and asked by letter that the girdle of St. Vitalis be granted in so great a danger. Meanwhile, while Mark went away for the girdle, one hand of the dead infant began to protrude from the mother's womb and the mother to be better; and the infant stuck so long, until Mark came with the girdle: who, as soon as he entered the heated room and wished to apply the girdle to his imperilled and scarcely half-living wife, suddenly the dead infant leapt forth; and the mother, released from childbirth, came out unharmed. Testimony of this matter was borne by the said Lord vicar Peter Sartorius himself, whose handwritten statement is present, no. 10.

[44] 1628, In the same year 1628 John Freyhamer of Salzburg confessed by a special written bond that, having been seized for seven years with a wretched frenzy, a vow being made to the tomb of Blessed Vitalis, a Mass read and three white tapers offered, he was wholly freed from the said disease. For which benefit he gave the highest thanks to God and Blessed Vitalis. In the same year again the Lord Master Wolfgang Strobel, of whom we made mention above, brought another testimony; whose Latin testimony it has pleased me to insert here word for word. It sounds thus: "Paul of Tarsus, the preacher of the world, rightly taught us that we should namely gird our loins against the languors of the mind and our diseases of the body; which counsel also, with burning love, Maria Magdalena Lindmaierin followed, who, from singular devotion toward the girdle of St. Vitalis, through his undoubted intercession was delivered of a girl in her most difficult childbirth, and the mother was preserved unharmed. This great benefit, therefore, is ascribed to the aforesaid St. Vitalis by both spouses: for which cause let the best guardian of benefits be (as St. Chrysostom teaches) the very memory of benefits and the perpetual confession of thanks.

So I attest, the husband of the aforenamed pregnant Maria Magdalena, I, Master Wolfgang Strobel, candidate of both laws, notary public and sworn by imperial authority, with my accustomed seal. Done on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of October in the year 1628. (L. S.) The same as above."

[45] 1629, In the same year 1628 a most beautiful miracle was attested by both spouses, the noble Lord John Christopher von Freising and his wife the noble Lady Maria Anna von Neuching: which John Christopher, while he was prefect, under the Illustrious Prince Paris, archbishop of Salzburg, in Träsmaurn ^d and Arnstorff in Lower Austria, had a daughter, who in the year 1626 suffered in her eyes a grievous scab (the Greeks call it argema or ophthalmia), her eyes always flowing and teeming with dangerous matter, so that for three weeks she could no longer see anything; but when the parents, on the advice of friends, had vowed the said girl to Blessed Vitalis, the bishop resting at St. Peter's in Salzburg, with two silver pieces and one Mass, a few days after the scab, dried up, fell from her eyes like a scale, and beyond the hope and expectation of all the girl was entirely healed, and both spouses attested by a special handwritten statement that this happened through the undoubted patronage of St. Vitalis. The testimony is present, no. 13, fortified with the seal of both the Lord and Lady spouses, dated in the year 1628, the 30th of December. In the year 1629 a certain honourable woman, who had long been placed in some hidden tribulation, had most devoutly commended herself to St. Vitalis himself on the feast of St. Vitalis, the 20th of October, having made her Confession and received holy Communion; and being freed from her hidden burden on the same day, she brought a testimony, without expressing her name or infirmity. See the slip, no. 14.

[46] 1630, 1633, In the year 1630, on the 29th of June, the Lady Margaret Pällingerin, wife of the Lord William Prandauer, prefect of the counts of Lamberg at Salzburg, in a dangerous childbirth, in which she had already laboured strenuously for 24 hours, being at length destitute of all human help and counsel, girded with the girdle of Blessed Vitalis, and some offering being promised to St. Vitalis, within half a quarter of an hour, her strength being restored by a hidden and divine power, was delivered. In testimony of which matter the said William consigned to the monastery a handwritten statement subscribed with his own hand and that of two witnesses, confirmed also with his seal impressed, in the year and on the day as above. The witnesses were Christopher Reutter, chancery clerk of the court council, and George Vogl, cantor at St. Peter's in Salzburg. The slip is present, no. 15. In the same year, on the 23rd of July, Susanna Krebsin, wife of the Lord John Urschnis, citizen of Salzburg, placed for two days amid the most grievous pains of childbirth, when the mother with the infant was already in danger of death, girded with the girdle of St. Vitalis, was happily and at once released from childbirth. In testimony of which miracle she brought a slip in the year and on the day as above, no. 16. In the year 1633 a certain man was held by a grievous infirmity, so that all already despaired of his life: but when he had vowed to Blessed Vitalis that he would offer a waxen image and seriously amend his life, all being astounded, within a few hours he perfectly recovered; and in testimony of this miracle he brought a slip in the said year, on the 23rd of August, no. 17.

[47] 1636, 1647, 1649, In the year 1636, on the 23rd of June, the honourable matron Margaret Wimbergerin testifies that amid the most grievous pains of childbirth, girded with the girdle of St. Vitalis, she happily gave birth within an hour and a half. In the year 1647 Catharine Feuchtnerin confesses that, in grave danger of a painful childbirth, having used the girdle of St. Vitalis, she was quickly and happily delivered, on the 18th day of April. In the same year, on the feast of Pentecost, Anna Scherpin, wife of John Scherpen, a soldier in the citadel of Salzburg, girded with the girdle of St. Vitalis, a vow being made of offering a waxen little boy and of hearing a Mass in honour of St. Vitalis and of paying certain prayers at his tomb, within five hours was freed from the pains of a dangerous childbirth and happily brought forth. So her husband testified by a slip offered, no. 20. In the year 1649, on the 22nd day of June, Erentrude, wife of John Wolspergers, citizen of Salzburg, confesses that, the girdle of St. Vitalis being applied, she was happily released in the birth of twins; which benefit indeed she reports, with much thanksgiving, as received from God, the Blessed Virgin and St. Vitalis. In the same year, on the 26th day of November, Anna Ursula, wife of the Lord Christopher Katzenberger, held by grievous pains of childbirth, could not be delivered, until, girded with the girdle of St. Vitalis, she was at once released from childbirth. This is attested by her said husband and by Francis Ring, citizen and baker, by an attestation confirmed by the seal and hand of both, no. 22.

[48] 1650, In the year 1650, on the 14th day of January, the noble Lady Clara Reutterin, born Feyrtagin, testified by a handwritten statement that in a dangerous childbirth she had used the girdle of St. Vitalis, and on that account had been happily delivered: for which grace she gave thanks to Blessed Vitalis by a subscribed slip, no. 23. In the year 1650, on the 9th of February, Anno Siglin, wife of the sacristan of the monastery of St. Peter, testifies that for two days she could not be freed from the birth of the infant afterwards called Scholastica; until at length, from singular devotion toward Blessed Vitalis, she was girded with the girdle, whereupon she was also happily freed from childbirth. In the same year, on the 14th of April, the sacred girdle was applied to Christina Wedlingerin, wife of Jacob Ferschl the cook, who, placed amid the straits of childbirth, gave birth happily in the same hour. In the same year, on the 29th of June, Maria Müllerin, wife of Matthew Müller, painter of Salzburg, applied the same sacred girdle in a dangerous childbirth; who indeed obtained a happy delivery, yet while her husband was offering the slip she was still in danger of life. So both, subscribed, attest by a slip, no. 26. In the same year, on the 4th of July, Sabina Putschgerin, wife of a dyer of Salzburg, testifies that from special confidence and devotion toward St. Vitalis, when for a day and a night, placed amid the straits of childbirth, she could not bring forth the infant, she applied his sacred girdle, and shortly after gave birth to the infant with joy.

[49] 1656, In the year 1656 the Lady Sidonia, wife of the Lord Matthew Prandauer, laboured in so dangerous a childbirth that in the judgment of the matrons present she was believed scarcely likely to escape except by supernatural help. Wherefore Sidonia, from singular confidence and devotion, vowed herself to Blessed Vitalis with the Sacrifice of the Mass, and girded herself with the sacred girdle; whereupon at length, a few hours after, released from childbirth, she came out unharmed. In memory of which matter her husband, the Lord Prandauer, brought us an attestation confirmed with his hand and seal, in the said year, on the 23rd of February, no. 28. In the same year, on the 24th of July, George Hauser, accountant of the archiepiscopal chamber of Salzburg, testified that in the births already repeated quite often his wife Anna Maria had never been so easily delivered as on this one occasion, when out of devotion she had put on the girdle of St. Vitalis. Wherefore he ascribes this benefit to Blessed Vitalis and gives thanks by an attestation, no. 29. In the same year, on the 11th of August, Rosina Wimberin confesses by a special attestation that she was in peril in childbirth for three days, so that in the judgment of all she was already judged about to die: but when on the fourth day she had put on the girdle of St. Vitalis, the birth being poured forth about the twelfth hour, she began to be better. Whence by a handwritten statement, no. 30, she gave the highest thanks to God and Blessed Vitalis.

[50] 1662, In the year 1662 the most honourable man Virgilius Kendlinger, citizen and innkeeper of Salzburg, brought us two attestations: of which one attests that, when his son was dangerously ill, he offered to Blessed Vitalis out of devotion in the year 1649 a little panel with one Sacrifice of the Mass for the boy's safety; whence the little one shortly began to be better and to recover. And in the other attestation he professes that all four of his children had lain sick at one time: wherefore, mindful of the old benefit, he promised that he would offer something to Blessed Vitalis if the children were restored to health; who accordingly a little after were all restored to their former safety. In memory of which matter he brought two handwritten statements in the year 1662, on the 20th of November, marked nos. 31 and 32. In the same year, on the 1st of October, Maria, the most honourable wife of the same Virgilius Kendlinger, attested that in a dangerous childbirth, having struggled for three days amid grievous pains, after human means had been applied in vain, she put on the girdle of St. Vitalis, and a little after gave birth to a little boy unharmed: which grace accordingly she reports as received from God and Blessed Vitalis, and confirms with her own hand and handwritten statement, no. 33, that it happened to her so in the same year and on the same day.

[51] 1663, Finally in the current year 1663, in which we have written down these very miracles and are committing them to print, the noble Lord Andrew Miller, prefect of the most illustrious and Most Reverend Lords Barons of Muggenthal, brought a testimony, in which he testifies that his wife Christina, on the 10th of January of the said year, in a most dangerous childbirth, at the exhortation of others had a Mass read at St. Peter's, and, girded with the girdle of Blessed Vitalis, after an hour was happily delivered: which benefit he reported as received from God, the Blessed Virgin and St. Vitalis, and gave the highest thanks. The handwritten statement is dated in the year 1663, on the 11th of January. In the same year 1663, on the 10th of March, the often-named Lord Virgilius Kendlinger brought another testimony, in which he testifies that his little son Remigius Joseph, an infant of twenty-one weeks, was seized on the 23rd of February with a grievous disease, so that he even shrank from his mother's breasts. But after the parent vowed the little boy to St. Vitalis and had a Mass read in his honour, the infant from that hour gradually recovered. On which account the parent gave the highest thanks to God and to Blessed Vitalis, by whose merits he professes he has already quite often felt relief in various tribulations.

[52] and other uncertain ones. Besides these benefits of cures confirmed by attestations with certain years, days and persons added, there are still present slips which are witnesses and indications of similar benefits, but without years, days, persons and circumstances added; which also it has pleased me to insert here. A slip reports that through the intercession of Blessed Vitalis a matron was helped in a most dangerous childbirth; and accordingly that person gives thanks by the slip. A certain matron who had suffered grievous pains of the teeth, of the head and of the womb vowed to Blessed Vitalis that she would offer something; whence, shortly made sound, she gives thanks to God and Blessed Vitalis. A certain midwife, Susanna Voglin, testifies that she applied the girdle of St. Vitalis to three women in labour, and that a happy delivery always followed. A certain honourable matron felt grievous pains of the bowels: whence she vowed to Blessed Vitalis one Sacrifice of the Mass and a waxen figure of a belly, and shortly after obtained the desired soundness. A certain matron named Susanna, placed in a grievous sickness, had vowed herself to Blessed Vitalis, and obtained her wish, but afterwards, having died, wished one Mass for the Dead to be read for herself at Blessed Vitalis's. These, therefore, are the benefits of cures which can be proved through the attestations of the faithful, of whom many still survive today; nor is it to be doubted that many other faithful, if a public inquiry were at some time to be come to, as was done two hundred years ago, would confess and declare

that many other miracles have been done, which many do not make manifest either out of carelessness or out of bashfulness, which indeed is greatly to be lamented.

ANNOTATIONS.

OTHER MIRACLES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

collected by Pachler from votive panels Disquisition VI, chapter VII

Vitalis, bishop and confessor, at Salzburg in Germany. (S.)

BY A. PACHLER.

Miracles done The most illustrious prince and archbishop of Salzburg Paris Lodron always held St. Vitalis in the highest honour; by whose command his sepulchre was opened and the relics recorded; by whose intervention and interposition also the cult of Blessed Vitalis was introduced into the whole diocese, licence being obtained from Urban VIII in the year 1628, whereas before the canonical Office of him was celebrated only in our monastery by the indult of Leo X … Almost every year on his feast he either celebrated at the altar of St. Vitalis or at least with his whole court devoutly visited the tomb; and that he might show by his very munificence also his devout affection toward Blessed Vitalis, in the year 1630 he offered at his altar a thousand thalers, which he ordered to be spent in honour and cult of St. Vitalis: whose soul accordingly may it rest in peace ^a. The noble Lady Elizabeth Menzlin, wife of the most distinguished man Christopher Mezger, formerly chancellor of Salzburg, offered to Blessed Vitalis in the year 1658 a silver-gilt chain, in exchange for which silver cruets were bought for the altar of St. Vitalis. Small gifts and votive offerings of wax are offered daily, as may be seen at his tomb; where also the props, staffs and supports of the lame, and likewise arms and feet fashioned of wood, can be seen in fairly great quantity. The treasury box which was placed in the year 1601 by Abbot Martin at the tomb of St. Vitalis ^b, … still even to this day yields every year 30, 40, 50 florins, more or less; from which accordingly the devotion of the faithful toward St. Vitalis can be clearly understood. I read, however, in the Production of his miracles in Canisius … that already 200 years before there was such a treasury box at the tomb of St. Vitalis ^c.

[54] in the years 1630, 1632, 1633, 1634, Further, many votive panels are seen hung near the tomb and altar of St. Vitalis, of which some report exactly neither the name nor the infirmity nor the vow itself with its circumstances; yet in most the benefit of the cure is expressed together with the person of the one vowing: which accordingly are also opportunely inserted and reported here. The first panel, offered in the year 1630, reports that the most illustrious Lady Jacobea of and in Weichs, baroness of Closen in Haidenpurg, offered it at the tomb of Blessed Vitalis for her restored health. In the year 1632 the infant of the honourable man N. Kholperger, seized with frenzy, vowed to Blessed Vitalis, was restored to health: in thanksgiving the parent offered a panel. The third panel reports that in the year 1633 a certain little boy was freed from a hernia through the intercession of St. Vitalis. In the same year Regina Hoferin, oppressed by a grievous infirmity, had a Mass read in honour of St. Vitalis, and offered a panel, and a little after was restored to health. In the year 1634 some person brought a panel to Blessed Vitalis because in some sickness he had felt relief. In the year 1636 the Lady Judith Mayrin, wife of the Lord Michael Mayr, vowed her husband, labouring with a most hot fever, to Blessed Vitalis, a panel being offered, and presently that excessive heat ceased, and the husband recovered.

[55] 1636, 1638, 1640, 1642, 1644, 1647, In the year 1636 Anna Mögelin, seized by the plague, vowed herself to Blessed Vitalis with a panel, whence she was also freed. In the year 1638 a certain sick person vowed a panel to the tomb of St. Vitalis, and was shortly healed. In the year 1639 a certain honourable man, for his wife, who was so afflicted with pain of one foot that she could have no rest day or night, offered a panel with some gift to Blessed Vitalis, and the wife a little after began to be better. In the same year a certain matron vowed and offered to Blessed Vitalis a panel on account of various sicknesses, in which she confessed that she had clearly felt the help of the same Holy Patron. In the year 1640 two matrons, placed in grave dangers of death, offered a panel to Blessed Vitalis from a vow, and felt a powerful suffrage and relief. In the year 1642 a panel was offered by some unknown person on account of some dangerous sickness. In the year 1644 David Kröpfl, a boatman of Lauffen, offered a votive image to Blessed Vitalis on account of a swelling of one foot, and shortly the swelling and pain vanished. In the year 1647 Matthias Loweind and his wife Magdalen vowed their little infant in a dangerous sickness to Blessed Vitalis, and a little after the infant was restored to health; in token of which they offered a panel. In the same year the wife of the honourable man George Prietl, a currier in Straswalchen, afflicted with grievous pains of the feet, offered a panel at the tomb of St. Vitalis, whereby it came about that within a few days she was restored to health.

[56] 1649, 1651, 1654, 1656, 1657, 1660, In the year 1649 Virgilius Kendlinger, whom I mentioned in the previous chapter among the testimonies at no. 31 ^d, offered a panel for his son. In the year 1650 the honourable matron Cordula Ständlin of the town of Lauffen broke her leg by an accidental chance; and although she had been set by a surgeon, yet a little after she suffered a swelling in that foot, which no human remedies could cure: whence she adorned the tomb of Blessed Vitalis with a votive image, and a little after, the swelling being taken away, she recovered. In the year 1651 David Edlman, a ship-master of Lauffen, with his wife visited the tomb of St. Vitalis from a vow, and offered a panel, because their son Christopher had contracted a grievous infirmity in his eyes, which no human remedies could heal, and the vow being paid, shortly the son recovered the former clearness of his eyes. In the year 1654 Susanna Kramingerin of the village of Morzg ^e near Salzburg, placed in some infirmity, vowed a panel to be offered to Blessed Vitalis; whence she was also shortly restored to health. In the year 1656 two spouses vowed their son, already a cleric, held by a grievous disease, to Blessed Vitalis, a votive image being offered at his tomb; who a little after was restored. In the year 1657 an honourable matron in a grievous sickness vowed a panel to Blessed Vitalis, and offered it; whence she at once recovered. In the year 1660 the honourable man Paul Lechner, citizen and brewer in the town of Reichenhall, when he was in danger of phthisis and dropsy, vowed himself to Blessed Vitalis, and adorned the tomb with an image offered.

[57] 1661, 1662 and other uncertain years. In the year 1661 the honourable man Virgilius Kendlinger, citizen and innkeeper of Salzburg, one of his children being sick, vowed and offered a panel to Blessed Vitalis, and a little after the infirmity vanished. In the same year the honourable matron Maria Haigerin commended her sick infant to Blessed Vitalis, vowed and offered a panel, and a little after the infant was restored to health. In the same year another person, who does not express his name, offered a panel because, a vow being paid to Blessed Vitalis, he had been freed from a grievous infirmity. In the year 1662 the honourable widow Magdalen Striehoferin vowed to Blessed Vitalis her son, labouring with a grievous hernia contracted from his mother's womb; from which, when he had been cured and fully healed through the merits of Blessed Vitalis, in testimony of a grateful heart she adorned the sepulchre of the same Holy Patron with a votive panel. In the same year 1662 the honourable matron Christina Hoferin commended to Blessed Vitalis her infant, labouring with a grievous and dangerous ulcer on the head, in curing which all human medicine failed; whence without further medicine, through the merits of St. Vitalis, the fetid ulcer gradually healed of itself and disappeared: in testimony of which miracle she brought a votive panel to the tomb of St. Vitalis. There are still present two other panels without the year added: on one it is said by an honourable matron that her infant, labouring with measles, vowed to Blessed Vitalis, was cured; on the other, that a certain honourable matron of Villach ^f in Carinthia, in a grievous sickness, vowed to Blessed Vitalis one Mass and that she would offer a panel at the tomb, whence, having obtained her wish, she was restored to health. There are present also very many other panels without name, without any inscription, or with only these letters written, E. V., that is, Ex voto, or with only the first letters of names and surnames: whose vows and benefits of cures are wholly unknown.

ANNOTATIONS.