Bernward

ON ST. BERNWARD, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, AT HILDESHEIM IN SAXONY,

PROBABLY IN THE YEAR 1022.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Bernward, confessor and bishop, at Hildesheim. (S.)

BHL Number: 1261

BY J. V. H.

§ I. The Saint's memory in the Roman Martyrology, the day of his cult at Hildesheim; Acts worthy of all faith; a summary of his life.

Under this twenty-sixth day of October the present Roman Martyrology reviews the festivity of St. Bernward in these words: Especially on two days of St. Bernward, "At Hildesheim in Saxony, of St. Bernward, bishop and confessor, numbered among the Saints by Celestine the Third." The Auctaria of Usuard concur with the eulogy, at the day on which he died, the XX of November; and they write his name in various ways. Thus the Carthusian Matricula of Utrecht calls St. Bernward Bernard, bishop of Norden: the Lübeck-Cologne edition, Berward: Greven, Berwald, and he adds, "who in the time of Otto III, feeding the aforesaid (Hildesheim) Church by word and example, rested, renowned for miracles." Molanus agrees with Greven in all things, except that he calls the holy prelate Bertwald. But we, following the native writers, shall call the holy bishop Bernward.

[2] who is not to be confused with his successor Bernhard, Our St. Bernward, however, celebrated today in the Martyrology, is not to be confused with another holy man, likewise bishop of Hildesheim, who died in the middle of the XII century, or in the year 1153. Of this saint, who by ours is called Bernhard, there is treatment under the XX day of July; but at the same time it is indicated that this Bernhard did not obtain public cult in the universal Church, but, as it seems, only in the monastery at Hildesheim which Bernhard had founded under the title of St. Godehard, whose canonization he had procured with Pope Innocent II Act. SS., vol. V of July, p. 100 and following.. For neither does his memory occur in the calendar composed for the Church of Hildesheim itself. For the rest, it is our custom to bring into our Acts those persons distinguished by sanctity who have attained some sure signs of cult, even though in a particular place. Nor by these eulogies do we wish anything to be derogated, as we protest at the head of each volume, from the constitutions of the Roman Pontiffs, especially of Pope Urban VIII; but we write mere history, which, like every merely human work, is liable to error. But let us return from the digression to our St. Bernward.

[3] the memory is celebrated in the Martyrologies: We have said above that the name of St. Bernward is reviewed in the present Roman Martyrology: for in the ancient editions the eulogy of this Saint is omitted. It is first found interpolated by Benedict XIV, as he himself states in the letter to John V of Portugal, which is everywhere set before the edition of the Martyrology prepared by him. In it, moreover, having set forth the end, method and usefulness of the new work, the Pontiff says at number IV that he has made a new addition of Saints: among whom he reviews also at the XXVI day of October St. Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim. In the Lexicon of saints, written in German by the celebrated men Joh. Stadler and Franz Heim, it is said that St. Bernward is noted on the XXVI day of October, although the day of his death is noted at the XX of November Heiligen Lexicon, under Bernwardus.. By an error, probably of the typesetter, Arnold Wion in the book Lignum vitæ Vol. II, p. 374. writes that Trithemius in the Illustrious Men of the Order of St. Benedict marked the death of St. Bernward on the XIV of the kalends of November or the XXI of October. But either Arnold copied it badly, or the typesetter by his yawning carelessness put the kalends of November for those of December; for Trithemius, book III on illustrious men, chapter 232 Trithem., Oper. spirit., p. 101., says that the feast of the Saint is observed on the XIV of the kalends of December. And that indeed is wrong to this extent, inasmuch as the death of St. Bernward is placed on the XII of the kalends of December or the XX of November. It is certain therefore that the day of the Saint's death is recorded at the XX of November, on which also in the Church of Hildesheim his festivity is celebrated yearly. But what was the cause that his announcement should be placed under the XXVI of October, we so far do not know. But for the most part we follow the Roman Martyrology in the feasts; wherefore under this day we have undertaken to illustrate the Acts of St. Bernward.

[4] The contemporary Thangmar, the master, the Life of the Saint We have the Life of St. Bernward and shall publish it below

not only contemporary, but written by his very teacher, indeed also his confessor. This was Thangmar, priest of the Church of Hildesheim, librarian and notary, afterwards dean of the same Church. He says of himself at number 31 of the Life that from his earliest age or youth until grey hairs, intent on scholarly study, he gave his labour to rearing boys: whence, since he educated St. Bernward as a boy in his school, and survived him when he was already of mature age and had discharged the episcopate for twenty years, it is rightly concluded that Thangmar lived to a decrepit old age. That St. Bernward also had his master as the judge of his conscience is manifest from the words of the Prologue, in which he testifies: "Because from a boy until the age of youth he lived with me, he clung to me and lived with me more familiarly, as a son to a father, nor could anything in all the pursuit of his life cheat my knowledge, without my knowing it most fully." For the rest, that Thangmar began the biography while St. Bernward was alive is plain from the same Prologue: "I have undertaken," he says, "to collect the magnificent deeds of the memorable man, namely of the lord Bernward, our bishop, not provoked by the pride of vanity, God being witness, but so that, if by God's clemency anything imitable should shine forth in them, I might proclaim to posterity the grace of the divine goodness, from whose dew it flowed, and might stir them by such an example to progress in the virtues. And because I knew it to be rash to undertake this without his knowledge, after long delaying to speak of these things openly with him, at length having found an opportunity I attempted an approach. At first, then, he opposed me with strong authority; for in all things he avoided boasting and popular favour, as a deadly poison. At length, when I more often pressed on him that it was a grave sin to conceal good works, lest others should profit by such an example, since the Lord says: 'Let your light shine before men,' etc., he yielded to my judgment."

[5] [wrote, being privy to all things, and Theodoric, flourishing at the beginning of the XIII century;] All things therefore concur that we should have every kind of faith in Thangmar, a grave, pious, learned man, who recognized in person what he narrates, and who for the rest relates nothing that does not everywhere concur with the remaining history of that age. Besides this contemporary Life there exists another, written at the beginning of the XIII century by Theodoric II, twelfth abbot of the monastery of St. Michael at Hildesheim, in the Saxon idiom, which comes very close to Flemish. He was, as the Chronicle of the monastery of Hildesheim has it in Meibom Rer. Germ., vol. II, p. 519., "a master of arts, a son of the city, a man in all things provident, he ruled spiritual affairs laudably. He bestowed on his monastery many treasures in chasubles and copes for the enlargement of divine worship: and he obtained the mitre and sandals with the other liberties through privileges with many indulgences, in the year 1194. Under this Abbot Theodoric St. Bernward is canonized by Celestine III (who began to rule the apostolic see in the year 1193 and sat for three years), Berno, prelate of Hildesheim, and Theodoric, abbot of St. Michael's, labouring for this. Theodoric resigned the abbacy in the year 1204, in the 24th year of his rule." Although in the cited chronicle nothing is said of the Life of St. Bernward published in German by Abbot Theodoric, it is easy enough to judge that Theodoric used the canonization of the holy prelate to spread his cult, and to deliver to his countrymen a composition patched together in their native tongue. So far this little work lies unpublished, which seems to us most useful for showing the character of the German language at the beginning of the XII century.

[6] a summary of it, taken as it seems from an ancient But that we may have a clearer image of what is to be said, we judge it opportune to display a shorter Life of St. Bernward, which we borrow from Leibniz's writers of the affairs of Brunswick. The anonymous writer seems to favour the people of Mainz somewhat, seeing that he altogether passes over the controversy held between our prelate and Willigis, archbishop of Mainz, about the monastery of Gandersheim, in which the Church of Hildesheim was the victor, and which we shall unfold more widely below. Further, this summary seems to be a fragment of some Martyrology; since its beginning repeats the accustomed form of Martyrologies, as is plain from what follows Scriptt. Rer. Brunsw., vol. I, p. 481.: "At Hildensem, a city of Saxony, the feast of St. Berward, bishop and confessor. This Saint was sprung from illustrious birth, from the daughter of A (del boronis), count palatine of Saxony, was educated in the fear of the Lord in the Church of Hildensem, and thoroughly instructed in sacred letters and the art of sculpture. Being now made a young man, he faithfully governed the house of his aged grandfather, and as a chaste and humble man faithfully ministered to him. At length, the opinion of his good fame having been learned, the emperor Otto called him to the palace, and, his sagacity having been learned, kept him at court, though unwilling. And on account of the purity and wisdom which shone forth in him, he was acceptable to all the courtiers."

[7] Martyrology, is displayed. "And when Gerdag of blessed memory, bishop of Hildensem, had died, by the common wish St. Berward was elected by all, and devoutly consecrated by Willigis, archbishop of Mainz. Made bishop, he began in every way to watch over the advantage of the Church, and not slackly to take care of his subjects, made all things to all men. When he was at leisure, indeed always when he was present, at the hour of chapter he went in to the brethren, and exhorted them concerning religion and the purpose of their life to wholesome obedience, offering himself as a pattern of living. He greatly increased the stipends of the brethren, enriched and adorned the church with sacred hangings, vestments, golden and silver chalices and various vessels which he made with his own hands, and with books. He also bestowed very many things from his paternal inheritance, and acquired for the bishop many estates, even from the imperial fisc, from the largess of the emperors. Assiduous in prayer, profuse in the giving of alms, humble, affable, gentle. Besides the works of his piety, which it would be long to relate, in the city over which he presided, on its northern side he built, dedicated and endowed a monastery in honour of St. Michael and of all the heavenly powers, adorned with wonderful work, and gathered there religious monks, to whom he gave generous stipends, that they might be able to serve God without solicitude. On the death of Otto, the second of this name, he, while still living, commended to him his son still very small, namely Otto the Third, with his mother Theophano, and the whole empire with the consent of the princes, that he might educate the son and govern the realm by his foresight. Which he carried out not slackly, though with the envy of the great bishops, namely of Mainz and Cologne."

[8] is displayed. "He himself also consecrated as archbishop Herbenbald *, elect of the see of Mainz, his kinsman according to the flesh. After the monastery of St. Michael had been completed, after the labours which he endured in the care of the empire, after the tribulations which he endured for the liberty and liberation of the Church of Hildensem, under the most happy emperor Henry the Second, founder of the Church of Bamberg, whom he reared and had caused to be imbued with sacred letters in his Church, wearied by a long illness, he took the habit of a monk in his monastery, and, as the hour of death drew near, ordered himself to be carried into the oratory of Blessed Martin, which he himself had built; and there, placed upon a haircloth strewn with ashes, having received the viaticum, among the hands of those assisting he passed to the rest of the Angels. Blessed Berward was buried in the church of St. Michael, in a tomb which he had dug for himself before, where after his death, at his sacred tomb, the blind were given light, the demoniacs cured, the sick healed. His venerable memory Pope Celestine the Third exalted, and ordered him to be translated, Abbot Theodoric promoting this. His translation was celebrated on the seventeenth of the kalends of August, Celestine presiding over the Roman Church, Henry, the sixth of this name, ruling, Berno, the venerable bishop, administering the episcopate of the Church of Hildesem, by whom the same Saint was translated."

* Erkenbald

§ II. The Saint's family on his father's and his mother's side; the dignity of count palatine explained; the paternal family dies out.

The Saint, of Saxon race "There was born," says the biographer Thangmar at number 1, "the boy Bernward, of excellent character, of the illustrious blood of our nation, from the daughter of Athelbero, count palatine." The maternal lineage of the Saint is indicated altogether clearly, namely that his mother was the daughter of Adalbero, count palatine. But the paternal lineage is passed over to this extent, that he is said to have sprung from the illustrious blood of our (Saxon) nation. Nevertheless it is very probable that the Saint drew his paternal origin from the family of Sommerschenburg, whose seat was five kilometres distant to the south from the town of Helmstedt. For in the German Life, which we said at number 5 was composed at the beginning of the XIII century, St. Bernward's father is called Theodoric, count of Sommerschenburg. Syn vader eyn edel grave to Sommerschenborg in Sassen, Dietrich genomt His father a noble count at Sommerschenborg in Saxony, called Dietrich Dreyhaupt. Bescreib. des Saal-Kreises, vol. I, p. 686.. The author of this composition is Theodoric II, abbot of St. Michael's, namely of the monastery founded by our Bernward, in whose hands were various documents which explained the Saint's family; nor is Abbot Theodoric to be accused as though he had rashly added anything to the text of Thangmar, who leaves the matter uncertain.

[10] probably from the stock Besides this argument, in every way probable, Dr. Johann Michael Kratz in his description of the cathedral of Hildesheim brings others which altogether corroborate the opinion set forth. And in the first place there once existed in the church of St. Michael at Hildesheim, founded by St. Bernward, a tablet, carved about the end of the XII century or the beginning of the following, and destroyed by the citizens in the year 1543, of which however a drawing was preserved in the archive of the monastery. On it there were five circles: and the middle one bore the following inscription Kratz. Der Dom zu Hildesheim, part III, p. 96.: "The leader is Blessed Bernward, canonized, born count of Sommerschenborg; associated with the Angels: a prelate of peace, succouring the troubled." In the remaining circles arranged crosswise is celebrated the memory of Thangmar, of Goderam the first abbot, of Sigebert the third and of Theoderic the tenth. And certainly in the monastery of St. Michael there must have been preserved many documents which reviewed the family of the founder: and so it can scarcely be believed that the monks, eighty years after his death, erred so shamefully in setting up a monument. That the title of Sommerschenburg was engraved on the tomb of St. Bernward's sister, Judith, abbess of Ringelheim, on the I day of March 1000, Dr. Kratz testifies Ibid. p. 3.. Finally in the very castle of Sommerschenburg there was an altar under the invocation of the holy prelate, and within its bounds an oratory under the same name, to which the Michaelites of Hildesheim flocked yearly, and whose estates lay in the neighbourhood, namely under the parish of Sommersdorf, whose church also was dedicated under the name of St. Bernward Ibid., l. c..

[11] of Sommerschenburg he sprang But Johann Friedrich Falken in the book of the Traditions of Corvey P. 237. holds this tradition spurious. He admits indeed that the father of St. Bernward was called Theodoric; but that he was count of Olesburg, not of Sommerschenburg. In Brower Sidera illust. de S. Bernwardo p. 32., Mabillon Act SS. Ord. S. Bened. sæc. VI, Part I p. 221. and Leibniz Rer. Brunsw. vol. I, p. 456. it is read that Tammo, the brother of St. Bernward, occupied the fort of Sommerschenburg. But this the said Falcken calls a gloss Trad. Corbej. p. 237., which we readily grant. For in the same Life of St. Bernward, edited by the celebrated Pertz, the word

Sommerschenburg is omitted Monum. Germ. Scriptt. vol. IV. p. 774.. We set forth the text in such a way that the things enclosed in brackets are found in Brower and the rest, and are omitted in Pertz's text: "At the same time, certain people resisting the imperial commands, Bernward's brother Count Tammo, pleasing to the emperor, a man certainly illustrious for all uprightness of conduct, at the king's command occupied (of Sommerschenburg) the paternal, strongly fortified fort." An annotation is appended to the text, in which it is said that on an erased spot there had been written Sommerschenburg paternum: and it is added: "a correction of an ignorant copyist, who, not knowing Paternum in Italy, thought that the discourse here was about the fort of Tammo, which he believed to have been Sommerschenburg."

[12] as the monuments of Hildesheim affirm, There are various places in Italy whose name is Paternum (Paterno). Three occur to me in the Papal State, namely in the dioceses of Fabriano, Spoleto and Ancona: moreover there is in the diocese of Civita Castellana one which is called Paternum Cf. Muratori, Scriptt. vol. IV p. 82. n., where Otto III died in the year 1005, on the IX of the kalends of February Cf. Act. SS. vol. I of June, p. 514.. Nevertheless there are also many forts of this name in the kingdom of Naples, among others one by the Fucine lake (Lago di Celano) in the Abruzzi, and this place ours write was fatal to Otto in the Acts of St. Heribert at the XVI day of March Ibid. vol. II of March, p. 470.. Among so many places of the same name, then, it is difficult to say what properly was the place which Count Tammo occupied according to the precept of his emperor. But if we consider the text of Thangmar, we may conjecture that the Paternum spoken of lay in the neighbourhood of the city of Todi, or in the dioceses of Fabriano or Spoleto adjoining Todi. And the reason that moves me most is this, because according to Thangmar at number 34, who himself was St. Bernward's envoy, he found the emperor in the parts of Spoleto, and there awaited the Pope, who had appointed a synod to be held at the city of Todi on the Lord's nativity. And indeed at the following number a synod is related to have been assembled on the feast of St. John the Evangelist, or the XXVII day of December. Now between the two, namely the convocation and the celebration of the synod of Todi, it is placed that Tammo, St. Bernward's brother, occupied Paternum, a strongly fortified fort, assuredly for the defence of the synod of Todi, in which Bernward's controversy was to be ventilated. Rightly therefore in the Life of our saint the ill-omened word Sommerschenburg is struck out.

[13] which Joh. Falcken attacks in vain; We altogether agree, therefore, with the collector of the Traditions of Corvey, Johann Falcken, in striking out the name Sommerschenburg in the text of Thangmar; but we can in no way follow him when he makes the father of St. Bernward Theodoric of Olesburg Trad. Corbej. p. 334.. For first of all he can show by no other argument, so far as I know, that the father of St. Bernward was called Theodoric, than by the Chronicle of St. Michael's, cited above at number 9. Since therefore he borrows the name of Theodoric from this Chronicle, it follows that he should admit the rest also, namely the kinship of Sommerschenburg. Grant that the text of Thangmar is interpolated: the Saint's lineage would remain uncertain, if there were no other argument: but we have shown above that there are manifold reasons for which we ought to attribute to our Saint a Sommerschenburg origin. But for confirming his own opinion Joh. Frid. Falcken brings nothing: he has shown indeed that the text of Thangmar is corrupt, and so of no weight; but in no way has he indicated the true family of the Saint. We maintain therefore, until taught something more certain, that St. Bernward drew his origin from the family of Sommerschenburg.

[14] to which stock the palatinate of Saxony came: Further, in the same century in which our Saint lived, the family of Sommerschenburg obtained the palatinate of Saxony. For Dedo is called count palatine in the German Chronicle of Goslar, slain in the church of Goslar in the year 1057 on the occasion of a disputed election of the emperor Leibniz. Rer. Brunsw. vol. III, p. 427.: Dedo ein palantgrave van der Sommerschenborch blef dar ock dot, unde licht in deme myddele des munsters; Dedo, count palatine of Sommerschenburg, was also killed there (in the church) and lies buried in the middle of the church. Less accurately therefore does Meibom speak in the Chronicle of Marienthal when he says Script. vol. III, p. 254. that Frederick I, count of Sommerschenburg or the elder, was the first palatine of this family: for that Frederick, who died in the year 1115, was the son of Albert, called Seveke Cribellus, who took as wife Oda, palatine of Saxony, daughter of Dedo, count of Wettin and of Merseburg Ibid., p. 253.. But that Dedo, besides Oda, had a son Frederick, from whom his posterity. Among whom his great-grandson Frederick V, canon of Magdeburg, who, his brother having died, and having renounced his canonry, took up the paternal inheritance and took a wife, from which marriage sprang Sophia, wife of Hermann of Thuringia, mother of Louis and mother-in-law of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. It is said indeed that Frederick Barbarossa handed over the palatinate to this Louis; because, namely, Sophia also was to be held as illegitimate, as though born of a priest Ibid l. c. cf. Falcken. Trad Corb. p. 335., and she therefore could not by her own right transfer the county palatine to her husband. And we know that war had then above all been declared on concubinary clerics. Now we pass on to the maternal lineage of St. Bernward.

[15] the young St. Bernward was under the care of his mother, It is worthy of note that, the name of his father being passed over in silence, Thangmar at n. 1 makes mention of his mother alone, saying that St. Bernward sprang from the illustrious blood of our nation, from the daughter of Athelbero, count palatine: it is added too that by Folcmar, his uncle, or by his mother's brother, he was handed over to Osdag, bishop of Hildesheim, and at length at number 4, having been made a priest, that he stood by his maternal grandfather until death: there is cited also at number 67 Rothgard, abbess of the Church of Hildeward, his maternal aunt, and so his mother's sister. Why then does the biographer treat of the maternal stock alone? I for my part should believe that his father died in the very boyhood of Bernward. Which is also confirmed from this, that at number 1 his mother and his uncle Folckmar handed him over to Thangmar to be imbued with letters and also trained in morals: for Folckmar seems to act the part as it were of guardian of the minor Bernward, whereas the care and education of children would rather fall on the father. One thing here creates a difficulty; namely, Folcmar was an uncle, and so belonged to the maternal stock, which is established from number 1, where it is narrated that the young Bernward brought about a firm friendship between his grandfather Athelbero and his son the bishop. Now by Saxon law the mundium or guardianship, the father of the family having died, belonged to the nearest blood relation of the paternal kin [Cf. Eichhorn. Deutsch. Staats-und Rechtsgeschichte §56.]. Grant then that Folckmar was not guardian by strict law, he was certainly an adviser to the mother, whose counsels she obeyed.

[16] The celebrated A. Fr. Gfrörer, formerly professor of History in the university of Freiburg in Breisgau, because bereft of his father. judges that the father of St. Bernward, after the death of the daughter of Athelbero, brought in a second wife, Rothgard, afterwards abbess of the monastery of Hildeward, and so that the Saint had a stepmother: but it is nowhere said that Rothgard was a stepmother, indeed at number 7 she is called a maternal aunt, or sister of his mother. There is no reason therefore why we should attribute a second marriage to his father; and from what has been said so far, it is probable that he died before his wife, the daughter of Athelbero Pabst. Greg. VII, vol. I, p. 184.. But Joh. Frid. Falke, already so often cited, in the book of the traditions of Corvey P. 334., thrusts on us something else: namely that Athelbero, the maternal grandfather, was of the family of Sommerschenburg. But he puts this forward without any suitable testimony: nay rather, the laws in force at that age altogether contradict this opinion. He wishes indeed to confirm his supposition from goods possessed by the family of Sommerschenburg: but here he altogether runs against the laws in force at that age: for the law of the Saxons, § VII, expressly prescribes Lindenbrog, Codex legum antiq. p. 476: "Let father or mother leave the inheritance to the son of the deceased, not to the daughter." Now Athelbero, at number 2, abounded most happily in offspring of both sexes: no part of the inheritance therefore, so far as it consisted in lands and estates, could come to the mother of St. Bernward. It remains therefore unshaken from this head too that the holy prelate belonged to the stock of Sommerschenburg through his father.

[17] The office of the palatines is set forth; Further, the county palatine, which Athelbero, the Saint's maternal grandfather, held, was, as it seems, the first dignity of the court. For first of all he administered the possessions of the prince, and through his ministry estates were handed over, if the prince perhaps wished to make a gift to anyone. Thus in the year 1012 St. Henry II hands over to the Church of Merseburg a vineyard near Merseburg, "which long since through our advocate Burchard, count palatine, we caused to be handed over to the church situated in the old city and consecrated … in honour of St. Peter, and now also … we confirm" Pertz, Monum. vol. X, p. 175. Cf. Gfrörer. Pabst. Greg. VII, vol. I, p. 186.. He had therefore the guardianship of all the prince's possessions. But the palatine was also the supreme judge of civil causes, as Hincmar of Reims testifies in the Opusculum on the Instruction of Carloman or on the Order of the palace, § XXI Migne, Patrol., vol. CXXV, col. 1001.: "The solicitude of the count of the palace, among almost innumerable other things, lay above all in this, that all royal contentions, which having arisen elsewhere came to the palace for the judgment of equity, he should determine justly and reasonably, or bring back to the path of equity what had been perversely judged, so that he might please all, both before God on account of justice and before men on account of the observance of the laws. But if there were anything such that the worldly laws did not then have it in their established definitions, or that had been sanctioned according to the custom of the Gentiles more cruelly than Christian rectitude or holy authority could rightly consent to, this was to be brought to the moderation of the king, that he himself with those who knew both laws, and feared the statutes of God more than those of human laws, might so decide, might so determine, that where both could be kept, both should be kept: but if not, the law of the world should rightly be restrained, the justice of God be preserved."

[18] for there seem to have been several at the same time. I have no doubt but that the order of the Carolingian palace was also preserved by those who, as dukes of provinces, aspired to display the image of a royal court; and who in Saxony in the X and XI centuries struggled up as emperors to the highest power. Nevertheless there seem to have been in Saxony several counts palatine at the same time: this the said Gfrörer shows. Namely, that Theodoric, the father of St. Bernward, and Frederick of Goseck administered the county palatine at the same time; and he explains this, because Saxony was divided into old and new; the old had been conquered by Charlemagne, the new by the Ottos: so that the old could be called Carolingian, the new Ottonian Pabst. Greg. VII vol. I, p. 190.. Nay rather, that some, perhaps only for the sake of honour, obtained the dignity of the palatinate, I should readily believe. Certainly in the charter of foundation of the monastery of Goseck, given on the III of the kalends of October 1053, there says

Adalbert, archbishop of Bremen, that he, together with his brothers Dedo and Frederick, palatine governors, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ built the monastery of Gozeka from his patrimony Pertz, Mon. Hist. Germ., vol. X, p. 143.. There was also at the same time another Dedo of Sommerschenburg, likewise a palatine, of whom we have already treated above at number 13. We have therefore now three palatines: for we cannot confuse both Dedos into one person, if we attend to the manner of their death. Dedo, the founder of Goseck, was killed in the year 1056 at the village of Polethe by a certain cleric, whom his brother Adalbert of Bremen had handed over to him for safekeeping Ibid., p. 144.. But the other, as we have said above, in the disputed election of the emperor after the death of the emperor Henry III, in the same year was cut down tumultuously at Goslar, and buried there. But what Gfrörer judges, that both the palatinate and the county of Sommerschenburg came to the father of our Saint from his marriage with the daughter of Athelbero, cannot be approved by us, so far as it pertains to Sommerschenburg: because, as we have shown above at number 16, that inheritance could not accrue to Theodoric through women.

[19] In the XII century the family of Sommerschenburg dies out. At length the family of Sommerschenburg died out about the end of the XII century, when, Albert the palatine having died in the year 1188, his inheritance devolved on Adelhaid or Alheid, commonly the III of this name, abbess of Quedlinburg Meibom, Scriptt., vol. III, p. 254.. But Henry the Lion, duke of Brunswick, a most powerful prince at that time, opposed Alheid, saying that he was the nearest agnate of the palatines, and by that right heir. Alheid, whether of her own accord or persuaded by others, sold the county for a fixed price to Wichmann, who from the year 1152 to 1192 held the see of Magdeburg, Henry the Lion sharply opposing himself: but at length Sommerschenburg remained in the hands of the archbishops of Magdeburg. The price drawn from the sale Abbess Alheid spent partly on the restoration of a destroyed monastery, partly on priests, widows and other persons of humbler lot. The last of the stock of Sommerschenburg is written to have died in the year 1190 Ibid., p. 252. Cf. Voigt, Geschichte des Stifts Quedlinb. vol. I, p. 297..

§ III. The place and time of the Saint's birth: his education in the School of Hildesheim; the character of the schools of that age.

He seems to have been born at the castle of Sommerschenburg, Having set forth the stock from which St. Bernward came, there next comes to be investigated the time at which the Saint was brought into the light. And in clearing up this question in whatever way, we must indulge somewhat in conjectures. Thangmar, who for the rest wrote the Life of the Saint accurately, somewhat neglected his younger age: for he omitted the name of his father, the place and time of his birth: for which reason we must reach these things by conjectures. And as regards the place of birth first of all, we judge that St. Bernward found his native soil in the paternal county of Sommerschenburg, which is situated on the very borders of the two bishoprics of Magdeburg and Hildesheim: whence I cannot certainly determine to which of the two dioceses it belongs. It is more probable, however, that St. Bernward found his native soil in the diocese of Magdeburg: for we saw a little above that Abbess Alheid, the last of the stock of Sommerschenburg, sold the inheritance to Wichmann, archbishop of Magdeburg, so far as it belonged to his diocese. That he was handed over to the bishop of Hildesheim to be educated and enrolled by him in the clerical warfare does not much show that the Saint was a native of the Church of Hildesheim. For a young man was easily brought over from one diocese to another. Of which thing we have a most splendid example, of the same time and region, in St. Meinwerk, bishop of Paderborn, whose Acts ours gave under the V day of June Act. SS., vol. I of June, p. 508.. For in his Life at number 4 he is said to have been born in the northern tract of the diocese of Utrecht Ibid., p. 512., offered at Halberstadt to the clerical office by his parents, where he went through the rudiments of his tenderer age, and those of his more advanced age in the Church of Hildesheim. His studies finished, he returned to Halberstadt, and there lived under a provost of the canonical law. Further, Meinwerk and Bernward were contemporaries under the same province of Mainz, the former at Paderborn, the latter at Hildesheim, and therefore nothing prevents St. Bernward, even if he was born in the diocese of Magdeburg, from having passed over to that of Hildesheim.

[21] about the year 960: Similarly we have nothing certain concerning the time of his birth: for we do not know for how many years he lived in this world. There are three things, however, which suggest that St. Bernward died at sixty. First of all Thangmar, at once his master and biographer, survived him; then in the year 993 he ascended the chair of Hildesheim, and finally in the year 1022 he closed his life. From these things we deduce that St. Bernward did not reach a very advanced age, since indeed he had as the writer of his life the master of his boyhood. Then, consecrated bishop, as we have said, in the year 993, he must have had the age of about thirty years; since the council of Aachen of the year 816, book I, chapter 9 Harzheim. Conc. Germ. vol. I, p. 440., requires that after the example of Christ he should begin to preach in the thirtieth year of his age. "But that a priest (bishop) is made from thirty years," it says, "is taken from the age, namely, from which the same began to preach." That bishops come under the name of priest here is manifest, because in the preceding chapter the council treats of presbyters Ibid. p. 438.. Finally St. Bernward obtained the see of Hildesheim not long after the canonical age; for in his life at number 4 it is read: "although many noble clerics, long serving in the palatine warfare, desired the discharge (the bishopric of Hildesheim), yet the consent of all concurred on this young man chosen by God": the writer then speaks of the youthful body, which he drove to the summit of the virtues. And in the episcopate he spent thirty years (from 993 to 1023). From all of which it is concluded that St. Bernward reached the age of sixty; and therefore that he was brought into this light about the year of Christ 960.

[22] The School of Hildesheim, in which "To Thangmar, who as primicerius presided over the school of boys, he is assigned to be imbued with letters and also trained in morals." So Thangmar himself at number 1, who afterwards sets forth in what way he cultivated the boy Bernward in all sciences and arts. The primicerius who presided over the school of boys is the same who is also called the Scholaster. The episcopal schools were held after the manner of present-day seminaries, of which a most accurate image is displayed to us by the author of the Life of St. Meinwerk, who, a contemporary of St. Bernward, was also a pupil of the school of Hildesheim, chapter 11 Acta SS., vol. I, of June 537.: "Manifold exercises of studies," he says, "flourished under him; and youths and boys of good character were vigorously trained by regular norm, advancing not slackly in the discipline of the cloister, and in the teaching of all letters. This shone forth under his nephew Bishop Imad, under whom public studies flourished in the Church of Paderborn. When there were musicians there and dialecticians, rhetoricians shone forth, and famous grammarians: when also masters of arts exercised the trivium, whose whole study was about the quadrivium: where mathematicians and astronomers were renowned, there were physicists and geometers, there flourished the great Horace and Virgil, Crispus and Sallust, and the urbane Statius; and it was a sport for all to sweat over verses and compositions, and pleasant songs. Whose constant earnestness in writing and painting shines forth in manifold ways in today's experience; while the zeal of noble clerics is weighed by the use of useful books. The aforesaid Bishop Imad also in the time of his boyhood was reared there in such rigour of cloister discipline, that he was never permitted to see his father outside the community in private or to speak to him: the bishop saying that boys and adolescents must be instructed with severity, and not soothed with harmful blandishments; since blandishments would supply them the nourishment of boldness and fierceness. There grew up also with him recruits of the heavenly warfare Anno, archbishop of Cologne, Frederick of Münster and very many others, afterwards vigorous labourers in the vineyard of the Lord."

[23] is educated, What has so far been brought forward from the Life of St. Meinwerk needs some explanation. First, Imad, who is called the nephew of the holy prelate, inasmuch as his mother was the sister of St. Meinwerk, was the third bishop of Paderborn after him, which chair he held from 1051 to 1076 Schmid, Die Säkulairzirten Bisth. Deutschlands, vol. II, p. 110.: and so Imad himself, although begotten of a most noble stock, professed an austere rule of life. Let us remark in passing that even in ecclesiastical schools youths were cultivated by the reading of profane writers, and that among the authors reviewed there was only one who wrote in prose, namely Sallust. Here too one may see the book equipment of the school of Paderborn, so far as it comprised profane writings. And it is well enough known at how great a price codices of this kind were to be procured: especially since they were often written and painted with the highest art. Wherefore in the schools of that age youths were exercised with the greatest care in writing and painting, of which the constant earnestness and the monuments existed. The luxury which was displayed in copying books perhaps took its rise from St. Boniface of Mainz: for in his letters, as has been shown in the Acts of St. Lullus at the XVI day of October Act. SS., vol. VII, of October p. 1075 and following., there is frequent treatment of books to be sent from England into Germany; thus he asks of the abbess Eanfleda that she should write in gold the epistles of her lord St. Peter the Apostle for the honour and reverence of the Holy Scriptures Migne, Patrol. vol. LXXXIX, col. 712.. From that source probably flowed in the Churches and schools of Germany the custom of exercising youths in writing and painting. How great an artist St. Bernward was in these things, we shall teach below.

[24] is described; The profane sciences which boys were taught comprised the Trivium and Quadrivium. The Trivium, as is held in Du Cange at this word, means Grammar, Dialectic and Rhetoric, as it were a threefold way to eloquence. And the Quadrivium comprised four arts, namely Arithmetic, Music, Geometry and Astronomy. The disciplines so far enumerated paved the way to the weightier sciences of Theology, Jurisprudence and Medicine. There is no doubt that those who were to be assigned to the Ecclesiastical ministry were exercised in theological disciplines: thus our St. Bernward was cultivated in turning over the Sacred Scripture and the Fathers of the Church. And those, above all among the nobles, who were destined to carry on civil affairs applied themselves to jurisprudence: as the Chronicle of Ebersberg attests to us concerning Count Udalric at the beginning of the XI century, who said that if anyone powerful and noble was ignorant of the law (rights), he seemed disgraced, as, he said, appears in me and my contemporaries, who have learned the rights Oefele. Rer. Bojic. scriptt. vol. II, p. 10.: but that custom, as is said in the same place, gradually fell into disuse.

[25] on which occasion mention is made Besides episcopal schools, there were also, monasteries having been founded, schools in the monasteries. Before the others in Germany there shone the schools of St. Gall

Cf. V. Arx, Geschichte von St Gallen, vol. I, p. 183. and of Fulda Schannat. Hist. Fuld., p. 55., superior in antiquity, according to the norm of which I suppose that the remaining episcopal and monastic schools were ordered. Southern Germany was cultivated above all by the monks of St. Gall, northern by those of Fulda. And indeed before the subjugation of Saxony by Charlemagne, the monks of Fulda committed the chief seeds of the Gospel word to the Saxon field, which then grew into most abundant harvests. Already in the year 787 or the following Charles had commanded that bishoprics and monasteries, "besides the order of the regular life and the conversation of holy religion, ought also in the meditation of letters to devote zeal to teaching those who, by the Lord's gift, are able to learn, according to the capacity of each: so that as the regular norm orders the honesty of conduct, so also the earnestness of teaching and learning may order and adorn the sequence of words; that those who seek to please God by living rightly may not neglect also to please him by speaking rightly" Sirmond. Conc. Gall., vol. II, p. 121.. Hence also, the bishopric of Osnabrück having been erected, Charles commands in the year 804 that Greek and Latin schools be held there, so that clerics skilled in both languages may always be found: for which reason, while the king exempts the clerics from all royal service, he wishes nevertheless that, if perhaps it should happen that the emperor of the Romans and the king of the Greeks should arrange to contract marriage treaties between their children, then the bishop of the Church of Osnabrück, all the expense being supplied by the king or emperor, should take up the labour and at the same time the honour of that embassy Harzheim. Conc. Germ., vol. I, p. 387..

[26] concerning monastic schools: The foundation of New Corvey in Saxony, which was begun in the year of Christ 815, also contributed much to the cultivation of good letters. For in the Chronicle of Corvey we read under the year 846 that the School flourished greatly with the growth of Saxony Leibniz, Rer. Brunswic., vol. II, p. 297.. And indeed that the study of the sciences flourished there at that age the same Chronicle testifies, when it says that Wimo in the year 885 as lector was held in high esteem everywhere for his ready learning and accurate instruction Ibid, p. 298.: similarly in the year 952 Unwan of Corvey is made lector of Sacred Theology in the monastery of St. Pantaleon at Cologne Ibid., p. 301.. But Corvey sends not only one lector or master to other monasteries, but also founds new schools, as is read in the same Chronicle under the year 961, that the school flourished in the New Church with the whole congregation, vying, it says, as it were with ours. "Thus the mother loved the daughter, and the daughter honoured the mother" Ibid., l. c.. I would not, however, say the same of the monasteries of nuns. It has already been shown elsewhere, namely in the Acts of St. Hedwig at the XVII day of October, numbers 35 and following Act. SS., vol. VIII of October, p. 205., that nuns did not have, as monks did, external schools, but only internal or cloister schools, namely for girls either veiled or to be veiled.

[27] in all of which the liberal arts were exercised. When therefore St. Bernward ran through the literary course set out above and, says the biographer at number 3, "blazed with the most lively fire of soul in every liberal knowledge, he nevertheless gave attention to the lighter arts, which they call mechanical." Nor is this very wonderful. For the clerics of those times and of those nations were of such condition that they were compelled to teach arts also to the barbarians: as the apostolic men of today, while by preaching they soften the character of men of the forest, must form them for civil life and the arts connected with it. And this the series of the acts of our prelate will further show. St. Boniface of Mainz, by whose discipline the Saxon Churches had been formed, had seen in England that bishops and priests were truly the Δημιουργους of cities, seeing that they had instructed the Anglo-Saxon nation in all humanity. Certainly the canons published by King Edgar prescribe this. In Canon XI Labbe, vol. IX, Conc., col. 683. we read: "We teach also that every priest, to increase his knowledge, should diligently learn a handicraft": namely, when the people, as yet rustic, saw their spiritual leaders applying themselves to some handicraft, they were stirred by such an example to imitation, and little by little the cultivation of the arts was advanced. For the rest, in the ancient monasteries all handicrafts and all arts were exercised. St. Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury, was a smith, a maker of musical organs, a founder of bells Cf. Lingard, Les Antiquités de L'Eglise anglo-sax., p. 179.: the abbots of the monastery of Solignac among the Limousins initiated and advanced the art of chasing and enamelling, which won such great fame for the city of Limoges Lenoir, Archit. monast., vol. II, p. 478.. Thiemo too, archbishop of Salzburg, a Martyr of the XI century, excelled in the art of sculpting, painting, modelling and chasing, indeed he was skilled in an art, by an industry hitherto lost, of casting stone statues Metzger, Hist. Salisburg., p. 335.. When therefore St. Bernward gave attention to the mechanical arts, he did nothing that departed from the manners of his age.

[28] He receives minor orders: St. Bernward seems in the very flower of adolescence to have received the order of exorcist from the bishop of Hildesheim: and since this is the third among the Minor Orders, he probably also received the preceding ones from the same bishop. We read then that St. Bernward was ordained subdeacon by Bl. Willigis, archbishop of Mainz. At that age, however, this order was not reckoned among the sacred or major ones, which was done finally at the end of the XII century; for Peter the Chanter, namely of Paris, who died in the same century, writes in his Verbum Abbreviatum, chapter 60 Migne, Patrol., vol. CCV, col. 184.: "It has been newly instituted that the subdiaconate is a sacred order." Nevertheless Cardinal Bona, Rer. Liturg., book I, chapter 25, §16 P. 483, Antwerp edition of 1677., although the subdeacon was held among the Minor Orders, teaches that after the sixth century scarcely any memory is found of subdeacons who were not bound by a vow of continence. And at Rome indeed continence was already observed by them in the time of Pelagius II, Pontiff from the year 578 to 590, who forbade the subdeacons of Sicily to have relations with their wives, as St. Gregory the Great testifies, book I, letter 44 Migne, Patrol., vol. LXXVII, col. 506.: at the same time, however, he wishes that thereafter subdeacons to be ordained should promise that they will live chastely; and that if after the prohibition made by Pope Pelagius they should be unwilling to contain themselves, they can by no means come to a sacred order. In the Churches of England, from which clerical discipline was derived to those of Germany, on the testimony of Bede, book I, chapter 27 Ibid., vol. XCIV, col. 58., marriage was to be forbidden only to clerics established in sacred orders, which was permitted to inferior ones. From what has been said it is plain that St. Bernward, a secular cleric, after receiving the subdiaconate was free to pass at his choice to worldly vows Cf. Moroni, Dizion. di Erud., under Subdiacono..

[29] he stands by his maternal grandfather Before, however, St. Bernward travelled to Bl. Willigis, although still flourishing in the first auspices of budding beauty, he was already taken into counsel by his maternal grandfather Athelbero (Life, number 1.). For in that young man the grandfather found the station of salutary counsel, joined him to himself more familiarly, so that he did not do even the least thing without his advice. And his residence in the house of his grandfather had some interval of time, in which he moved to the bishop of Mainz, from whom after the order of subdiaconate he received the diaconate and priesthood. And rightly indeed have I said that the ordination of our Saint was celebrated after an interval of time. For having been made a priest, he "returned to the aforesaid count, namely his grandfather" (Life, number 2.). For by returning the Saint is shown to have already lived there. And I suppose that St. Bernward received the Order of the priesthood at about twenty-five years of age. For above at number 21 we determined from probable conjectures that he was born about the year of Christ 960, and that, already a priest and chaplain of the king, as we shall show below, he was in the year 987 or 988 the tutor of the minor king, Otto III. Whence we deduce that he was ordained priest in the year 985. For if we anticipate the ordination by a year or two, we run against a defect of age in the one to be ordained; if we put it off later, a priest could not have taken charge of the education of Otto: and so the ordination of St. Bernward is to be attached to about the year 985, who was then about twenty-five years of age.

[30] the pillar of the whole family. At the time when St. Bernward, already a priest, was staying with his grandfather, he took particular care in preserving the peace of the family. "With fatherly affection," says the biographer at number 4, "toward the sons (namely his uncles) he poured himself out wholly, and brought about great goodwill among them… Between the father also and the son, the lord bishop, he often ran as a go-between, and brought about great goodwill of familiarity between them. To the bishop himself, then, he was so pleasing, that he wished to set him over the monastery of Deventer as his deputy: and there arose between the bishop and the count a religious contest concerning a young man of such character, so that each intended to adopt him for himself for the grace of his conduct. But he preferred to sustain the infirmity of his feeble grandfather, rather than to seek episcopal delights." It is understood well enough that the bishop spoken of in this place is Folcmar, the Saint's uncle, who occupied the see of Maastricht or Utrecht for XIII years, namely from the year 977 to 990 Van Heussen, Hist. Ultraj., vol. I, p. 10.. The monastery of Deventer, of which there is treatment in the text, is a college of canons, as is held in the Life of St. Ludger at the XXVI of March, written by Altfrid, his successor in the bishopric of Münster, who flourished in the IX century. For it is read there Act. SS., vol. III of March, p. 645. that St. Ludger restored the church of Deventer, often destroyed by the pagans, and placed in it the body of St. Lebuin or Liafwin, where even now, says Altfrid, there is a monastery of canons serving the Lord. And that this provostship of Deventer was going to procure episcopal delights for the Saint, I suppose was said for this reason, because Deventer was among the principal towns of the bishopric of Utrecht, indeed at that time the first of all; which may be conjectured from the Life of St. John, abbot of Gorze, published at the XXVII day of February, in which the author John, abbot of St. Arnulf of Metz, says that he was encouraged to continue the writing by Poppo, who, he says Ibid., vol. III of February, p. 699., was then the most illustrious bishop of the Church of Utrecht or Deventer and greatly celebrated in the flock of teachers. This very confusion of the see shows the principality of Deventer: by which we explain the episcopal delights. It is true indeed that this Poppo is not found in the Catalogues of the bishops of Utrecht: perhaps for this reason, because his episcopate was very brief. Whatever it may be, it would be rash to accuse of error a contemporary, learned, trustworthy author. In the XVI century, as we know, the provostship of Deventer was erected into a bishopric.

§ IV. A master is given to Otto III, the minor emperor; he incurs the envy of many; he is elected bishop of Hildesheim according to the form, which is explained, in use in the X century.

The master of the minor Otto III, The emperor Otto II, dying in the year 983 on the VII day of December, left a minor son, who reigned under the guardianship of his mother, Theophano. And she commended her seven-year-old son to St. Bernward to be imbued with letters and trained in morals, with the consent of all the magnates. (Life, number 5). With what skill he discharged the task imposed the biographer then sets forth in these words: "In which (task) he so excelled, although he was bitten by the envy of some, that the imperial boy advanced wonderfully in learning, and yet he gave his mind holiday for attending to all things abroad in the most liberal fashion. And while others waited on the boy king with flattery, to the point of persuading him to sports and what his tender age demanded, and the empress also, fearing that her son's affection would be snatched from her, had been softened in a favour of this kind to such a degree that she herself consented with most pleasing affection to everything to which his boyish age drove him: he alone pressed on with such art as to restrain him by fear from things not to be done, and yet to bind his spirit to himself with the fullest affection… By his counsel he examined whatever others persuaded by flattery; because although he was at leisure in boyish beginnings, yet with a loftier industry he foresaw the pretences of certain people. He embraced his master therefore with singular familiarity, nor suffered him to be treated by anyone as inferior, whom he venerated as sprinkled with the universal beauty of the virtues."

[32] the envy of many, We have set out this course of the royal instruction which St. Bernward held, in order to answer those who suppose that the seeds of discords had already then been cast between the two holy bishops, Bernward and Willigis. Certainly, as we have already said, by the consent of all the magnates he was appointed master of the boy king: then, his mother having died, the empress Theophano, who died at Nijmegen on the XV of June of the year 991, as the Annals of Quedlinburg have it Pertz, Monum. Germ., vol. V, p. 68., the royal boy, bereft of both parents, scarcely eleven years old, had to administer by the aid and counsel of others an empire which comprised almost all Germany and Italy and no small part of Gaul. And the sum of the empire was in the hands of Willigis, archbishop of Mainz, as Dodechin teaches us in his Appendix to Marianus Scotus. "In the times," he says Pistorius, Script. Rer. Germ., vol. I, p. 677., "of the emperor Otto, the Third of this name, there presided over the Church of Mainz Willigis, an archbishop worthy of memory, who educated that Otto, still very much a boy and emperor, and meanwhile ruled the empire for XVI years." Let there have been, then, between Willigis and Bernward in administering the empire a dissension of opinions, which can scarcely be absent when grave and arduous matters are brought into deliberation. And so, on account of the familiarity which, as Thangmar says at number 3, Bernward enjoyed with the boy emperor, it could not but happen that the two prelates were not always of the same counsel in acting: which dissension, afterwards increased by women's arts, blazed up into feud.

[33] above all a feud It is said indeed that the cause of the discord was the ill-managed education of the boy Otto, whose neglect the emperor's sister, Sophia, afterwards abbess of Gandersheim, reproached Ibid., p. 908.. These things, so far as they concern Willigis, rest on no testimony: for none of the ancients has related any such thing. The enmity that sprang up between St. Bernward and Sophia, Otto's sister, is certainly to be sought further back. "After," says Thangmar at number 25, "luxury and superfluity had come in, insolence of manners crept in, obedience grew torpid, the reverence for bishops was repulsed. What was pleasing to each, she made lawful. And Sophia, her abbess Gerburga being unwilling and resisting, betook herself to the palace; and there she stayed for a year or two." According to his office St. Bernward the bishop, having admonished her rather gently, persuaded her to return to the monastery. But Sophia persisted in the palace, because, says Bodo of Clus in the Syntagma on the construction of the monastery of Gandersheim Meibom. Scriptt., vol. II, p. 498., being imbued with letters and skilled also in human laws, her brother the emperor asked that she be granted to him by the abbess. And this seems to me as it were the beginning of the feuds, which the controversy of Gandersheim spread more widely. For the rest, Thangmar, cited at number 31, testifies to the care spent by St. Bernward on educating Otto III, when he says that he alone as it were resisted the flatterers, and even the mother Theophano herself: and that the boy's education was not very religious is not forthwith the fault of the master; especially if we attend to the fact that Otto, scarcely thirteen years old, had to be handed over to other teachers, namely when in the year 993 our Bernward ascended the chair of Hildesheim.

[34] he underwent with Willigis of Mainz. Some suspect that the ordination of St. Bernward to the see of Hildesheim was brought about chiefly by the efforts of Willigis, who would not have tolerated a less pleasing rival in administering the empire: whence they also taunt the simplicity of Thangmar, who supposes at number 6 that a great honour was paid to Bernward, because among so many and so great men he, a young man, was destined for the episcopal mitre Gfrörer, Pabst Gregor VII, vol. V, p. 557.. For, they say, it was far more honourable to sit at the imperial counsels than to rule a particular bishopric, placed in a corner of the empire. Let someone so judge. But other are the thoughts of the Saints; who, often fearing the arts of the court, have left the court and its splendid offices. Then Thangmar, cited above at number 31, clearly intimates that the holy teacher had many adversaries, who strove to soften the right severity of the master to the detriment of the boy king. That such men bought off an inconvenient censor with the pontifical mitre I readily understand. But Willigis, a grave, prudent, holy man, I will not admit into a counsel of that sort, unless a suitable witness is adduced, who so far is absent. Or did Thangmar perhaps, to magnify the glory of his pupil, so adorn the instruction of the boy Otto, as is obliquely intimated Gfrörer, Pabst Gregor VII, vol. V, p. 927.? But in the very person writing, in the manner of writing, in the things narrated there is nothing that can suggest such a suspicion. Let us admit the narrative of Thangmar, as it is written, until we are taught something better not by mere conjectures, but by suitable testimonies. Let us proceed to other things.

[35] St. Bernward, educated by Othwin, Thangmar at number 1 teaches us that St. Bernward was handed over to be educated by Osdag, bishop of Hildesheim: which is by no means consistent with the series of events. For Osdag occupied the see from the year 985 to 989 Sakular. Bisth. Deutschland, vol. I, p. 228.; and he was succeeded by Gerdag from the year 990 to 992 Ibid., l. c., whom St. Bernward then followed in the year 993. Now we have shown above at number 20 that the Saint was born about the year 960. He would therefore have been handed over to Osdag when he was already XXV years old, and so already long past the years of puberty, which in no way agrees with the rest of Thangmar's narrative. But if we substitute Othwin for Osdag, then all things proceed rightly. For Othwin, bishop of Hildesheim from the year 954 to 984, could rightly have taken up the boy Bernward, born about the year 960. The error in the name of the bishop who educated him, moreover, must not be ascribed to Thangmar: it is well enough known that the ancients not rarely expressed names by the first letter; whence copyists, ignorant of history and of the bishops, substituted Osdag for Othwin. There is also a second argument, which makes the change of name altogether necessary: namely, the boy is said to have been handed over by his uncle, the religious deacon Folcmar, afterwards also bishop of Utrecht: therefore the handing over preceded the entry on the chair of Utrecht, which, as we have said above at number 30, occurred in the year 977.

[36] he succeeds Gerdag in the see of Hildesheim: Gerdag, who immediately preceded St. Bernward, died, according to the Annals of Hildesheim Pertz, Monum., vol. III, p. 69., in the year 992. For they have thus: "In the same year (992) Bishop Gerdag went to Rome to the thresholds of St. Peter for the sake of prayer; returning from there he died at Cumæ (the Annals of Quedlinburg say at Como in Lombardy Ibid., l. c.) on the VII of the Ides of December." The Annals of Quedlinburg add Ibid., l. c.: "There died also his priest Suitebold and his deacon Bodo and the latter's brother Hioprecht and his chamberlain. And Bishop Bernward succeeded him." I suspect that Bishop Gerdag perished of a contagious plague, since indeed his company also was cut off with him. For I do not judge that violent hands were laid on him; because some trace of such a violence would be found in the historians. And the death of Gerdag must have become known at once at Hildesheim, because between the death of Gerdag and the consecration of St. Bernward forty days intervened, namely from the VII day of December to the XIV day of January.

[37] on which occasion the form of election, "About the same time," says Thangmar at number 6, namely after the death of the empress Theophano, who died at Nijmegen on the XVII of the kalends of July 991 Ibid., p. 68., "the venerable lord Gerdag dying, this religious young man Bernward is elected to the pontificate by the wishes of all: and although many noble clerics, long serving in the palatine warfare, desired the discharge, yet the consent of all concurred on this young man chosen by God. By common election therefore he is ordained bishop of the holy Church of Hildesheim by Archbishop Willigis on the XVIII of the kalends of February in the nine hundred and ninety-third year of the Lord's Incarnation, in the sixth indiction." These words are vague so far as they treat of the manner of the election. First of all it seems that palatine clerics were not free to seek prelacies for themselves outside the court without the prince's permission: the word discharge alludes to military service; for I interpret it as a faculty granted by the king, that a palatine cleric might seek an ecclesiastical dignity for himself, or accept one offered. In favour of the interpretation is the fact that the clerics are said to be "long serving in the palatine warfare", and when an occasion offered seeking an honourable discharge. The palatine clerics were often hateful to the remaining clergy: Lupus of Ferrières, a writer of the IX century, accuses them of avarice, letter XXV Migne, Patrol., vol. CXIX, col. 475.: "A report circulates among us," he says, "that the clerics of the palace desire and demand for themselves the lordship of various monasteries, who have no other care but to satisfy their avarice then by the oppression of the servants of God." Du Cange has more of these things in his Glossary at the word Capellanus. But it is understood well enough that an honourable discharge given to a palatine cleric was a most effective recommendation for acquiring a dignity.

[38] in use in the X century, Let these things not be said in order that St. Bernward, a palatine chaplain, should be even obliquely carped at: many men certainly came forth from the palace, distinguished by all sanctity and learning, among whom we place our holy prelate on the first bench: but where there are many men of the same condition, it cannot be that human frailty does not sometimes betray itself. St. Bernward certainly bore himself in the palace in all holiness, but the question nevertheless remains, what the election was, or what the consent of all by which he was raised to the chair of Hildesheim. Thangmar indeed says that he was elected to the pontificate by the wishes of all, that the consent of all concurred on this young man: but who these all were, he by no means explains. What, for example, were the parts of the emperor or of his mother Theophano in this election? Was Bernward, proposed in the name of the prince, elected by the wishes of all? Certainly there existed

at the end of the X century the right of patronage, or the right of presenting to an ecclesiastical benefice on behalf of the founder and his heirs, which the emperors could claim for themselves above all for the Saxon Churches, which Charlemagne had founded. Thus St. Adalbert, whose Acts ours have illustrated at the XX day of June Acta SS., vol. IV of June, p. 30., is elected by Otto I or the Great archbishop of Magdeburg in the year 968, as is established from his diploma Pertz, Monum. Legum, vol. II, p. 561., in which he says to all his faithful: "the venerable man Adalbert the bishop, formerly destined and sent as preacher to the Rugians, we have decreed and likewise elected to be made archbishop and metropolitan of the whole nation of the Slavs beyond the Elbe and the Saale, now converted or to be converted to God, whom also we have sent to Rome to receive the pallium from the lord Pope. And that this our election may become firmer and better supported, we send him to your charity, and we desire in every way that, elected by you all both by acclamation of voices and by raising of hands, he may be enthroned in his see." He then prescribes that the comprovincial bishops, namely of Merseburg, of Zeitz, afterwards Naumburg, of Meissen, of Havelberg and of Brandenburg should subscribe to the election and promise him faith and subjection.

[39] is described; but afterwards it is entrusted to the clergy of Hildesheim: We have here the form of election of the X and XI centuries in Germany. The emperor elected or designated a cleric, whom the people accepted by acclamation of voices and raising of hands: it belonged also to the bishops themselves to subscribe to the election, and, if an archbishop was in question, to promise him faith and subjection: there is question, however, of the presence of legates of the lord Pope, by whose authority the metropolitan see of Magdeburg was to be established. These things are also confirmed by the formularies of Marculf, book I, chapter 5 Migne, Patrol., vol. LXXXVII, col. 704.. Whether St. Bernward was elected according to this or a similar form I shall not say: this however is certain, that the holy prelate obtained from the emperor St. Henry the free election of the bishop of Hildesheim, as is plain from the diploma given on the V of the Nones of March of the year 1013 Scheid., Orig. Guelf., vol. IV, p. 433.: for after, at the petition of Bernward, bishop from the town which is called Hildenesheym, which is in the district of Astfala, he took that Church and all its possessions under his defence and the protection of immunity, he goes on to say: "Now to the aforesaid Church we also grant that the clerics of the same see may have, canonically and ecclesiastically, whether among themselves or from elsewhere, from those worthy of this and suitable, a free and proper faculty of electing a bishop, with the fair consent of the king." The cited diploma therefore assigns the chief parts in the election of the bishops of Hildesheim to the clergy of that Church itself: nor is it signified by any indication that a privilege of that sort had existed before. It is probable therefore that St. Bernward was elected by the emperor and accepted by the wishes of all and the consent of all. Since however, as things then stood, a form of election of this sort could turn out pernicious to ecclesiastical liberty, the holy prelate busied himself to change it.

[40] whose discipline And certainly the clergy of Hildesheim of that age were worthy to have so great an office entrusted to them, seeing that their integrity was celebrated in the Churches of Germany. The Saxon Annalist bears testimony concerning them under the year 1044, which can conveniently be carried over to the times of St. Bernward. "Thus far," he says Pertz, Monum., vol. VI, p. 686., "the clergy of Hildesheim had bound themselves to the service of God with so strict a religion, that in the canonical profession they rejoiced in a monastic strictness. For to say nothing of how severely it was punished, if anyone had presumed, I do not say to be absent from choir, table or dormitory, but to come late, unless entangled by grave necessity or encouraged by permission; those released from the yoke of school discipline were curbed with a tighter rein in the cloister, and were required to present their daily writing to the dean, and to give back the Gospel with the lesson, the chant also, and even the psalms themselves, so that they seemed to withdraw the hand from the ferule more timidly in the cloister than in the schools. They had so little care for more delicate clothing that they knew nothing of the furs of the throat, for which the clergy now burn: they adorned their fur lappets and sleeves not with costly stuff but with blackened cloth; and they buckled the lappets of their cloister furs no less than those of their riding tunics. Thus therefore they preferred rustic justice to courtly elegance, thus, annulling fortune and aspiring to nothing higher than the administering of the cloister, shut in both outwardly and inwardly by claustral strictness, the world not yet renounced, they knew nothing of the world. They relate that the state of this cloister so pleased the Second Henry, emperor, namely the builder of the Church of Bamberg, who had been born there and had been promised by his parents to that same Church as a canon, and for that reason often stayed there, that, protesting that from the most composed bearing of their outward man the religion of the inner man was to be believed by him who had experienced it, he wished for his Church of Bamberg, along with the learning of Liège, the rigour of the cloister of Hildesheim. This strictness of the cloister lasted until the times of this Azelin, the XVI prelate. In his presidency there crept in an ambitious courtliness, which, more sumptuous in food, softer in clothing, more careful in all elegance, preferring to be loved rather than feared, the rigour of discipline being softened, loosened the bars of the cloister."

[41] and gravity of life is set out Over such a clergy the young St. Bernward was placed as bishop. The words are truly honourable to the clergy of Hildesheim: which however, that they may be better understood, need explanation and interpretation. Azelin, under whom clerical discipline began to grow lukewarm, was the sixteenth in the series of bishops, and occupied the see of Hildesheim from the year of Christ 1044 to 1054 Schmid, Säkular. Bisth. Deutschl., vol. I, p. 228., and in the time of his pontificate he spent skilful labour on the church: for he began to restore the burnt cathedral, and ordered a remarkable bell to be cast. The gulæ, which the Annalist writes the clerics coveted in his time, are reddened furs, which were worn after the manner of gloves or collars. Du Cange cites our text in his Glossary under Gula. Similarly the same writer, under Linga or lingua, interprets the fur lappets as bands made of furs, which, under Pallium, were adorned with more costly material but here with simple blackened cloth. Pelliciæ were a kind of garment which men everywhere put on for the rigour of the northern air; the riding tunic I interpret as a shorter one, more convenient for riding movements. From the whole text it is plain that the manner of life among the clergy of Hildesheim was austere, namely that the young had to apply themselves to school discipline; and the more advanced had a daily task in learning, writing, explaining Sacred Scripture.

[42] taken principally Finally it is not to be passed over in silence that the emperor St. Henry wished for his Church of Bamberg, along with the learning of Liège, the rigour of the cloister of Hildesheim. At that age, namely, the see of Liège was occupied by Eraclius and Notger. Eraclius indeed, bishop from the year 960 to 974, built and endowed first of all the collegiate church of St. Martin at Liège, in which in the XIII century the feast of Corpus Christi first began to be celebrated, which then spread to the whole world. And he was a distinguished promoter of the good arts. For of him Gallia Christiana has Pertz, Monum., vol. VI, p. 686.: "He conceived so great an ardour for spreading sacred letters, that when made bishop of Liège about the year 960 he kindled to study the whole Church of Liège, indeed the whole province, as yet illustrated by no letters, collected learned men from every side; and, appointing them masters, liberally fed them with his aid, and instituted schools in all the cloisters of both secular and regular clergy. And he judged it in no way unworthy of his dignity to frequent them, kindled the spirits of the novices, proposed the most difficult questions to the wiser to be unknotted, and if they could not, he himself unknotted them."

[43] from the Church of Liège. Eraclius was followed in the see of Liège by Notger, from the year 972 to 1008, himself also a man of wonderful and varied erudition. The schools instituted by his predecessor he advanced with great skill. For from his discipline all the clerics of so great a diocese came out more learned, and not a few came forth so illustrious in religion and wisdom, that they spread piety and knowledge far and wide: among these Anselm (a contemporary writer) reviews Otbert, Hubold, Durand, Waso, Rothard, Erluin etc., who either illustrated various Churches by teaching, or governed them as bishops. And since St. Henry looked to the learning of Liège when he founded his Church of Bamberg, it follows that he took account of the schools instituted by the bishops Eraclius and Notger. For the bishopric of Bamberg was founded in the year 1006, as ours show at the XIV day of July Acta SS., vol. III of July, p. 734.. And so the learning of Liège, which the emperor St. Henry wished introduced at Bamberg as a norm, belongs above all to the pontificate of Notger. Falsely therefore Georg Schmid, in his description of the bishoprics of Germany, says that the bishops who preceded Notker were softer, and that the greatest corruption of morals ran riot among the clergy [Die Säkulariz. Hildesh., p. 55. Kratz, Der Dom zu Hildesh., part III, p. 17. Bisth. in Deutsehl., vol. I, p. 255.]: for certainly Notker's nearest predecessor, Eraclius, was a man, whether you look to morals or to knowledge, greater than every exception.

§ V. He fortifies his diocese and city against the incursions of the barbarians; he practises the liberal arts, above all sculpture, with the highest skill.

He exercises episcopal vigilance The tenor of life which St. Bernward inviolably kept in the time of his episcopate Thangmar sets forth at numbers 6 and 7 of the Life: first of all he explains his very great fervour in the worship of God, his highest care in the custody and defence of the flock, his most skilful industry in practising the good arts. But before all things the chief office of the bishops of those times and of those provinces was to defend the peoples committed to them from the incursion of the barbarians: for labour in the other things would have been vain, had not the tranquillity of the state preserved the fruits won by labour. Now we know that the peoples of Saxony in the VIII and IX centuries were subjected to the yoke by the Franks, and principally by Charlemagne, and were converted to the Christian faith above all by the care of the bishops. But the Saxons being already for the most part Christians, the Slavs were their neighbours, still sitting in the darkness of idolatry, and hostile to the people of the Saxons: and hence frequent incursions and devastations. The diocese of Hildesheim further lay next to the Slavs; seeing that they inhabited the region between the Elbe and the Oder. We have seen above at number 38 that by Otto I in the year 968 St. Adalbert was established archbishop and metropolitan of the whole nation of the Slavs beyond the Elbe and the Saale; who, until, their barbarism being softened, they had been made more gentle through the bishops, wrought huge slaughters in Saxony.

[45] first of all Bernward, "For indeed Saxony," says Thangmar at number 9, "laid waste in great part by the fierceness of pirates and other barbarians, lay open without intermission to the continual incursions of robbers, and he was ever pressing on to drive away this plague of the state at great peril to himself and his people; and now with others, sometimes also alone with his own men, falling upon them, he had bravely worn them down." But for guarding against the frequent irruptions he erected two forts, furnished with suitable soldiery. One, as Thangmar says at number 10, at the extremity of his bishopric, where the rivers Aller and Oker flow together, namely

toward the north, where the Slavs dwelt. This fort was called Mundburg, which is found on the map appended by Joh. Falcke to the Traditions of Corvey on the left bank of the Oker. It is understood well enough that it was very strongly fortified, seeing that it was built in the angle of two rivers. But from Thangmar and Abbot Theodoric we have it that the other fort was built in the place which was called Wirinholt, today Wahrenholz, to the east of the fort of Mundburg [Lutzel, Die ält. Diöz. Hildesh., p. 55. Kratz, Der Dom zu Hildesh., part III, p. 17.]. "By these bulwarks and by God's grace," says Thangmar at number 10, "so great a security of peace was granted through him to the faithful in those places, that afterwards they suffered no damage or peril from the barbarians."

[46] in building strongholds Let it be permitted here to bring forward a fragment of the text of Abbot Theodoric, whom we have commended above at number 5, to show how nearly the Saxon idiom of the XIII century approaches Flemish. We intersperse some Flemish words for easier understanding. Dar de Alre unde de Onker tho hope vleten (te hoop vloyen), buwede hi dar sulvest (selfs) eyne vestinge odder eyn blockhus, dar de hilge biscop inlede eyn hup (hoop) soldenere mit nothhafftigen were und koste, unde verlosede also syn volck van avervalle (overval) und walth (geweld) der uncristen. An eyner anderem stede, gheheten Worinholtz, da nu de juncker van der Lippe syne gebede (gebod) hath, do vellen (vallen) se noch grimmiger in dat lant, se hadden her (hier) eynen wissen (zekeren) inganck unde utganck tho vormorden de cristen: dar sulvest buwede de hilge biscop sunte Berwardus eyne borch mit watergraven unde makede de gans vaste, unde lede dar up ritters unde soldeners mit nothaftiger koste unde were. [Where the Aller and the Oker flow together, he built there a fortress or a blockhouse, into which the holy bishop put a body of soldiers with the necessary arms and provisions, and so delivered his people from the attack and violence of the unbelievers. At another place, called Worinholtz, where now the young lord of the Lippe has his jurisdiction, they fell still more grimly upon the land; they had here a sure way in and out for murdering the Christians: there the holy bishop St. Berward built a castle with moats and made it wholly secure, and placed in it knights and soldiers with the necessary provisions and arms.] The place Wormholtz, therefore, from which the pirates had free entry into and exit from the district of Hildesheim, being armed with suitable fortifications and soldiers, most powerfully provided for the protection of the whole province and kept its peace in good repair.

[47] for the defence of his people, Of so great moment moreover were the strongholds built by St. Bernward, that the emperor St. Henry did not hesitate to hand over to the holy prelate the whole county which surrounded the stronghold of Mundburg. Here is the diploma, collated with Scheid's edition, whose variant readings we add in the margin Falcke, Tradit. Corbej., p. 236. Cf. Scheid., Orig. Guelficæ, vol. IV, p. 435.: "In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. Henry, by the favour of the divine clemency king. Let the knowledge of all our faithful, namely present and future, know how Bernward, venerable bishop of the Church of Hildesheim, came to our royal clemency, saying that by our predecessor of pious memory Otto the Third there had been granted a special right of building a fort which is called Mundburg , on the bank of the river Aller, for the fortification and protection against the incursion and devastation of the perfidious Slavs. And that very fort, since he had built it with a willing mind, by the request rather than the command of the lord emperor, for the defence of our whole region in those parts; and because the lord emperor cultivated the same bishop for his intimate and constant service with all benevolence of piety and favour; by way of reward he had granted him in beneficial right the county surrounding that fort, situated in the district of Astvala, which of old Theoderic, count palatine, and afterwards also his son Sibert * had held. But now, because he has besought our royal clemency to affirm and strengthen this: and because he has afterwards served us with equal favour and like devotion, we have furnished the same county to him by the royal writings of our precept to the end of his days: so that no one with judicial power may presume to do anything in it against his command or wish: but whatever he himself may wish, whoever may have and rule the same county by our largess, we command and order that it stand ratified and firm. And that this authority of our donation or confirmation may remain stable and unshaken for all time, strengthening and confirming with our own hand this precept written thereupon, we have commanded it to be marked with the impression of our seal. Gunther the chancellor recognized it in the place of Erkanbald the archchaplain. Given in the XI indiction, in the year of the Lord's incarnation MXIII, and in the XI year of the reign of the lord Henry II. Done at Werla happily. Amen."

[48] and in building the wall of Hildesheim; Bishops moreover, neighbours of the barbarian peoples, not only built strongholds to turn back incursions, but also girded the episcopal cities with walls. Of our holy prelate Thangmar testifies at numbers 13 and 48 that he undertook with the greatest earnestness to entrench Hildesheim with a circuit of walls, towers being disposed around, and began the work with such prudence that in beauty and at the same time in fortification, as is plain today, you would find nothing like it in all Saxony. On this occasion perhaps, says Thangmar at number 9, he made bricks for tiling by his own industry, with no one showing him. For of old roofs were covered with either wood or straw, and so they readily supplied fuel to very frequent fires. From our Bernward therefore the art of baking tiles flowed and was spread through the whole of Germany Kratz, Der Dom zu Hildesh., vol. III, p. 12 and following.. We read also of St. Meinwerk that he built a wall around the city in the state of Paderborn Acta SS., vol. I of January, p. 537.: in the same way Arnulf, ordained in the year 996 Leibniz, Rer. Brunsw., vol. II, p. 129., in the second year of his pontificate began more zealously to repair the city of Halberstadt, which he found fallen in from age Ibid., p. 120.. Bishops therefore were promoters above all of those arts which formed peoples, hitherto barbarous, to humanity: and they shed the greatest splendour on the cities of northern Germany.

[49] then he instructs boys in the liberal Besides the architectural art, the holy prelate had also learned and practised others. For from adolescence, says Thangmar at number 3, he gave attention to the lighter arts, which they call mechanical… "In the craft of the smith also and in the art of setting, and in every kind of construction, he excelled wonderfully, as also afterwards appeared in many buildings which he composed with stately beauty." The clusoria art, says Du Cange at this word, is that which encloses gems in gold. But not content with his own craftsmanship, "ingenious boys," says the same biographer at number 8, "and those of exceptional character he took with him either to the courts or wherever he travelled farther, whom he drove to the practice of whatever more worthy thing occurred in that art." Abbot Theodoric, already often commended, has preserved for us the names of those young men who accompanied the Saint, namely: Reynard of Palati, Dithmar of Walme, Wolbrecht of Kramme, Dithmar of Hudessen, Frederick Winkelmann, Poppo of Harlessheym, Christopher Broiger, Theda of Turiken, Kastus of Dotzen Kratz., Der Dom zu Hildesh., vol. III, p. 15 and following.. These young men were laymen: for a little below Theodoric says that they, if ever they took a wife, were helped by St. Bernward in setting up a house.

[50] arts; Theodoric adds also that there were other young men whom the holy prelate likewise instructed, although, as he says, they are found not in the principal register, but in other records, and among them he names, as though they belonged to the families, the Vresii, Wyrthinenses, Werdenses, Bohzemienses, Frisbergii, Bernerii, Rutenbergenses, Barveltii, Mecteshusienses and Westfalii. Hence it is plain enough how great was St. Bernward's impulse to cultivating and advancing the civil arts, which were necessarily derived to the neighbouring provinces. Not undeservedly therefore did the goldsmiths of Hildesheim, when in the year 1576 they wished to coalesce into one community, adopt St. Bernward as the chief patron of their art, and ordered his image to be engraved on the seal of their community, in which the Saint is displayed occupied in making a sacred chalice of gold. The legend of the Seal is: SEAL OF THE COMMUNITY OF THE GOLDSMITHS OF HILDESHEIM Ibid., p. 57 and following.. A copy is found in the often commended work of Doctor Kratz, Tab, XII.

[51] and he himself makes 1° cast doors still extant; There exist moreover even today various monuments made by the hand of our supreme artist or of his pupils. Among them, whether you look to the mass, the rarity or the art, the bronze doors of the cathedral of Hildesheim stand out. For in the year 1824, on the testimony of Frederick Adelung, writing on the bronze doors of the cathedral church of St. Sophia at Novgorod (Newgorod) in Russia, only twenty churches are reckoned decorated with such an ornament, of which five exist in Germany. The Hildesheim doors have about a height of 8 metres, a width of two metres, and a thickness of 0m, 75: in the middle of the doors is read:

AN DŌMINC MXV B EP DIV. MĒM. HAS VALVAS FUSILES — IN FACIĒ ANGELICI TEMPLI OB MONIM SUI FEC SUSPENDI:

that is, on one leaf: In the year of the Lord's incarnation MXV Bishop Bernward of divine memory these cast doors; on the other: on the front of the angelic church for a monument of himself caused to be hung. Each leaf is divided into eight panels, which each display a single story of the Old and New Testament, and run step by step from the creation of man and his fall to the ascension of the Lord into heaven Kratz, Der Dom zu Hildesh., vol. II, p. 46.. In which way aid was given to men unskilled in reading, and who either after the manner of penitents expiated their crimes at the doors, or even in passing by, as it were with one glance of the eye, refreshed the memory of the chief mysteries. The doors are displayed by the said Dr. Kratz, Fab. VI [Cf. Augusti, Denkwurd. aus der Christl. Archeol., vol. XII, p. 380 and following.].

[52] 2° a bronze column with images, The second monument, astonishing for its mass and art, is the bronze column which is called Christ's, and stands today in the cathedral close. It represents various miracles of Christ, as they are related in the sacred Gospels. We have said above at number 49 that St. Bernward had continually with him young men whom he exercised in the good arts, and who were to observe all things worthy of imitation. And there is no doubt that the Hildesheim column had as models the columns of Trajan and Antoninus; for it ascends, like the Roman ones, by a spiral from the bottom to the top: and various prodigies, XXVIII in number, are displayed in order, as the deeds of the soldiers on the Roman columns. The Hildesheim column seems to have a height of about seven metres, and a diameter of three. Joh. Dirkinck, of the Hildesheim College of the Society of Jesus, writes to Daniel Papebroch under the 14th day of July 1691 that the bronze column has a height of about twenty-four feet; a work, he adds, rare and worthy of such an artist Act. SS. Biblioth. regia Brux. n. 8950.. It was erected of old on the XXIX day of September 1022 behind the high altar of the church of the monastery of St. Michael, built, as we shall show below, by St. Bernward. For five centuries the column stood, a document of veneration and erudition, when the people of Hildesheim, imbued with the sarcasms of Luther and driven to fury, on the XII day of November 1543 the whole monastery of St. Michael

turned upside down, and destroyed the image of Christ crucified which crowned the column; this indeed they left intact, but in the following year, on the Friday after the feast of St. Vitus or the XX day of June, a new devastation broke it, and they brought the fragments together with five bells to the magistrate to be melted down into engines of war. The column nevertheless remained: but in the year 1650, on the X day of June, by order of the civil magistrate there were overturned in the same church of St. Michael many altars, as though useless, and at the same time the capital of the column, a remarkable work, was melted down, and a wooden one substituted in its place. The rest of the column would probably have met the same calamity, had not the abbot of that time, Johannes Jaccenius Leibniz. Rer. Brunsw. vol. II, p. 403., by producing imperial letters, set up a barrier which the magistrate did not dare to throw down Kratz, Der Dom zu Hildesh. vol. II, p. 62 and following..

[53] [which the non-Catholic magistrate wished in vain to melt down into engines of war;] These controversies about the Bernward column for the most part sprang up either when the see was vacant or at the beginning of a new reign. Thus in the year 1650 Bishop Ferdinand died: and in the year 1723, in which Joseph Clement closed his day, the magistrate ordered the column to be overturned, and in the year 1737 to be transferred to the civic building which was called the City Weight; but, a fine of XX marks of gold having been announced in the emperor's words, it was brought back to the church, yet it was not erected again. Wherefore in the month of August 1760 a contract of sale was entered into at the price of XXX imperial crowns the hundredweight: but the abbot of the monastery intervened and the sale was rescinded. The celebrated column nevertheless lay for half a century withdrawn from the eyes of all and dirty with ignoble dust; until in the year 1810, by the efforts of the prefect of Hildesheim, Franz Ant. Blum, and with Bishop Franz Egon von Fürstenberg contributing a great deal of money, the column was erected again, as we have said, in the cathedral close: and to this day stands a monument of the art of St. Bernward. Dr. Kratz displays the column, Tab. VII.

[54] 3° a precious cross The third monument of his most active industry the holy prelate gave in the precious cross preserved to this day. The occasion of the work was a donation of Otto III. Thangmar narrates the matter at number 14: "A very splendid chapel," he says, "… he built in honour of the wonderful cross, of which also a certain part, given by the lord Otto, august emperor, he laid up there enclosed in most brilliant gems and gold: where also the divine goodness showed very many indications of its goodness, by the manifest miracles of signs through the power of the holy cross." The golden cross, displayed in the said Kratz, Tab. IV, is preserved to this day at Hildesheim in the church of St. Mary Magdalene. It is covered on every side with a very thick plate of gold, and its height is about sixty centimetres, and its width or transverse arms forty centimetres. This cross Joh. Dirkinck, just commended, calls Lipedalem, and it is usually placed in the Saint's hand, by which he may be distinguished from other Saints. Besides the precious stones with which he adorned the cross, he also enclosed in it sacred Relics; the chief of which were particles of the life-giving cross placed in a central jewel with the words: LIGNŪ DNI DĒ, the wood of the Lord God. But when in the year 1787 the inner wood, eaten away by the voracity of the ages, was renewed, the other Relics and their names perished: since in the old wood there was found a slip, on which it was said: "In the year 1733, on the 15th of September this crystal was opened; the Relics of the Saints enclosed under it, crumbled." This cross was exposed to public veneration each year on the feasts of the Finding and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and of St. Bernward; and on the solemnity of Corpus Christi it was carried about before the sarcophagus of St. Bernward. Deservedly therefore in a certain manuscript codex of the Michaelites of Hildesheim it is read Ibid., p. 29.: "In the monastery of St. Michael there is a cross of great price, wrought by the hands of St. Bernward himself, whence also it is customarily painted with him. This cross was once a sure remedy against fevers, plague and other diseases, if water, consecrated by its touch, was given to the sick to drink" Ibid., p. 26..

[55] Besides the golden one, the holy craftsman made two other crosses, 4° three others, two silver crosses and one gilt; a silver one and a gilt one. This latter is of almost the same form and size as the golden one: and it also contained a particle of the Holy Cross, which today is invisible on account of the sinking of the crystal covering it. This cross St. Bernward gave to the nunnery of SS. Peter and Paul at Heiningen, which Dr. Kratz says was founded in the year 999 Kratz, Der Dom zu Hild., vol. II, p 34.: but Joh. Anton. Zunggo Hist. canon. Regg. S. August. p. 446. gives the year one thousand: I judge the former more to be believed, seeing that he drew the year of foundation from an old parchment. The nunnery of Heiningen had been founded by Hildesvita for her daughter Walburgis. Heineccius in his Antiquities of Goslar, omitting the name of Walburgis, says that the monastery was founded by Hildeswinda, whom he suspects was the wife of Bruno the Saxon Script. Rer. Germ, vol. I, p. 22.. Whatever may be the case with puzzles of this kind, which it is not of our institute to scrutinize more deeply, since they make nothing for the Acts of St. Bernward, this is certain and shines out from the very donation of the precious cross, that St. Bernward fostered the monastery that had been begun both by counsel and by labour: which seems even from the beginning to have been a house of regular canonesses, which was afterwards changed into a secular college, and remained flourishing, says the said Heineccius, in wealth and fortune down to the XVIII century.

[56] 5° two candlesticks, skilfully made, but of unknown metal; The third, silver cross St. Bernward made, preserved to this day among the treasures of the cathedral church, which Dr. Kratz displays delineated on Plate IV of his description of the same church. On that cross there is an image of Christ the Lord himself, and it is hollow within and filled with Relics of the Saints: the foot of the cross is of more recent work. At the top there is a small tablet, with the accustomed inscription: Jh̄u Nazaren' Rex Judeorū Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: on the back part the following are engraved: Bernwardus presul fecit hoc. s. laurenT. m. s. jonis ev. s. marie v. s. petri s. stephani ptm. s. andree. s. jonis b. s. dionisii m. s. pauli. de ligno s. crucis. s. marie magd. marthe. s. jacobi fris. d. s. lazari. [Bernward the bishop made this. Of St. Lawrence, martyr; of St. John the Evangelist; of St. Mary the Virgin; of St. Peter; of St. Stephen the protomartyr; of St. Andrew; of St. John the Baptist; of St. Denis, martyr; of St. Paul; of the wood of the holy cross; of St. Mary Magdalene; of Martha; of St. James, brother of the Lord; of St. Lazarus.] There are gilt, however, on this cross, the front part, the head and beard of the image, and the loincloth and footrest Kratz, Der Dom zu Hildesh., vol. II, p. 35.. Moreover when in the year 1194, on the XVI day of August, Berno, bishop of Hildesheim, elevated the body of the holy man, who in the year 1192 had been enrolled by Pope Celestine III in the Album of the Saints, there were found in his tomb two candlesticks not of great size, but of unknown metal, with this inscription: "Bishop Bernward commanded his boy, in the first flower of this art, to cast this candlestick not of gold, not of silver, and yet as you see." Their colour is white, without however attaining the whiteness of pure silver. Chemists suppose that the material is a certain mixture of heavily gilded silver with a small quantity of iron. From the inscription brought forward it is plain that the candlesticks were cast rather by the order than by the hand of St. Bernward: namely, one of those whom he exercised in every art, as we have said at number 49, made them under his direction. Ernest of Bavaria, who at the same time occupied the sees of Cologne, Hildesheim and Liège about the end of the XVI century, and was very learned in the chemical art, so much admired the art and material that he asked these monuments of art from the monks of St. Michael for a while, both that he might examine their composition more accurately at Liège, and that he might guard them more safely there. But when they were afterwards asked back, delays were woven out of delays: but at length Maximilian Henry of Bavaria, third successor from Ernest in the see of Hildesheim, from the year 1650 to 1688, ordered the candlesticks to be restored within the Lent of the year 1652, and they were replaced in the crypt at the altar of St. Bernward Ibid., p. 31 and following..

[57] 6° a golden chalice with gems, Among three chalices of pure gold preserved to this day in the treasury of the cathedral of Hildesheim, there is one which belongs to the pontificate of St. Bernward. The holy man being at times affected with infirm health, both to relieve his pains and to exercise his bodily strength, gave himself to the mechanical arts, as they were then called. And hence came forth those supreme works which we have so far reviewed. The Chronicle of Hildesheim relates Leibniz. Rer. Brunsw., vol. I, p. 743 and following. that Bishop Otwin collected precious gold and gems and stones and pearls for the construction of a chalice and paten, but, forestalled by infirmity, reserved them under seal and the pledge of Christ for his successor: St. Bernward discharged the pledge given. For a little below the same Chronicle says: "From the beginning of his promotion whatever he (Bernward) could acquire, as a faithful steward he prudently bestowed on the advantage of his Church: for the gold and stones which Othwin of blessed memory, as was said before, reserved, he wrought into a chalice and paten of great beauty and beautiful greatness, as is now seen, and he bestowed on his Church very many utensils, as is inscribed among the works of his life." It seems however that this chalice, by either the industry or the yawning carelessness of craftsmen, has been subject to various changes. First of all Abbot Theodoric testifies that in the XIII century it was still inscribed with the name of Otwin, which on the present chalice is nowhere read: and so after the age of Theodoric the name of the donor was erased.

[58] with images and letters; Then on the lower part of the cup or bowl are read the following verses cut in letters, as is commonly said, Gothic: Rex sedet in cena, turba cinctus duodena: — se tenet in manibus, se dat ipse cibus. [The King sits at supper, girt by the company of twelve: — he holds himself in his hands, he gives himself, himself the food.] A kind of writing of that sort was introduced long after St. Bernward; and the letters which he himself carved are very like Roman forms. Indeed the cited verses altogether echo the hymn of St. Thomas Aquinas, Pange lingua, in which we have: Cibum turbæ duodenæ se dat suis manibus. As food to the company of twelve he gives himself with his own hands. Wherefore we judge that these words were inscribed on the chalice when the XIII century was already far advanced. The same reasoning holds for the paten, likewise made of pure gold, whose diameter is about 0m, 30. On the back there is in the middle a Lamb with a triumphal cross, in the four corners the evangelical animals with the names of the Evangelists in Gothic letters, between which there are four Angels, offering incense to the Lamb; and finally on the outer rim, verses, also engraved in Gothic: Victima, que vicit, septem signacula solvit: — ut comedas pascha, scandes cenacula celsa. [The Victim who conquered loosed the seven seals: — that you may eat the pasch, you will climb the high upper rooms.] The Chalice of St. Bernward too has had its fortunes; for in the Swedish devastation, when in the year 1632 the city of Hildesheim had been occupied by military force by the army of George, duke of Lüneburg, the civil magistrate imposed on the churches of the city a tribute of 30,000 imperial crowns: the cathedral chapter, unequal to paying, among other precious things pledged the chalice of St. Bernward for 600 crowns to a certain Jew, David Schaien.

But the canon Nicholas Eberhard of Schnetlage, solicitous for so great a treasure, as soon as he could, paid off the pledge with his own money, and restored the chalice to the cathedral. In the year 1809, by order of Jerome Napoleon, lest, as was said, the chalice should suffer greater damage, it was carried away to Kassel for safekeeping: but in the year 1813 it was brought back to the treasury of the Church of Hildesheim Kratz, Der Dom zu Hildesh., vol. II, p. 37 and following..

[59] 7° a huge chalice, lost. Abbot Theodoric in the German Life reviews four other golden chalices made by St. Bernward: among which stands out one of huge size for the monastery of Hersfeld. Theodoric says that he made a fifth, astonishing: den vefften makede he (hy) enen onmogelyken groten kelcke van claren golde unde edelen stenen, dede is tho Harfsfelde by Stade. The fifth he made, an astonishingly great chalice of pure gold and precious stones. That chalice was preserved in the monastery until the XVII century, namely to the year XXX, when it was sold at the price of 600 gold florins: Dr. Kratz attributes the sale to the arch-abbot Davensberg, who died in exile at Hamburg Ibid., p. 39.. And here I suspect an error lies beneath. First of all I have found no other monastery of Hersfeld than that which is situated in Thuringia on the river Fulda: and I suppose that Doctor Kratz too thought the same, since he attributes to the provost of the monastery of Hersfeld the title of arch-abbot (Erzabt), which certainly could in no way suit an obscure monastery near Stade on the Elbe, if any existed. Then I have found no abbot who bore the name Davensberg. For Gallia Christiana reviews the abbots and administrators who presided over the monastery in the XVII century, until by the treaty of Münster it passed to the house of Hesse, and it names as the last administrator appointed by the apostolic see Leopold William of Austria, bishop of Strasbourg, who in the year 1628 took possession through his procurator, George Frederick, archbishop of Mainz, by whose efforts also in the year 1629 monastic discipline was restored, and the whole territory was brought back to the Catholic faith Gall. Christ., vol. V, col. 572..

[60] Excellent also in writing, Outstanding in every work of the smith, St. Bernward excelled also in the art of writing. This his biographer Thangmar testifies, saying at number 3: "In writing he shone out especially, he also practised painting with finish": And at number 8: "He applied himself to the scriptorium not only in the monastery, but in various places: whence also he procured a copious library of both divine and philosophical codices." Nevertheless, of the copious library collected by the Saint, scarcely anything survives. For many things perished in the fire of the year 1013, in which, says the Saxon Annalist Eccard., Scriptt. med. ævi, vol. I, col. 425., "the principal church of the Church of Hildesheim, by the plotting of the devil, was set on fire by night, but by the sole aid of the divine mercy was swiftly extinguished. But this remains for us to mourn, that in the same fire, with the most precious ornament of the missal, an immense quantity of books perished, on the XII of the kalends of February." One codex indeed survives today, written by the very hand of St. Bernward, and which was once kept in the monastery of St. Michael at Hildesheim. The title of the codex is: Liber mathematicalis, which St. Bernward composed for his pupil, Otto III, whose tutor he was. The book, divided into two parts, contains arithmetic and geometry; it is in part mutilated, seeing that many chapters are lacking to it. It is written in plain letters, yet so that the individual titles of the chapters shine in red lead.

[61] he ordered many books to be written, There are still preserved at Hildesheim other codices, which have their name from St. Bernward, not indeed written by him, but given as a gift by him to his Church. There is namely a Codex of the Gospels, adorned with various figures, especially of the Evangelists. At the end of the codex is read: "In the year of the heroic nativity one thousand and eleven, in the VIIII indiction, the lord Henry the second (Secundo) shining with the sceptres of the kingdom, Bernward also, venerable bishop of the Church of Hildesheim, presiding by pontifical right, Guntbald, an unworthy and sinful deacon, by order of the aforesaid bishop, by the goodness of God has finished this book of the four gospels." The book was therefore written by order of St. Bernward, and he offered it to the monastery of St. Michael, founded by him; wherefore on the first page are read the following verses, written by his own hand:

I, Bernward, caused this codex to be written,

And ordering my wealth, as you see, to be added over it,

I gave it to St. Michael, beloved of the Lord.

Let him be anathema of God, whoever takes it away for himself.

Another deacon too, Guntpold by name, wrote a Sacramentary or missal in the year 1014, as is established from the verses placed at the end of the codex:

This book, fit for divine uses,

Bishop Bernward, supported by the stem of the virtues, bestowed

On the treasures of the Church of Michael, in the order of the highest:

Whoever reads from it, let him say with devout breast:

Repay him, O Christ, with rewards for the merits of his zeal.

The codex, once covered with precious cloth, on the front part was according to custom adorned with golden and silver emblems: but they were plundered in the Swedish war Kratz, Der Dom zu Hildesh., vol. II, p. 113..

[62] partly given to the monastery of St. Michael, The Church of Hildesheim still possesses two other codices of the Gospels, belonging to the XI century: of which one at the head of the Gospel of St. Matthew displays an image of St. Bernward himself, in pontifical dress, but without a mitre. Kneeling before an altar, on which there are already a book and a chalice with paten, he offers a book which he holds in both hands. The image is enclosed by a gilded border, bearing the following verses:

This evangelical little book with devout mind

The love of virginity offers you, Virgin Mary,

Bishop Bernward, scarcely worthy in name alone

To be adorned with such pontifical vesture.

There is also another image, in which the Blessed Virgin Mary is depicted with her son, crowned by Angels: because the cathedral church of Hildesheim is dedicated under the invocation of the Blessed Mary. The second codex of the Gospels contains almost the same things as the former; but it is adorned with the monogram of St. Bernward. Both codices have most artful covers, which openly speak of our Saint Kratz, Der Dom zu Hildesh., vol. II, p. 117 and following..

[63] partly to the cathedral. But the last codex, written under the direction of St. Bernward, that remains, contains all the books of the Old and New Testament, and is still preserved in the sacred treasury of Hildesheim. The format is, as is commonly said, in large Folio, and it consists of 485 parchment pages. The truly precious codex was stolen from the monastery of St. Michael in the XVII century. For when on the XIV day of August 1634, by order of Frederick Ulric, duke of Brunswick, departure had been enjoined on the monks of St. Michael, Abbot John VI handed over to Henry Strickmann for safekeeping the pastoral staff, the chalice with its paten and the Bible of St. Bernward, with the agreement that whenever he asked back the deposit, it should be restored. Accordingly in the year 1643 Abbot John, having returned to his monastery, reminded the said Strickmann of the deposit entrusted to him. But he, after manifold evasions, at length in the year 1645 returned the staff to the abbot, despoiled however of its little image of St. Michael: but he denied the deposit of the rest. Finally the abbot, to redeem the theft, a price having been paid, recovered the precious codex on the XX of February 1649. And these are the monuments of his genius and craftsmanship, preserved to this day, which St. Bernward left to posterity. Moreover, in a man of so many arts, knowledge of medicine was not lacking either. For when Walthard, archbishop of Magdeburg, was gravely ill and implored his skill, the prelate of Hildesheim came to him, not only for the sake, says Thietmar Leibniz, Rer. Brunsw., vol. I, p. 392., of blessing, but also of the cure which he knew.

* Mukelborch

* quod

* Sirus

§ VI. On the death of Otto III, the Saint, after some evasion, accepts St. Henry as king and takes part with him in various synods.

The controversy on the jurisdiction over the monastery of Gandersheim, Although St. Bernward was outstanding in so many ways in practising the good arts, yet he carried them on without detriment to his episcopal office; indeed he gave himself to the handicrafts principally when he was affected by ill health. Thangmar sets forth the tenor of his life excellently at numbers 6 and 7, from which it becomes altogether manifest that he spent almost the whole day in the episcopal ministry, and only for recreation of mind, after finishing the legal cases and dismissing the cleric who had charge of alms and the poor, going around the workshops where metals for various uses were made, he weighed the works of each. Indeed that the Saint was entangled in manifold affairs, ecclesiastical and civil, the series of his whole life plainly demonstrates. As master of Otto III, a seven-year-old, who on the death of his father Otto II was saluted emperor, he spent particular care on the royal boy, when after the death of his mother Theophano, on the XVII of the kalends of July of the year 991 Thietmar of Merseburg, in Leibn., Rer. Brunsw., vol. I, p. 350., as the Annals of Hildesheim, of Quedlinburg and of Lambert of Hersfeld have it Migne, Patrol., vol CXLI, col. 522., a great part of the government fell upon our Bernward: for, says Thangmar at number 3, "the king, deserted by both parents, gave himself wholly to be ruled in the protection of his most faithful master." This entire confidence of the boy Otto toward his master, as we have already noted above at number 31, was the seed-bed of the dissensions which blazed up in the Gandersheim controversy between Bernward and Willigis Gfrörer, Pabst Greg. VII, vol. V, p. 537..

[65] begun before St. Bernward, breaks out afresh; But the Gandersheim controversy both began before Bernward and was continued after his death, as we shall set forth below; whence if there existed between the two prelates any difference in matters to be dealt with, it was neither the cause nor the occasion of the long-lasting litigation. For I shall not deny that, even apart from the business of the girls' monastery, other things could have occurred that sharpened a certain feud: for Thangmar himself says at number 32: "This wrath and indignation of the archbishop against the venerable bishop was created above all by the special familiarity of the lord emperor, with which by a particular devotion of goodness he cultivated him more familiarly than the others. For with most affectionate service he bound the emperor to himself, who attended with most vigilant zeal to all things which he knew to pertain to his favour: and on this account he stirred up against himself the animosity and envy of very many; especially also of the bishop of Mainz, who was indignant that anyone besides himself had a place of familiarity with the emperor." A little before, the same biographer at number 9 had said: "The faithful steward of the Lord's household faithfully ministered to his fellow-servants the necessary aids; … yet none the less he rendered to Cæsar his own, according to the Gospel. For he obeyed the emperor Otto the Third with a most affectionate spirit, according to his knowledge and power: whence he stirred up against himself the envy of many, who were indignant that he attended to the business of the state with more vigilant zeal." All these things show that St. Bernward had a great part in administering the state: the very controversy between our Saint and Willigis was settled through the agency of the emperor St. Henry, and afterwards, as Thangmar says at number 70, the archbishop loved the prelate Bernward with all honour and charity.

[66] above all when St. Henry took up the kingdom St. Bernward took part in various synods and assemblies, but at the beginning of his pontificate he was much in attendance on Otto III, his pupil: and then the chief business which he had to handle before the reign of Henry II and on account of which

he had to attend synods is the Gandersheim controversy, which we have already often promised to treat below. The first assembly, then, at which St. Bernward was present in person, was celebrated at Merseburg in the year 1002, when the bishops and magnates of Saxony had come together to salute the new king Henry II, successor of Otto III: the Franconians with their magnates had already performed this duty when, as Adelbold has it in the Life of St. Henry at the XIV of July Acta SS., vol. III of July, p. 746., on the VIII of the Ides of July 1002 St. Henry was elected and crowned by Willigis of Mainz: going therefore from Mainz he came to Merseburg on the IX of the kalends of August, as the Saxon Annalist has it in Eccard Scriptt. med. ævi, vol. I, col. 383.: "In which place there met him the archbishops Lievizo of Bremen and Gesiler of Magdeburg with the bishops of Paderborn, Arnulf of Halberstadt, Bernward of Hildesheim, Ramward of Meissen, Bernhar of Verden, Hugo of Zeitz: and the dukes Bernhard of Saxony, Boleslaus of Poland, with the marquises Luthar and Gero, and the Count Palatine Frederick, and very many others both bishops and counts, whose names it is long to tell one by one. These all receive the king with suppliant devotion."

[67] whom at the beginning the holy bishop seemed less to favour "On the following day, therefore, that is, on the VIII of the kalends of August, Duke Bernhard, with the consent of all, laying open before the king the will of the people flocking together, and setting forth specially the necessity and law of all, diligently inquires what of mercy he wishes to promise them in words or to bestow in deeds. Then the king said: 'To God first, and to you, I am in no way sufficient to pay fitting thanks. For it is known to me how faithfully you have ever and everywhere studied to give obedience and comfort to your kings. Therefore it is the more my pleasure in all things to honour you, to love you, and to preserve you for the advancement of the realm, because not with your refusal, but as it were with your invitation, I appear honoured with this royal dignity. I choose therefore not to corrupt your law in anything, but in all things clemently to fulfil it, and to give attention everywhere to your reasonable will, so far as I am able: and be sure of these things, so far as it pleases you, the honour of the realm being safe, I affirm.' At once the one voice of all is lifted up, rendering him praises and thanks. Then Duke Bernhard, taking the sacred lance in his hands, on behalf of all faithfully commits the care of the realm to him. Again the voices of all are raised, rendering praises to God. All therefore who had served the former rule, Ludiger alone remaining, join their hands to the king, and confirm faithful aid by oath."

[68] out of fear of the rivals, We have given these things in detail for this reason, because St. Bernward seems to have inclined to the party opposed to St. Henry Gfrörer, Pabst Greg. VII, vol. V, p. 6.. Which matter the biographer Thangmar not only passes over, but rather intimates the contrary, when he says at number 61: "Meanwhile, Otto III having died, the wishes of the princes were drawn in different directions, many striving to usurp the summit of the realm without regard for the fear of God. Whence a certain prince, Bruno by name, knowing that the venerable Bishop Bernward was most faithful to the lord Henry, the most reverend duke, fearing that he would oppose his undertakings," etc. Let us remark that St. Bernward, on the testimony of Thangmar at number 61, was most faithful to Duke Henry, and so to one not yet king. Nevertheless Thietmar of Merseburg in his Chronicle, book V Leibniz, Rer. Brunsw., vol. I, p. 365., says that Ekkehard, marquis of Thuringia, called his friends together at Werla, aspiring to the kingdom. "Disappointed in his hope, on the following day he thought it best, by visiting the Western regions, to address Duke Hermann (of Alemannia) with the other magnates concerning the advantage of the state and of himself. Having greeted his intimates on the following day, and having cautiously marked his enemies, he came with Bishop Berward to Hildesheim, where he is received as king, and honourably entertained. Then going on to Paderborn, he found the gates shut, and, admitted by order of the venerable bishop Rhetar, he first enters the church for the sake of prayer, and afterwards, coming to the house where the bishop was dining, was charitably received. There then he was told that the parley at Duisburg, for the sake of which he had come this way, could in no way take place. Moreover he perceived that the bishop was much displeased at his unsuitable undertaking." A little after, Ekkehard is killed by conspirators. From these things it shines out clearly enough that the contemporary Thietmar judged that St. Bernward followed the party of Ekkehard for some time. But whether our prelate did this from the heart, or under compulsion, who today can determine with certainty? I should believe, however, that the bishops of Hildesheim and Paderborn acted in the same way as their colleagues of Constance and Chur, who accepted Hermann, the rival of St. Henry, as king.

[69] who were threatening the diocese: The matter is briefly explained by Adelbold, bishop of Utrecht, who died about the year 1028 Joh. de Beka, De episc. Ultraj., p. 38.. He wrote a Life of the emperor St. Henry, of which a fragment, preserved by our forebears at the XIV day of July Act. SS., vol. III of July, p. 746., has these things: "The bishops of Chur and Constance were with Hermann, not so much electing him for king from the heart, as fearing his neighbourhood and doubting the end of the dispute." Led by the same prudence St. Bernward proceeded with Ekkehard, marquis of Thuringia: who, as Thietmar says Leibniz, Rer. Brunsw., vol. I, p. 366., was a man praiseworthy at home and in war, seeing that, on the testimony of Scheid in the Origines Guelficæ Vol. IV, p. 409., "he not only exercised the authority of a duke throughout Thuringia, but also held the March against the Bohemians and Poles, so that Meissen and Upper Lusatia were subject to him… Elated by this abundance of affairs, and helped also by the zeal of his kinsmen and connections, on the death of Otto III he aspired to the kingdom." Who then will turn it into a fault in a bishop, if, consulting for his flock, he accommodated himself to a most powerful man, in a matter hitherto in dispute? Then Thietmar betrays by no word that St. Bernward favoured the party of Ekkehard: for the journey to Hildesheim and the royal reception there do not prove that the prelate was the author of these things; nay rather, if we attend to the words of Thangmar, by which he is pronounced most faithful to Duke Henry, and is for that reason called an adversary to Prince Bruno, who was seeking the kingdom, it becomes probable that this happened at Hildesheim which Bernward could not prevent. Finally there was only so much time between the inauguration at Mainz and that at Merseburg as was necessary for King Henry to proceed with his court from Mainz to Merseburg.

[70] nevertheless with King Henry he takes part in the council of Dortmund With the same St. Henry present, in the fourth year of his reign, at Tremonia (Dortmund), in a city of present-day Prussia in Westphalia, a Synod was celebrated in the year 1005, at which were present Heribert of Cologne, Lievizo of Bremen, Thagino of Magdeburg, archbishops, together with various bishops, among whom our St. Bernward is also reviewed. What we know of that synod, we have from Thietmar, namely the appointment of Masses and prayers at the death both of the king himself and of his wife, and of the bishops present; moreover the assignment of the days and manner in which the ecclesiastical fasts are to be observed [Thietmar, in Leibniz. Rer. Brunsw., vol. I, p. 280. Cf. Würzheim, Conc. Germ., vol. III, p. 31.]. Nor does anything else seem to have been enacted, and so the acts of this synod cannot be drawn from any source but Thietmar. Whence I wonder how Adolf Schaumann, prefect of the library of Göttingen, in his History of the Saxon People could have conjectured that in this synod of Dortmund there were cast the seeds from which the αὐτονομια, as it is commonly called, of the clergy grew up, namely that it created a state within a state, as he is everywhere expressing it Geschichte des Niedersachsch. Volks, p. 367.. Truly one must have eyes sharper than a lynx, that one may be able to beat out even by conjecture an autonomy from some ordinance of prayers and fasts, made by the common consent of the king and the bishops. By divinations of this sort history is despoiled of its dignity and truth; and men of lighter character, such as certainly many are, gradually accept similar conjectures as most certain things, because they have neither the leisure nor the diligence to look into them more deeply.

[71] and of Goslar; Then in the year 1009 a Synod was held at Goslar, before King Henry, for the election of a new bishop of Paderborn: and on the death of Rether St. Meinwerk succeeded. The synod was celebrated, as the Acts of St. Meinwerk have it Acta SS. vol. I, of June p. 516, in the presence of King Henry, the bishops and princes who were present having been summoned. St. Bernward very probably took part in the election of the Saint, seeing that the town of Goslar was situated in his diocese. But the presence of our Saint is in every way certain in the synod celebrated in the same place in the year 1018: for in the Annals of Hildesheim it is said Migne, Patrol., vol. CXLI. col. 565.: "In the reign (of Henry in the year) V of his empire, ind. I, 1018, the lord Bishop Bernward, in the time of Lent, at Goslar, in the presence of the emperor with the bishops and the other leading men of the realm, a synod having been held, separated Godescalc, son of the governor Eggihard, and Gerdruda, daughter of Count Egberdh." But what was the cause of the dissolution of that marriage I have nowhere found. For I do not believe that an error has crept in in giving the name of either spouse, either in the Annals of Hildesheim just cited, or in Thietmar, who relates a somewhat similar story with the names changed. For he narrates that Ekkehard, a Thuringian noble, had a daughter Luidgerda, with love of whom Count Werinhar was madly smitten. In the father's absence, the girl was committed to the keeping of Mathilda, head of the nunnery of Quedlinburg. But Werinhar, taking companions, carried off the Virgin as she resisted and cried out. To avenge so great a crime an assembly is appointed at Magdeburg; but, says Thietmar, "that design was interrupted by the anticipation of sudden death. For after a few days, when she came to the place prepared for her by the Lord, at once falling ill, she called Bernward, then pastor of the holy Church of Hildesheim, and, having received from him the indulgence which she asked, on the VIII of the Ides of February she put off the inner man, and was buried in the church at the head of her grandfather, King Henry" Leibniz. Rer. Brunsw. vol. I, p. 356.. Here certainly there occurred the impediment of the abduction of an unwilling girl, seeing that she resisted and cried out. But, as we have said, the names of the persons and places are altogether different. Nevertheless we have related the fact chiefly because it belongs to the deeds of St. Bernward, who stood by the dying girl.

[72] from others he was often absent, probably on account of bodily infirmity. In the time of St. Bernward's episcopate other synods also were celebrated, at which he does not seem to have been present. Thus he was absent from the synods: of the year 1012, at Bamberg, when the dedication of this church took place, more than XXX bishops being present: at Koblenz, in which the restoration of the Church of Merseburg was dealt with: and finally at Mainz, in which the Jews were expelled and the perfidy of certain heretics condemned Hartzheim, Conc. Germ. vol. III, p. 42.. When in the year 1017 an assembly was held for settling the boundaries between the dioceses of Merseburg, Magdeburg and Meissen: there were present with the emperor Gero, archbishop of Magdeburg, the bishops Meinwerk of Paderborn, Wigo, whose diocese is unknown, Eric of Havelberg, Hildeward of Meissen and Thietmar of Merseburg: St. Bernward was again absent, although the neighbouring bishops had come together

Ibid. p. 48.; as in the same year he kept away from the assembly at the place which is called Lietzgo. I suspect a double cause of his rather frequent absence; the ill health from which he often suffered, and the presence of Willigis, archbishop of Mainz, with whom he had a very grave controversy over the nunnery of Gandersheim: and while that dispute, for the rest a long one, was pending, St. Bernward himself, although his own affair was being treated, preferred to send legates, rather than to be present himself. These things we shall treat more fully in the following §.

§ VII. The controversy of the monastery of Gandersheim is explained; the foundation of the monastery of St. Michael at Hildesheim.

Pope Agapetus II had exempted the monastery of Gandersheim Thangmar at numbers 16 and following narrates at length the controversy ventilated between the two most holy men Bernward and Willigis, which, the holiness of both remaining safe, lasted almost the whole time of the pontificate of Willigis. This therefore we shall not repeat in this place. But we shall indicate its origin, namely the bull of Agapetus II, who from the year 946 to 956 occupied the Roman see. This, since it has been omitted by Thangmar, we set down, and above all because it contains an exemption from episcopal jurisdiction. It is therefore of the following tenor Migne, Patrol. vol. CXXXIII col. 896.: "Agapetus, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Windilgard, abbess of the venerable monastery of Gandersheim, built by Otto, count of Saxony, and to the other abbesses of her lot in perpetuity. Since those things which accord with reasonable desires are always to be granted, it is fitting that the authority of pious preservation should by no means be denied to the devotion of a founder in the granting of privileges. Since therefore the venerable abbot Hathumar has asked of us that through his intervention and entreaty we should confirm to you by apostolic authority your monastery of Ganderescheim, situated beside the river Aterna, established under the jurisdiction of our holy Church, which by God's authority we serve, that it be subjected to the jurisdictions of no other Church. For which reason, favouring pious desires, (by) this our authority we carry into effect that which is asked, and therefore we prohibit by our authority every bishop of any Church, apart from the apostolic see, from having any dominion whatever in the aforesaid monastery.

[74] For by the authority of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul we order that no king dare, from episcopal jurisdiction: without your permission, to give the monastery to any men in benefice, so that indeed, according to that which subject to the apostolic see stands by the firmness of privilege, it may remain unshaken and enriched in places and goods, both those which at the present time it has or possesses, and those which in future times the divine goodness may wish to add to the right of that monastery, and may enjoy with perpetual firmness gifts, oblations and tithes of the faithful without the contradiction of any person. And when the abbess of that monastery has departed from this world, let it be lawful for no one to appoint any abbess there, except from that same congregation, if such a one is found who is worthy of God. And if perhaps she is not found there, then let the king have power to appoint there such an abbess as may worthily be able to please God. We establish also by the page of this our decree that any person endowed with whatever dignity who shall attempt to violate this charter of our privilege, which we confirm by the authority of the Prince of the Apostles, let him be anathema, and, incurring the wrath of God, let him be banished from the company of all the Saints, so that none the less the dignity of the aforesaid monastery, granted by us, may remain perpetually inviolate, supported by apostolic authority. Written by the hand of Stephen, scrinary of the holy Roman Church, in the month of January, in the sixth indiction. Fare well. Given on the III of the Nones of January by the hand of Andrew, by the favour of divine regard treasurer of the holy apostolic see, in the second year, by God's favour, of the pontificate of Agapetus the supreme Pontiff, the younger Pope, in the most sacred see of the Blessed Peter the Apostle."

[75] which the nuns, wrongly interpreting Concerning this constitution of Agapetus some things are to be observed before further inquiry. The month of January of the second year of the pontificate of Agapetus coincides with the common year 948: for he was elected between the V and XIV day of March 946. Then Joh. Harenberg in the History of Gandersheim, reporting the same bull, says P. 57 that Eckhart teaches who that Hathumar was, namely bishop of Paderborn. But here there is an error: for Hathumar, of whom Eckhart treats, made bishop of Paderborn from a cleric of Würzburg, died about the year 815 Hist. Franciæ, Orient. vol. II, p. 121.: and so in the year 948 Agapetus could not, as the bull has it, give a privilege at his petition. Finally the privilege of Agapetus consists above all in two heads, namely in exemption from episcopal authority and therefore in full subjection to the apostolic see, and in free election of the abbess, so long as she was taken from the bosom of the chapter. Hence the abbesses of Gandersheim judged that they were free at their pleasure to seek the veilings of Virgins, the blessings of abbesses and the dedications of churches, passing over the bishop of Hildesheim, from any other prelate. And hence arose the dispute between the archbishops of Mainz and the bishops of Hildesheim, which had already blazed up before the pontificate of St. Bernward. But although the monastery of Gandersheim stood exempt from all episcopal jurisdiction, seeing that it was subject to the Roman Pontiff alone; nevertheless in those things which required the pontifical order, such as are the consecration of Virgins, the blessing of an abbess and things like these, the abbess had to have recourse to the diocesan bishop, as Thangmar shows was done, numbers 21. Thus when, as is read in the Acts of St. Berchar, abbot, at the XVI day of October P. 57, Berthoend, bishop of Châlons, renounces every kind of jurisdiction over the girls' monastery founded by the Saint, he nevertheless retains for himself the blessing of the abbot and abbess, the making of the chrism, the conferring of orders and the penitentials. And although the diploma itself of Berthoend has there been deservedly attacked, yet other instruments are displayed, which confirm both the concession and the retention, so that neither can be doubted.

[76] the nuns, For when, as Thangmar says at n. 21, the bishops of Hildesheim had been for almost two hundred years in peaceful possession of jurisdiction over the monastery of Gandersheim, Sophia, daughter of Otto II, disturbed the concord. She, the biographer continues in the same number, was the kindling, to speak with the peace of all, of this kind of dissension; "while she disdained to receive the sacred veil from her own bishop, namely the lord Osdag, and sought Willigis: judging it unworthy to be consecrated except by a wearer of the pallium. To which he himself willingly nodded, not considering how greatly he violated the ancient statutes of the canons: nor did he seek an approach with brotherly charity, but commanded a day to his brother and fellow bishop, to meet him for the veiling of the handmaids of God on the festivity of St. Luke the Evangelist. Having found therefore a suitable time, the lord Osdag more secretly asked the archbishop by what authority he was doing this: to whom he with threatening look replied rather bitingly that it belonged to his parish, and promised that on the appointed day he would veil the handmaids of God, and that he would obtain all episcopal power in that place." The cause of the unpleasant controversy therefore both existed before St. Bernward and persevered after him under St. Godehard his successor. We forbear, however, to set out the long-lasting dispute more at length, seeing that it is widely explained in the Life to be published below: and which, if it is worth the labour, we shall illustrate as opportunity offers.

[77] recourse to Archbishop Willigis for the consecration of their church. I would not, however, omit in what way Georg Joannis in the work of the Affairs of Mainz excuses the pertinacity of Willigis Vol. I, p. 454.: "1° Because she who lived in that monastery, the sister of the emperor Otto III, wished to receive the veil only from an archbishop who used the pallium. 2° Because he was three times most honourably invited to the dedication of the church of that place. 3° Because, his fault having afterwards been recognized, with a very lowly spirit he suppliantly asked pardon. 4° Finally because without any feud he afterwards cultivated a sincere friendship with him who had resisted him, the bishop of Hildesheim, St. Bernward." Now that the opinion of the claimed jurisdiction might be confirmed, two things chiefly occurred: namely the privilege of Pope Agapetus, reported above, by which there was forbidden to a bishop of any Church any jurisdiction whatever over the monastery of Gandersheim; and so Willigis could suppose that the nuns were free to call in whatever bishop they wished, both for the veiling of virgins and for the dedication of their church. Then Gandersheim was situated on the very limit between the dioceses of Mainz and Hildesheim, namely on the river Eterna, which divides the two dioceses Lüntzel, Die ältere Diocese Hildesheim, p. 344.. Wherefore Willigis, as Thangmar narrates at number 37, bringing forward the men whom he had brought with him, asked the bishops whether it was lawful to bind those men by his ban to oaths as to whose diocese that monastery belonged. The ban, as Du Cange says at this word, has chiefly a threefold meaning: and first it is taken for a public edict, then for a pecuniary fine, and thirdly for a district and jurisdiction. The ban of which Thangmar treats is a public edict, which if it had been lawful to promulgate with the consent of the bishops, the controversy would already have been settled: for no one can give a ban or edict beyond the bounds of his own jurisdiction. The bishops therefore, although fearing the dread of him, say that it cannot lawfully be done in the absence of the bishop.

[78] of their church. Deluded in this hope, and abandoned by the other bishops, the archbishop with his men whom he had brought with him at length by a certain cavil induced them to say, some, that the limit of the diocese of Hildesheim was the Ethrina, the river of Fritzlar, which washes the western boundary, others, the Eterna, which washes the southern. Hence of its own accord a doubt arose, which made a matter otherwise clear litigious: and so by appearance it set up Willigis as the intrepid defender of his own Church. But the subtlety devised was of little help; the ambiguity of the alternate name deceived no one. For no one, even of those who most praise Willigis, approves that dispute, but they excuse the error. We have brought forward above the opinion of Joannis, a writer of Mainz. There are also in the museum two compositions which pass over the whole controversy in silence. The first is the Office of Bl. Willigis, printed in the year 1675, which, as is said in the preface, had been preserved for many centuries as a treasure of rare price. I should say the same of the other Life, for the most part compacted of patches of more ancient writers, in which those things are studiously omitted which pertain to the Gandersheim controversy. And if more recent writers touch on it, they do not so much defend the error of Willigis as excuse it Cf. Werner, Der Dom von Maintz, vol. I, p. 504.. We forbear to say more, since, as we have said before, the whole controversy is neatly and abundantly set forth in the Life to be published.

[79] With hereditary goods We now come to the celebrated foundation of the monastery of St. Michael, which the holy prelate seems to have meditated already from the beginning of his episcopate, busied himself to carry out during the whole time of his pontificate, and at length, close to death, completed. The Chronicle of the monastery of St. Michael at Hildesheim thus begins Meibom., Scriptt., vol. III, p. 517.: "In the year of the Lord's Incarnation 993 Berward (Bernward), royal chaplain, is appointed the thirteenth bishop of the Church of Hildesheim. He in the northern part of the city of Hildesheim, in a squalid place, fit for wild and brute animals, built a monastery in honour of St. Michael from his own patrimony; in which he instituted both an abbot and a congregation of monks, living under the Rule of St. Benedict. For whose advantage he bestowed estates, courts and households to the extent of 300 manses from

his patrimony and such things as he could buy from the treasure left to him by Otto the Third of happy memory." Accordingly, as the Annals of Hildesheim have it Migne, Patrol., vol. CXLI, col. 566., "in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 1015, Henry having reigned XIV years, and now by God's grace in the II of his empire, the crypt of our monastery (of St. Michael), in the XIII indiction, on the III of the kalends of October, was dedicated by Bernward, most venerable prelate of the same Church, and by Theoderic, most worthy bishop of the Church of Münster, and by Ekkehard, venerable bishop of the city of Schleswig, in honour of the Saviour our Lord Jesus Christ, and of his Mother and perpetual Virgin, and for the singular patronage of the Blessed Archangel Michael and of the whole heavenly host." The day III of the kalends of October or the XXIX of September is sacred, as we know, to St. Michael: and so the feast of the patron is joined to the anniversary of the dedication.

[80] the Saint founds first the chapel of the Holy Cross, Seven years later the church itself was dedicated, as the same Annals report Ibid., col. 567.: "In the year of the incarnate Word 1022, in the XXI of the reign of the emperor Henry, in the XXXI of the ordination of the lord Bernward, venerable prelate of this Church, in the V indiction, on the III of the kalends of October, the oratory of this monastery, built by the aforesaid bishop with the highest zeal for beauty for the advantage of the monastic life, situated outside the walls of the city of Hildesheim, was dedicated, and moreover with all the devotion of ecclesiastical religion consecrated in honour of the Saviour our Lord Jesus Christ and of his Mother and ever Virgin Mary, and of the saving wood of the adorable and life-giving Cross, and for the special patronage of St. Michael the Archangel, and of the whole host of heaven, and to the praise of the veneration of all the Saints of God, by the venerable provider of the same Church, Bernward, and by the honourable Unewan, archbishop of the Church of Hamburg, by Ekkehard also, bishop of Schleswig, and by Bernhard, most reverend bishop of the Church of Oldenburg, for the bulwark of ecclesiastical peace and for the salvation and defence of Christendom. And to such a degree were the estates and goods belonging to that same place established by the ban of their authority, that if anyone should plunder anything from there by force or of his own accord, he should lie under perpetual damnation, and, condemned by perpetual anathema, be blotted out from the land of the living, whoever should be in any way offensive and contrary to this place. So be it, so be it, so be it."

[81] then the great monastery About a month after the completion of the dedication, St. Bernward issued the charter of foundation, which Hermann Luntzel has published from the original instrument, and it is of the following tenor Die ältere Diöz. Hildesh., p. 352.: "In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. I desire it to be known to all the sons of our Church, indeed also to all the faithful of Christ, how I, Bernward, humble and unworthy bishop of this holy Church of Hildesheim, touched by divine grace, shuddering at the excesses of my guilt, and longing for the grace of God, have drawn my mind in different directions, how I might satisfy the eternal mercy; and so obtain a remedy for my soul. At length therefore finding the port of salvation, I chose and established Christ as my heir, who should be my portion and inheritance and rest. Whence to his praise and glory, and to that of his pious Mother Mary, and for the special patronage of St. Michael the Archangel and of all the heavenly powers I began with the highest devotion to build a new monastery outside the wall of the city, namely to the north of our see. But I, fearing the lot of nature, uncertain to all, and lest by the length of so great a work my hope in performing divine things should perhaps be too much delayed or neglected, made hastily and completed a certain very splendid chapel near that monastery, the foundations of the basilica itself having already been laid in some part, namely in honour of the Lord and our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the holy and life-giving Cross, of the perpetual Virgin Mary and of the Saints whose Relics are contained there: and I established that it should be one of baptism, anointing and burial, but not synodal: and that a synod should be held either in the porch or in the cemetery.

[82] of St. Michael, which, a diploma having been given, "Having gathered together therefore certain religious, to serve Christ the Lord there in the meantime, I assigned to this chapel, until the same monastery should be finished, all that I had and that I had resolved to give to St. Michael, both in gold and silver and manifold ornament, and in estates and various advantages. This having been by God's grace and by my great earnestness most honourably completed, and by my humility, the Holy Spirit co-operating, gloriously consecrated, I at once placed there persons of the monastic Order according to the Rule of the Blessed father Benedict. The venerable man Goderam having been consecrated abbot over them, I gathered them on this condition, that as according to the monastic norm they are strangers to the affairs of the world, so they should be free from every hindrance of secular service; and that on the death of their abbot, if there should be a worthy person among them from their own number, if not within the bounds of our bishopric, or from elsewhere with the concession of the lord Henry, most serene emperor, and my own, they should have a free faculty of electing a father for themselves. In like manner I obtained from the same imperial majesty that they may elect for themselves over their estates a useful advocate with the counsel of the bishop of the same place, and reject a useless and burdensome one, and I strengthened this by my authority. A solemn donation having therefore been made by me, as is sufficiently expressed in the privileges of the aforesaid emperor, the lord Henry, and fortified as with a twin sword both by his seal and also by my more powerful, that is, golden seal, namely given to me by him with many other gifts of royal munificence, and bulled at his order, I have endowed it according to my little poverty, with the consent and joint praise of my lawful heir, namely my dearest brother, Count Tammo, with no less than four hundred and LXVI manses, X tithes, X mills, and XIII churches with their tithing, and a half at Holthusen with XVI manses, which afterwards was added to the monastery by privilege of the emperor; not counting among these churches the chapels of the Holy Cross and of Blessed Martin, which I have judged to be claustral. For that very chapel of the life-giving Cross, which I made one of baptism, anointing and burial, as I had long since resolved, I have by the counsel of my Church so transferred into the monastery, and incorporated into it with all its persons and goods and with all its right, that our aforesaid abbot Goderam and all his successors may have that care by perpetual right, and such of the brethren as they shall order may discharge divine things there. Only in such a way that it may retain of its original right so much as the abbot with the counsel of the brethren shall decree according to the variety of times and things. And this is the number of the churches and this their situation, etc."

[83] he endows with a diploma The prelate then enumerates various churches and places in which the estates given are situated; which indeed are of much help to the topographical knowledge of Lower Saxony and especially of the diocese of Hildesheim, which Hermann Lüntzel widely explains in his description of the same bishopric Die ältere Diöz. Hildesh, p. 187, note 28.. It would be too long to run out into the broad field which the said Lüntzel has skilfully traversed. But since we have interrupted the text of the diploma, we shall explain in a few words some things obscure in the text brought forward. First of all St. Bernward says that, the design of building the great monastery having been taken up, he feared lest death should forestall the design; and so that he hastily made and completed a certain very splendid chapel. The time of its dedication Thangmar accurately reviews at number 15. "That very chapel," he says, "of the Holy Cross, finished with varied beauty, Bernward dedicated on the IV of the Ides (10th) of September, in the nine hundred and ninety-sixth year of the Lord's Incarnation, in the ninth indiction, in the thirteenth year of the reign of the most glorious emperor Otto the Third, in the first of his empire, and in the fourth of his own ordination." Moreover the Saint wished this chapel to be one of baptism, anointing and burial, but not synodal; for he orders that a synod be held either in the porch or in the cemetery. It is manifest that St. Bernward granted to the chapel of the Holy Cross parochial right, since there it was lawful to receive baptism, extreme unction and burial. But he did not wish the chapel to be synodal, but that a synod should be held either in the porch or in the cemetery. Synodal churches, as it seems, were the same as mother or archidiaconal churches; Lüntzel holds these words as synonymous Die ältere Diöz. Hildesh, p. 187, note 28., inasmuch as in those churches the archdeacon had his tribunal. And since St. Bernward, while he was finishing the chapel of the Holy Cross, had already laid in some part the foundations of the basilica of St. Michael itself, he determined indeed that the chapel should have parochial right, but reserved the synodal dignity to the principal church of the monastery Ibid., p. 197.. The church having then been built he incorporated the chapel, with the proviso that it should retain of its original right so much as the abbot with the counsel of the brethren should decree according to the variety of times and things. In this signification therefore a church is called synodal. From the digression we return to the text, the names of the places being omitted.

[84] with many estates: "All these things with their appurtenances, namely lands cultivated and uncultivated, slaves of both sexes, estates, pastures and meadows, vineyards, forests and huntings, waters and watercourses, mills, fisheries, ways and byways, exits and returns acquired and to be acquired, and all the other things which I have either possessed by hereditary right or have been able to acquire by secular purchase; excepting many things which I have bestowed on the altar of St. Mary in the principal church, namely in estates, crowns, golden chalices, candlesticks, hangings and other ecclesiastical ornaments, the whole I have delivered for the uses of the brethren through the hand of my advocate to God and to St. Michael the Archangel for the souls of my aforesaid seniors the emperors and for mine, and those of all my successors and of those whose patrimonies I have acquired; so that the servants of Christ, free from all earthly service, protected under the defence and patronage of my successors the bishops, may lead quiet times in peace and mercy and cling to blessed contemplation for the salvation of the living. But if anyone, whether a successor of my order, or any secular person, should wish to break this and presume tyrannically to usurp these things for himself, by the sword of the word of God I remove him from God and his Saints, and, every malediction weighing on him, let him lack blessing; and so, cast out from heaven and earth, let him have his part with Judas and with those who by inheritance possess the sanctuary of God. And that this may remain firm and unshaken, let all the people standing around study by prayer always to obtain the grace of God. Done at Hildesheim on the kalends of November, in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord MXXII, and in the XXX year of the ordination of the lord Bernward, most venerable pontiff of this Church, in the V indiction. There standing by one cardinal, namely the legate of the lord Pope, and eleven bishops, strengthening these things with me by the authority of their ban. Witnesses of these things my whole Church with many other faithful. Ekkehard, bishop of Schleswig, Adelger the provost, Lindward the dean, Thangmar, Hildeward, Swikker, Wiker, Thongmar, Thadilo, Aido, Thiebald, Wikker, Bodo, Hareth, Hays, Wolbrecht, Berenwarht, Vebbi, Wino, priests. Vulfar, Wulcarad, Wicbert, Awrard, Allia, Bodo, Wulfer, Thietmar, Reinward, Osdag, deacons. Rothier, Simon, Reinbert, Dede, Thietmar, subdeacons. Benedict

acolyte. Hunald, Hildeward, Godescalc, Bodo, Allia, Rothart, Edelric, Wulfar, Gero, Ernust, Thongmar the count. Thiatmar the advocate. Wolbrecht, Thietmar, Poppa, Frederick, Christopher, Dede, Christian and many others, whose names are written in the book of life. Amen."

[85] the emperor St. Henry confirms the foundation. St. Henry II confirmed the charter of foundation by his authority: and indeed on the III of the Nones (3rd) of November 1022; and so two days after the drawing up of St. Bernward's diploma. And hence Hermann Lüntzel suspects that an error has crept in in indicating the month and that December is to be read for November, in which Henry in fact stayed at Grona Die ältere Diöz. Hildesh., p. 358, note.. Grona seems to have lain on the river Leine or Loyna according to the Chronicle of Göttweig P. 478.: and thus the town of Grona is very near to Hildesheim, a neighbour on the same river; so that within two days both the charter of Bernward could have been drawn up and confirmed by the diploma of Henry. We therefore leave the question open. The emperor says that his diploma was given on the III of the Nones of November, in the V indiction, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation MXXII, in the XXI year of the reign of the lord Henry the second. "Done at Gruonaha in the name of God." In that diploma the emperor Henry declares that he takes the monastery of St. Michael into his mundiburgium and protection; and having enumerated the manses and estates attributed to the monastery, he goes on, saying: "Under the interdiction of our imperial ban therefore we command that no successor of his (of Bernward), nor any other bishop, or duke, nor count or viscount, or any judicial power presume with any rashness to inflict any violence or plunder on the same monastery and the things granted or to be granted to it. But if anyone, which God forbid, should be a violator of this our imperial precept, first let him incur the wrath of Almighty God, of St. Michael the Archangel and of all the Saints; let him also pay a composition of a hundred pounds of the best gold, half to our chamber and half to the monastery." In the same year MXXII, the month and day being omitted, St. Bernward went a second time to the emperor, to obtain anew the foundation of his monastery Cf. Lüntzel, Die ältere Diöz. Hildesh., p. 358..

[86] But in the XVI century the state of the monastery was wretched, The affairs of the monastery went on peacefully enough under its abbots, whose names and deeds the Chronicle of the monastery of St. Michael in Leibniz briefly narrates Rer. Brunsw., vol. II, p. 399.. In the middle of the XV century the monks admitted the Bursfeld reform and with one hundred and forty-one other monasteries of the Order of St. Benedict coalesced into one congregation, called of Bursfeld. But in the year 1543, as the same Chronicle has it Ibid., p. 402., the Lutherans occupied the parish church of St. Lambert (formerly the chapel of the Holy Cross) and the churches of the monastery of St. Michael: they shut up the abbot with the brethren and extorted a great sum of money from them, with an annual salary of 150 florins for the preachers. This coercion Hermann Dick, thirty-third abbot, and his successors had to undergo for almost a full century. But by the agreement of Goslar, entered into on the XVI day of January 1642 Du Mont, Corps diplomat., vol. VI, part I, p. 234., the monks of St. Michael at length recovered their monastery, except for the greater church, which remained in the hands of the Lutherans, and they persevered in it until the beginning of our century. For then the bishopric of Hildesheim passed to the king of Prussia Frederick William III, by virtue, as was said, of the decree of the deputies of the empire (Reichs deputation) at Regensburg, and all the goods of ecclesiastical right were assigned to the royal fisc. Namely, by a royal decree given on the XXII day of January 1803 the monastery of St. Michael was suppressed, and its goods handed over to lay procurators to be administered: and the whole business was committed to the aulic councillor Malchus, who for the rest was general agent of affairs of this kind.

[87] it turned out worse in the XIX century. He therefore on the XVIII day of February 1803 betook himself to the monastery of St. Michael, and made known to Abbot Wilhelm Roehren what he had received in his orders, namely the abolition of the monastery. Accordingly, the chapter of the monks having been convened, he declared that by virtue of the supreme sentence of the diet of the German empire the monastery itself and all its possessions belonged irrevocably to the dominion of the king of Prussia, and that therefore the monastery itself was and remained suppressed. From this principle the royal agent or commissary deduces that the monks are altogether loosed from the Rule of the order and from choir, and henceforth are truly and solely private persons, on whom civil obligations simply fall. It is truly a wonder that a non-Catholic prince should loose Catholic monks, even against their will, from the obligation of vows and Rule. But such was at that age the overwhelming authority of kings, as they imagined it to themselves, that nothing was holy, lawful and legitimate unless they themselves had sanctioned it, and that there was nothing in religious matters which secular princes could not violate at their pleasure. For the rest, in the documents communicated to us, I have found nothing which indicates any resistance or protest of the monks.

[88] when the whole possession was assigned to the Prussian royal fisc; There was paid yearly to the abbot money up to two thousand Rhenish florins, to the other monks up to three hundred florins: and their number, with those who outside the cloister served parish churches, rose to XXV monks, IV lay brothers, with five novices. To each of these there were given once for all 750 florins. It was at the same time provided that whoever wished to have the use and enjoyment of the pension must live within the Prussian provinces, except for a space of six months, and that whoever stayed longer in a foreign region should lose all right to the pension. So a Benedictine monk, who, fleeing the dangers of the world, in order to cling more closely to God, had withdrawn to a monastery of another region, was despoiled, as though any citizen, as monks are declared to be, ought not in every case to be kept unharmed when he is deprived of his right. The monks are permitted however to inhabit the monastery, indeed the daily food is continued for XIV days and firewood is furnished until the 1st of April. Finally, because there was then at Hildesheim no purely Catholic parish church, the church of St. Michael is assigned as a parish church, and the king orders that its endowment be attended to. I do not doubt but that the Prussian clerks, while they were applying these rather light drugs to a very grave wound, congratulated themselves on their magnanimous munificence.

[89] which at length accrued to the kingdom of Hanover, Meanwhile there is one difficulty which he will easily solve who has before him the public acts of the German diets, namely how the king of Prussia on the XXX day of January 1803 can say that by virtue of a decree of the diet of the empire the monastery with all its goods belongs to him, whereas this decree was first sanctioned on the XXV of February of the same year. But already in the year 1802 the Prussians had come to an agreement with the French republic concerning an indemnity for the provinces on the left bank of the Rhine annexed to the French republic: and so about the end of the month of July the Prussians with armed force occupied the bishopric of Hildesheim and the adjacent regions. Shortly after the diet came together to compose the indemnities due to each, namely on the XXIV of August Martens, Rec. des Traités vol. VII, p. 439 and following.: it could be therefore that what was to be attributed to Prussia had been defined before the end of the same year. And in fact by article III of the instrument drawn up at Regensburg for the indemnity there is granted to the king of Prussia, among other things, the bishopric of Hildesheim. All ecclesiastical goods therefore and political rights thereafter belonged to the accounts of the king: and hence proceeded the suppressions of monasteries and chapters.

[90] the monastery having been changed into a madhouse. By arms the Prussians had obtained the bishopric of Hildesheim, by arms too they lost it. For after the battle of Jena, in the year 1807 on the IX day of July, peace having been made with the French, they lost a great part of their provinces, which with other provinces coalesced into one kingdom, called of Westphalia, whose king was Jerome, brother of Napoleon, emperor of the French. In whose reign the monastery was converted to the uses of a military hospital. There was in the said monastery, besides the greater church, which from the year 1542 remained in the hands of the Lutherans, another which was called the Lesser (kleine klosterkirche), fitted up from the year 1709 for the uses of the monks, and which by the king of Prussia had been attributed to the Catholics. But in the year 1812 the parish of St. Michael having been abolished, it was moved to the church of St. Magdalene, formerly of the suppressed nuns of St. Augustine. Finally by the instrument of the peace of Vienna, signed on the IX day of June 1815, the bishopric of Hildesheim and its ecclesiastical goods accrued to the kingdom of Hanover. By a new destination, therefore, the monastery in the year 1827, the old building having been destroyed, was changed into a madhouse, the lesser church being attributed to Catholic and Lutheran worship. The greater church, a military hay-store under the king of Westphalia, was given back to the Lutherans in the year 1857: and its western crypt, for it has a double choir, is commonly called the Crypt of St. Bernward, and to this day belongs to the Catholics. In it, by a legacy of M thalers of Seraphin Wächter, a monk of St. Michael's, a weekly Mass has been founded. And these are the fortunes of a monastery once most celebrated.

§ VIII. The virginity of St. Henry in marriage is briefly defended; his donations and diplomas for the Church of Hildesheim; the sister and maternal aunt of St. Bernward, nuns.

St. Henry, whose in marriage Although St. Bernward was most munificent in founding the monastery of St. Michael, with equal skill he busied himself that the proper church of his see should have the means of its support, indeed that together with its bishop it might defend the Christian Religion against the neighbouring barbarians or spread it among them. He took care first of all that what his predecessors had already obtained from the ancient emperors he also should attain, namely that the Church of Hildesheim itself and its temporal goods should be under the direct defence of the imperial majesty. Accordingly in the year 1013, on the V of the Nones of March, at Werla, Henry granted to Bernward, bishop from the town which is called Hildenesheym, which is in the district of Astfala, in honour of St. Mary on the river Indisthra (in German Innerste), "that no public judge, nor anyone of the judicial power or any of the faithful of the holy Church of God and of ours, should enter into the churches, places or fields, or the other possessions, which at the present time it appears justly and reasonably to possess… Let it be lawful for him and for the clerics subject to him serving God, under our defence and the protection of immunity, to reside there by a quiet path and to entreat the mercy of the Lord for us and our spouse and offspring, and for the stability of our whole empire… Now to the aforesaid Church we also grant that the clerics of the same see may have, canonically and ecclesiastically, whether among themselves or from elsewhere, from those worthy of this and suitable, a free and proper faculty of electing a bishop, with the fair consent of the king. Given on the V of the Nones of March, in the XI indiction, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation MXIII, and in the XI year of the reign of Henry II. Done at Werla" Scheid., Origg. Guelficæ, vol. IV, p. 433.

[92] virginity is defended in passing, At the XIV day of July Joh. Bapt. Sollier in the Acts of the emperor St. Henry Act. SS., vol. III of July, p. 727. altogether defends the virginity preserved in marriage by SS. Henry and Cunegund against Koehler, who, reading in the Easter Litanies of Bamberg, after the suffrages for the salvation of Henry and Cunegund, also the salvation of their most noble royal offspring,

and life prayed for Acta SS., vol. III of July, p. 729., holds the virginity of the holy spouses to be fabulous. Scheid too makes Koehler's opinion his own. He relies chiefly on the diploma just cited, in which Henry wishes prayers to be poured out "for us," he says, "and our spouse and offspring", which he also corroborates in another diploma of the same year, in which likewise Henry wishes provision made for the Church of Hildesheim "for the stability," he says, "of the realm, for the safety of our spouse and royal offspring." From which words it is concluded that there was either some offspring or certainly the hope of it; and so that virginity was absent from that marriage. Our Sollier, however, invincibly shows, unless we wish to accuse St. Henry of falsehood and fraud, that virginity was preserved in the marriage. What then? Shall we call the diplomas interpolated, the Litanies false-speaking? By no means: but we shall say offspring, not that which came forth from their marriage, but that which proceeded from kinship; namely the collateral family. Nor further do we accept this interpretation without a witness. At the XVI day of April in the Life of St. Contardus of Broni we read that offspring is taken altogether for family Ibid., vol. II of April, p. 448.: "Here begins the history of blessed Contardus, who by nation and offspring is said to have been from Ferrara." And in the Life there described it is explained how the servant of God left his parents with their permission to go to the tomb of St. James of Compostela and died on the way. Similarly a little below Ibid., p. 450., "a demoniac woman began to proclaim openly the offspring, country and deeds of the Blessed one." Sometimes therefore in the middle age offspring was put for family, which Du Cange also confirms at this word.

[93] 1° he confirms the donation formerly made by Otto III of the place Trathe: Let these things be said, because to our Sollier, writing the Acts of St. Henry, the cited diplomas were not known, which, as also the Litanies of Bamberg, make mention of royal offspring. Now from the digression we return to the ecclesiastical acquisitions of St. Bernward. In the year 1013 at Werla St. Henry issued a diploma for the Church of Hildesheim, given in the XI indiction, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation MXIII, in the XI year of the lord Henry the Second Scheid., Orig. Guelf., vol. IV, p. 434.. In it, no word being made of royal offspring, King Henry confirms the donation formerly made to St. Bernward by Otto III of an estate from his own inheritance, which is named Trathe; namely of seven manses in the district of Marstiem in the county of Duke Bernhard Cf. Lüntzel, Die ältere Diöz. Hildesh., p. 100.. And the estate was granted to the chapel which is called of the Holy Cross, situated outside the wall on the northern side of the city. The donation afterwards passed to the monastery of St. Michael Ibid., l. c.; because, as we have said above, St. Bernward had built the Oratory of the Holy Cross at once for this purpose, that in it monks might sing the praises of God, until the regular monastery to be dedicated under the invocation of St. Michael should be finished, which was finished in the year 1022. Trathe, today Drote, is a little village which lies on the river Leine opposite the village of Ruthe.

[94] 2° of an estate at Ledhi; In the same year 1013 the same King Henry gave to St. Bernward and his Church an estate in the village of Ledhi, in the district of Gudinge in the county of Count Luidolf, "for the remedy," he says, "of our soul and of that of our most beloved consort Cunegund." And he makes the donation to the brethren of the church of Hildesheim, built in honour of St. Mary: "in this way however, that each year when the day of our ordination recurs; there be paid to them in common in the refectory, as well as may be, a due service in food and drink. But when at any time the Lord shall deign to call us from the prison-house of this body, we wish that in place of the day of ordination then discontinued, the term of our death be yearly recalled thereafter to memory by a like service to the same brethren … Given on the VII of the kalends of April, in the XI indiction, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation MXIII, in the XI year of the reign of the lord Henry the Second. Done at Hildesheim happily. Amen." It will be worth the labour to remark that the latter diploma, in which no mention is made of royal offspring, was given on the VII of the kalends of April or the XXVI of March: whereas the diploma cited at number 87, which makes word of royal offspring, is marked on the V of the Nones of March or the III of the same month. If therefore the argument taken from the former charter against the virginity of St. Henry has any force, it must be that in the meantime the offspring or at least the hope of it perished: which indeed we nowhere find.

[95] 3° of an estate at Duisburg; St. Henry confirmed to St. Bernward the donation formerly made by Otto III of an estate at Duisburg Migne, Patrol, vol. CXLI, col. 565., that is, of one manse with three plots and slaves, of whom the first is named Wigo, and with his brother and with their wives and children, who also still survive, and with all the utensils belonging to that estate. In the XI indiction, in the year of the Incarnation MXIII, in the XI year of the lord Henry the Second. Done at Werla. Further, in the reign, as the Annals of Hildesheim report l. c., of Henry in the XII year, in the XI indiction, MXIII (after) the Incarnation of the Lord, on the XII of the kalends of February, "our sins so bringing it about, the principal church of the Church of Hildesheim, by the plotting of the devil, was set on fire by night, but by the sole aid of the divine mercy was swiftly, thanks be to God, extinguished. But this, ah! ah! remains for us to mourn, that in the same fire, with the most precious ornament of the missal, an inexplicable and irrecoverable quantity of books perished." To these things Thangmar adds at number 66 that in that same year Blessed Bernward, patron of the holy city of Hildesheim, on the day following the festivity of All Saints, with the most devout intention of mind, on the IV of the Nones of November, restored for the better and blessed the high altar of the Holy Mother of God, which, alas! our sins so deserving, had been shattered, as has been said, by the mighty flood of fire; and made it more acceptable to God and more praiseworthy to men by the brightness of gold and silver and gems. Among the books, moreover, which had perished in the fire, there were also the written instruments by which the Church of Hildesheim was constituted: and so St. Bernward took care that new diplomas should be drawn up.

[96] St. Henry in that year at Werla in Lent, says the Saxon Annalist Pertz, Monum. Germ., vol. VI, p. 664., for the space of five weeks, 4° he renews the privileges of the Church of Hildesheim. the Annals of Hildesheim have it Migne, Patrol., vol. CXLI, col. 565., suffered from colic; and, restored to health, he celebrated the Easter festival at Paderborn with St. Meinwerk the bishop. And since in the year 1013 Easter fell on the V day of April, which he kept at Paderborn, it follows that King Henry stayed at Werla from the first Sunday of Lent to Holy Week, or from about the XXII of February to the beginning of April. At that time therefore the diploma was drawn up; but, as the said Lüntzel judges Die altere Diöz. Hildesh., pp. 9 and 349., it was not expedited: because no seal was affixed to it, nor are any traces of one found; and then an empty space is left for the day and month. For thus the clause is shown Ibid., p. 351.: "I, Gunther the chancellor, in the place of Erchambald the archchaplain, recognized it. Given … in the XI indiction, in the year of the Lord's incarnation one thousand XIII, in the XI year of the reign of the lord Henry the second. Done at Werla happily. Amen." The said writer suspects that the promulgation of the diploma was hindered by the arts of the archbishop of Mainz Ibid., p. 9.. But a suspicion of that sort has no foundation: Archbishop Erkambald and our Bernward were always the best of friends: but if in determining the limits of the diocese of Hildesheim any difficulty could have sprung up, it would have to be derived from the Gandersheim controversy: but in the lifetime of Erkambald the question was altogether put to sleep, as Thangmar teaches at number 70, and finally under Aribo, Erkambald's successor, and Godehard, who after Bernward occupied the see of Hildesheim, it broke out afresh, but was shortly extinguished.

[97] St. Bernward contributes to the foundation To the foundations of St. Bernward belongs, at least in part, the monastery of Hildewardeshusen, which is also called Helmwardhusen. For in that monastery he had as abbess his maternal aunt Rothegard, says Thangmar at number 52, who then at number 67 relates her pious death on the Lord's Nativity. Now the monastery of Helmwardhusen was reckoned among the imperial monasteries and had been built by Count Ekkehard on land of his own property, as is read in the Life of St. Meinwerk, bishop of Paderborn, in whose diocese it was situated Acta SS., vol. I of June, p. 518 and following.. Accordingly, says Thangmar at number 52, "Blessed Bernward, hoping that by the grace of God and the clemency of both princes he would live in the highest peace, was arranging to go, on their chief festivity, to the abbey of the church of Hildewardeshusen, delivered to him by the emperor and most devoutly consecrated by him with a solemn dedication and cultivated with divine service, and enriched by him with many benefices and gifts, where also his maternal aunt held the rule of mother, all the apparatus necessary for those flocking to so great a solemnity having been sent ahead." From this text it shines out manifestly that St. Bernward consecrated that church with solemn rite. But here there occurs a difficulty to be briefly unknotted.

[98] [of the nunnery of Hildewardeshusen, in which the Saint's maternal aunt was a nun:] In the Life, namely, of St. Meinwerk, written in the XIII century, it is said at number 18 Ibid., l. c. that this blessed prelate on the Nones of June 1011 dedicated the monastery "in honour of the holy and undivided Trinity, and of the Holy Saviour and of the most victorious cross, and of St. Mary perpetual Virgin, and of St. Peter, prince of the apostles, and of all the Apostles and of all the Saints." Here therefore we have a double dedication of the monastery of Hildewaldeshusen, made at almost the same time. I should believe that there was a double monastery at Helnewardeshusen, namely of men and of women. And indeed that nuns had a monastery there Thangmar, just cited, openly teaches us, saying that his maternal aunt Rothegard held the rule of mother in the monastery: perhaps (for it has not been possible to investigate the origins, the instruments being lacking) Rothegard was the foundress, whence the right of patronage belonged to her family; for which reason Thangmar teaches that the abbey was delivered to St. Bernward by the emperor. On the other side likewise it is certain that there was a monastery of men there: for in the year 1033 by the emperor Conrad, at the urging of Bishop Meinwerk, there is granted to Wino, abbot of Helmwardehusen, the right of market and toll. The charter exists in the Annals of Paderborn, written by Nicolaus Schaten Vol. I, p. 492.. Since therefore it is established that both St. Bernward and St. Meinwerk, contemporaries, consecrated monasteries at Helmwardeshusen, it must be said that there was a double monastery there. Nor does it help to say that the biographer of St. Meinwerk is two centuries later; for the dedication which he narrates is clothed with so many circumstances that it excludes all danger of error.

[99] and of Ringestein, whose abbess was the Saint's sister, Besides his maternal aunt St. Bernward had also a sister a nun, Judith by name, who was abbess of the monastery at Ringelstein, and whom the holy prelate certainly did not leave unendowed. It was a royal monastery, as the diploma of Conrad II of the year 1150 teaches, who however

made it episcopal, by handing it over to Bernard, bishop of Hildesheim, and his successors Harenberg, Hist. Gandersh., p. 325.. A compendious history of this nunnery was published by Joh. Georg Leuckfeld; in which we read that Bruno, from the year 1154 to 1162 Bernard's successor in the chair of Hildesheim, resolved that, the nuns being removed with an honourable pension, men of the Benedictine Order should inhabit the monastery. The cause of the change Bishop Bruno gives in a charter issued on the IX of the kalends of December 1154, which Leuckfeld has preserved for us Antiquit. Ringelheim., p. 203.. "Because," he says, "the nuns inhabiting that same (place Ringelheim) at that time, partly straying from their order, refused to be kept more strictly according to the institutes of the sacred canons and the special decree of the lord Pope Eugene III, and to be enclosed in the monastery in the cloistered manner according to the norm of their profession, our Church, by its common counsel and that of many of the Lord's faithful, removing them, yet with victuals granted to them, placed monks in the same place, over whom also it set an abbot, Rodiger by name." Thereafter abbots presided over the monastery of Ringelheim, yet with varied fortune: for after the rise of the Lutheran heresy, for a whole century non-Catholics presided with the title of abbot, as the said Leuckfeld teaches.

[100] Judith, found in the year 1498 entire in the tomb. He says Ibid., p. 198. that the names of the abbesses, besides Emmihilt and Eilika, are not known. But we have in the XI century the abbess Judith, sister of St. Bernward: whose body was found incorrupt and unharmed in the year 1497, as is plain from the following instrument Kratz, Der Dom zu Hildesh., part III, p. 114.: "Brother Nicholas, unworthy abbot at Ringelhem, wholly yours, to Father John Hauwenschildt, a religious and excellent man at St. Michael's: let this slip be presented. Jesus. With very much greeting, dearest brother John. A few days ago, being in my littleness, I was full of grief, because an inexplicable sadness and excessive anxiety of heart had seized me, and faintness of spirit had vehemently disturbed me, so that as it were unaware of myself, I knew not where to turn. And persevering rather long in this extreme desolation of mind, there was given from above a very little consolation, on which I ask, my dearest brother, that you congratulate me. For a longed-for treasure I had long desired with exceeding pious zeal in desiring, and I have not been cheated of my desire: for seeking I have sought and have found, immediately after your departure, me being in very much sadness of heart. As I walked about within our church, the doors being shut, there came to my memory the little body of the beloved sister of our holy patron Bernward: desiring to be made sure whether her holy body was in truth contained among us. On the following day in chapter I laid open in simplicity to my brethren capitularly the desire of my heart, and, prayers and Masses having been ordered, I commanded a tomb to be opened in the crypt according to the writings which I had sometimes read at St. Michael's in your old Martyrology, and likewise in an old Missal. The earth having been dug out, at the depth of about three feet our brethren found a tomb, very solemn, after the likeness of that of St. Bernward, but not hollowed out, but flat and square. The stone being then lifted, I being present, with fear and trembling we saw the former abbess, the beloved sister of our most holy patron Bernward, lying so becomingly, with her staff, shod, clothed in white, her face covered with a black summer cloth woven of silk. I confess the truth, as if she had been placed in it yesterday. Over her breast she had a singular kind of white cloth, woven with pure gold. Now I know truly and am certain that we have not only her tomb, but without doubt the holy body * of that most holy Bernward our patron. Wherefore from today and henceforth all the brethren and sons of St. Bernward will love me more ardently, for love of his sister, whose virginal body unharmed, sound, entire, unconsumed I have with me: wherefore all the people of Hildesheim will call me blessed. Given at Ringelem, in the year of Christ incarnate one thousand CCCCLXXXXVII."

* add "of the sister"

§ IX. The Saint dies a holy death; his canonization is undertaken, which Pope Celestine III accomplishes; his body is elevated; the festal rite in his honour; various translations.

St. Bernward, having received the monastic habit St. Bernward had already discharged a most laborious prelacy for twenty-five years, when he began to be tried by an infirmity of five years Ibid., p. 39.. "In the thirty-first year of his ordination," says Thangmar at number 79, "when he already foresaw that the day of his passing, which he had always desired, was at hand, he caused the chapel built between the chapel of the holy cross and his monastery to be dedicated in honour of the blessed confessor of Christ Martin by the venerable man Eggehard, bishop of Schleswig: and there, for the increase of religion, changing his former habit on that very day, he took up the yoke of the monastic profession." The chapel of St. Martin was dedicated after the dedication of the church of St. Michael, which we know was celebrated on the XXIX day of September 1022; since the biographer says this was done when the Saint foresaw that the day of his passing was at hand, it follows that the chapel of St. Martin was consecrated a short time before his death. Further, St. Bernward is reckoned to the Order of St. Benedict, because with death at hand he put on the monastic habit: whence he is to be held as a monk ad succurrendum, seeing that, as Du Cange has it at this word, the danger of death pressing, he put on the monastic garment, that he might become a sharer in the prayers of monks. It was everywhere held not to be lawful to lay aside a habit freely taken, if former health returned. The matter however was not in every way certain. For Marbod, bishop of Rennes, asked by Hildebert of Le Mans whether it was lawful for a wife, who had both consented to her husband's putting on the monastic habit and had herself vowed chastity, denies that a wife has that right: but at the end of the letter he adds Ibid., p. 39.: "And these things I have written to your blessedness, ready to pass without dispute into the opinion of those to whom the Lord shall reveal what is better." Whence the opinion was not certain to the writer.

[102] he dies piously on the XX of November, more probably in the year 1022: The day of the Saint's death is altogether certain. Thangmar says at number 80 that the Saint died on the XII of the kalends of December or the XX of November; which day the most ancient Calendars and Martyrologies of the Church of Hildesheim also indicate, as we shall show below, when we treat more explicitly of his cult. For the rest, already above at number 3 of this Commentary we have given the reason why we illustrate the Acts of St. Bernward under the XXVI day of October. But the Saint's year of death is less certain. In the contemporary Life of St. Godehard, successor of our Bernward, at the IV day of May it is read that St. Bernward died in the year of Christ MXXII, and that, a few days having intervened, St. Godehard was elected and consecrated Kratz, Der Dom zu Hildesh., part III, p. 114.: the same year is assigned also by the Annals of Quedlinburg Ibid., p. 39., of Hildesheim D'Achery, Spicil. vol. III, p. 430. and of Lambert Act. SS., vol. I of May, p. 508.. To these witnesses and very many others who could be brought forward, Mabillon opposes one argument, namely that St. Bernward died in the thirty-first year of his rule; and so, ordained in the year 993, he could not have closed his day before the year 1023 Migne, Patrol., vol. CXLI, col. 555.. In one or other contemporary testimony therefore an error in the numbers has crept in; whether those were mistaken who assigned thirty entire years to the episcopate, or those who attached the death to the year 1022. It is to be investigated therefore on which side the error stands. I for my part judge that the biographer of St. Bernward erred, or rather that his writing has been corrupted. I am drawn to this opinion by the multitude of those who say that the Saint's year of death was 1022, whereas no testimony of the ancients exists for the year 1023. (For the book of miracles to be published below, assigning the year 1023 at number 3, is a whole century more recent, seeing that it treats at number 11 of Conrad, abbot of St. Michael's, flourishing at the beginning of the XII century. Indeed in that very place, number 3, in which it says that the Saint died in the year 1023, it at the same time declares that he lay hidden under the earth for one hundred and seventy-two years: and so the book was not written before the year 1194, and the celebrated Pertz has rejected it from his edition as a more recent addition Ibid., col. 567..) And this moves me above all, that in the Annals of Lambert St. Godehard is said to have been ordained on the IV of the Nones of December or the II day of December Ibid., col. 568.. Since moreover the consecrations of bishops took place on a Sunday; the IV of the Nones of December fell on a Sunday in the year 1022, marked with the dominical letter G.

[103] his cult takes its beginning from the archbishop In the Life of St. Bernward his burial is widely described, and we therefore forbear to relate it. Immediately after the Saint's death the peoples began to frequent his tomb, to receive there benefits of healing. Yet he did not at once obtain public cult in the Church: and only in the year 1192, or one hundred and seventy years later, did Pope Celestine III decree heavenly honours to the holy prelate. But already from the year 1149 the public cult of St. Bernward had begun by episcopal authority. For the celebrated man Joh. Mich. Kratz, in a letter given to Anton Binterim of good memory, and communicated to us, says that he found in the archive of Hanover a codex of the XII century, in which at p. 131 the following decree is found: "H(enry), by the grace of God provider of the see of Mainz though unworthy, to his venerable brother B(ernhard), bishop of Hildesheim, with his most beloved sons, the clergy and people of the same Church, greeting and love. You have sent to us in the assembly at Erfurt, held with the brethren on the cause of the elect of Worms, a letter by B. the provost, beseeching for the canonization of the man of blessed recollection B(ernward), your prelate, because, as both the book written of his memory and the report of the faithful attest, the Lord adorned him with very many powers both while living in this world and after his departure from this life. We therefore, having considered your reasonable and just petition, and having shared the counsel of the venerable men who had assembled, namely the bishops of Paderborn and Halberstadt, also of very many religious abbots and of the whole Church which had been gathered, blessed the ruling Lord, who in our days, specially glorifying such a man, has deigned through his merits to gladden us. Accordingly, concurring with your will, or rather with the Lord's, as we trust, we decree with like wish, commanding that so great a pontiff, whom we know by evident signs to be glorified among the Saints in heaven with them, you solemnly honour on earth with the ecclesiastical office in all things, excepting only translation." Without year or day.

[104] in the synod of Erfurt about the year 1050, Some things occur in the cited decree which need explanation. First of all that Synod of Erfurt, or, if you like, assembly or parley, is not reviewed among the writers on Synods, even of Germany. Yet some council was celebrated at Erfurt, as Henry, archbishop of Mainz, testifies in his letter to Wibald or Wibold: "According," he says, "to the petition of your legate, the handling of certain affairs which by command of the lord Pope we treated at Erfurt, our suffragans being present,

we take care to make known to you" Martène, Ampliss. Collect., vol. II, col. 294.. And what the cause of Worms was, Trithemius sets forth in the Chronicle of Hirsau at the year 1149: "In these times," he says, "a great dissension had arisen between the clergy and citizens of Worms, to the danger of many souls. For the goods of the Church had been exposed to plunder. Therefore to settle the arduous business the assembly of Erfurt was celebrated." Moreover Burchard II, leaving the bishopric of Worms by death on the VIII of the Ides of December 1149, made the succession litigious, since indeed it was vacant for not a few months: at length Conrad I succeeded in the year 1050 Schannat., Hist. episc. Wormat., vol. I, p. 354 and following., in which I should believe that the assembly of Erfurt came together, that the cause of the elect of Worms, and so one not yet consecrated, might be ventilated. Finally in the decree brought forward it is worthy of remark that, whereas all the signs of public cult were permitted to be displayed, the one exception is the translation of the body, which was celebrated only after the canonization accomplished by Pope Celestine III. Almost the same is had in two other decrees, hitherto unpublished, taken from a codex of the archive of Hanover, formerly of the cathedral church of Hildesheim, which we display here.

[105] as various diplomas teach; The first has these things. "H(enry), by the grace of God archbishop of the see of Mainz, to his beloved sons in Christ of the Church of St. Michael at Hildesheim, to the whole college of the brethren, greeting and fatherly love. We have received a letter of our venerable brother, your prelate, earnestly entreating that by the concession of our authority it may be permitted you to honour the prelate Bernward of blessed memory, founder of your place, with public commemoration, with the office suitable to a Saint. The same also our beloved son, your reverend abbot B, coming to our presence, by the office of the living voice has asked of us with intimate devotion. We therefore, having shared the counsel of our brethren the bishops and of our Church, both for the petition of our brother B, bishop of Hildesheim, and of your venerable abbot B, and for true love, you who, adorning the monastic order, have sprinkled the universal Church, so far as your fame has been able to reach, with the good odour of your conversation and discipline, by our authority and licence grant you to cultivate with all honour and reverence the prelate of blessed memory B(ernward), whom God has glorified in heaven and made wonderful on earth, without translation." In the transcript which I use, the name of the abbot of St. Michael's is indicated by the first letter B, which between brackets can be completed Borchard. If the completion is accurate, the Catalogue of the abbots of St. Michael's in Meibom must be corrected, which has Borchard, the eighth abbot, as dead in the year 1143 Rer. Germ. Script., vol. II, p. 519.. Perhaps some error has crept in in writing the first letter. But this is divination.

[106] approved also by Octavian, the cardinal legate: Since Archbishop Henry had decreed cult to St. Bernward, translation excepted, the abbot pressed Cardinal Octavian, legate of the apostolic see, that he might be permitted to proceed to the translation. Octavian did not indeed assent to the petition, but, using moderation, he permitted an altar to be built over the bishop's burial place and consecrated. "Octavian, by the grace of God cardinal priest of the holy Roman Church and legate of the apostolic see, to his beloved brother Bernhard, bishop of Hildesheim, greeting. Our venerable brother B., abbot of the monastery of St. Michael, with the desire of pious devotion has asked of us that the most reverend body of St. Bernward the prelate, patron of his monastery, be translated and authorized, and that his memory be held in the Catalogue of the Saints. Concerning which we have not been able at present to give him a full reply. In the meantime, however, according to his petition, to the honour of God and of the blessed Confessor of Christ, we grant that an altar be built over the burial place of the same bishop and consecrated." Octavian, created Cardinal deacon of St. Nicholas in Carcere, only in the year 1150 became priest of the title of St. Cecilia. Hence it follows that this decree, in which he is called a priest, was not issued before this year Ciaccon., Vitæ Rom. Pontt. et Cardd., vol. I, col. 996., and that Octavian already judged it unlawful for himself to confer greater honours on anyone distinguished by sanctity. Then a few years later Pope Alexander III reserved the canonizations of Saints to the apostolic see.

[107] at length by Pope Celestine III by a bull At length what the Cardinal legate could not grant, the people of Hildesheim obtained from Pope Celestine III. Below we shall give the History of this canonization and of the translation of the body of St. Bernward, written by a contemporary. It will suffice here to report the pontifical bull itself, from which it will be plain that Pope Celestine granted to the people of Hildesheim what they strove in vain to obtain from the legate. Here is the bull Mabillon, Act. SS. Ord. S. Ben., Sæc. IV, part I, p. 251,: "Celestine, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable brother the bishop of Hildesheim and his beloved sons the clergy of the same city, also to all the faithful established throughout his diocese, greeting and apostolic blessing. Since the Maker and Creator of all things often appears wonderful and glorious in his Saints, and deigns through them to reveal his works to his faithful, we have thought it worthy and likewise honourable to the Almighty, humbly to take up and hear those things which he has willed by his grace to show forth in Bernward of celebrated memory, formerly bishop of Hildesheim, and moreover to number him in the college of the Saints. Hence it is that, having been made more certain of his merits and praiseworthy life and manifold miracles through our beloved son Cencius, cardinal priest of the title of St. Lawrence in Lucina, and our venerable brother Conrad, archbishop of Mainz, and other bishops, and our beloved son Theoderic, abbot of the Church of St. Michael at Hildesheim, and honest and religious persons of that province, and knowing more fully his celebrated fame, worthy to be commended to memory, a diligent deliberation of our brethren having been held, we have thought that the aforesaid most reverend man should be numbered in the Catalogue of the Saints, and that his venerable body should be raised from the bosom of the earth, and placed among the Relics of the Saints; that there he may receive from the faithful of Christ with assiduous devotion the office of due veneration, and that they themselves through his intercession may obtain a happy pardon of their sins, pleasing to the Lord. And therefore we command your whole body by apostolic writings that, making public what has been so solemnly instituted by us concerning this Saint, you take care henceforth to go before the same Saint with due services, that the prayers of your vows, which you shall hold out to the Creator of all, he may deign by his mercy to hear favourably through his intercession. Given at Rome at St. Peter's on the VI of the Ides of January, in the second year of our pontificate."

[108] given on the VIII of January 1192, he is solemnly canonized: Celestine III lived in the pontificate from the XXX of March 1191 to the VIII of January 1198: and so the VI of the Ides of January of the second year coincides with the VIII of January of the common year 1192. Nevertheless the very solemnity of the canonization had preceded the cited bull by some days. For in the said History of the Canonization, at number 15, it is said that the blessed Confessor was solemnly canonized on the Saturday before the Lord's nativity. The celebration belongs therefore to the year of Christ 1191, marked by the dominical letter F, in which the Saturday before the Christmas feast fell on the XXI day of December, the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle. Both Baronius therefore and his annotator Pagi err when they place the canonization of St. Bernward under the year of Christ 1194, whom a good many more recent writers have followed. He who then ruled the Church of Hildesheim was Berno, a man, says the Chronicle of Hildesheim Leibniz, Rer. Brunsw., vol. I, p. 749., prudent and provident and endowed with literary knowledge, who afterwards, as the History of the Canonization has it at number 17, in the year 1094 accomplished the elevation of the sacred body with great celebration and before a most numerous people, flocking from every side, in the month of August. And Thideric or Theoderic, the Second of this name, ruled the monastery of St. Michael for XXIV years, which he resigned in the year of Christ 1204 Meibom., vol. III, p. 519..

[109] and in the year 1194 the sacred body is elevated: "Letters of testimony having been obtained," says the author of the History of the Canonization at number 17, "concerning these things" (namely the canonization of St. Bernward), "and his other business having been dispatched, leave and blessing having been received from the supreme Pontiff, the said abbot" (Theoderic) "hastened to return to the place of his own dwelling." Since however the disturbance of the province of Saxony had not yet been put to sleep, Bishop Berno judged that the solemnity of the translation should be suspended to the following year 1194, which was finally accomplished in that year on the XV day of August. The body of the holy prelate was enclosed in a stone sarcophagus, quite suitably carved. The sarcophagus still exists today in the crypt of the church of St. Michael. On the upper stone, whose image may be seen in the book of the celebrated Doctor Kratz, there were inscribed the words of the prophet Job, XIX, 25: "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and on the last day I shall rise from the earth and shall be clothed again with my skin and in my flesh I shall see God my Saviour, whom I myself shall see and my eyes shall behold, and not another. This my hope is laid up in my bosom." The length of the sarcophagus is 7 feet and 2 3/4 inches: the width 24 1/4 inches: the depth or height finally 12 1/2 inches. At the head of the sarcophagus on the upper margin there were engraved the words: BERNWARDUS EPS SERVVUS SERVORUM XPI BERNWARD, BISHOP, SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST. At the same head on the outside there was seen a Lamb with a cross-bearing nimbus and a triumphal cross, and at the feet a simple sign of the cross. In the crypt itself there springs up a fountain of clear water, which is commonly called the fountain of St. Bernward, the Water of St. Bernward, and is said to be salutary for the sick Kratz, Der Dom zu Hildesh. part III p. 40..

[110] and thereafter the Saint's festivity was celebrated with solemn rite, The elevation of the body of St. Bernward having been celebrated, the Church of Hildesheim began to keep his feast with solemn rite. A splendid testimony of the cult exists in a codex of the XII or XIII century, formerly of the cathedral library of Hildesheim, now of Wolfenbüttel: for in it there is read at the XX of November, fol. 118a: "On the feast of Berenward, bishop and confessor": and at fol. 174a: "The feast of the deposition of Blessed Bernward, which occurs on the morrow of Blessed Elizabeth in the month of November, shall be kept under the double Office or Order, with his special history: and the 'Laudate' psalms shall in all things be solemnly read at first Vespers; and in the suffrage of St. Elizabeth before the 'Exultet' it shall be said with the collect 'Tuorum corda'. And when the aforesaid feast of St. Bernward falls on a Sunday, the round shall be made about the episcopal court, and thereupon before the descent to the minster 'Asperges me' shall be said in the accustomed manner: and then in the procession, which shall pass through the midst of the minster, two Responsories, namely 'Justum deduxit Dominus' and 'Sint lumbi vestri' with their verses, and in the cloister the hymn 'Votis supplicibus'; and also at the station in the minster, from the aforesaid history, the Responsory 'Hierarchiæ Angelorum': and at the ascent 'Alma Redemptoris': and at Mass the 'Alleluia. Hic præsul' with the Sequence 'O beata beatorum Angelorum' shall be laudably sung. On the aforesaid feast, from two manses at Wakenstede

the highest provost of our Church shall furnish two pounds and VIII shillings of the money of Hildesheim, in the manner and mode of the great service, among the lords canons of our Church and others who have no part in the great service: to the scholars two shillings for buying simnel cakes; four shillings to the chamberlains and bell-ringers for the ringing of the greater bells: two shillings to the under-custodian for candles to be lit in the corona and in the choir: six pence to the bell-ringers for their labour: two shillings for the wine of the refectory. And because the same provost even before was accustomed to receive an annual rent from the liti who held the said manses by litonic right from the provost, from those same manses, he shall in compensation for that rent receive the rent of three gardens in the New City, redeemed for this purpose. Of which one is situated beside the allod of the provost himself; and the other two beside the allod of the late lord Gunther of Bertenflue. And also after the institution of the said feast two other manses were assigned for the furnishing of the aforesaid things; in such a way that those two manses, after the death of Rikele, widow of Henry of Osterrode, which Henry held them in fief, shall not be enfeoffed, but shall belong in perpetuity to the provost. Of which manses one is situated in the fields of Betmer, and the other in the Fields of Eynem, as also concerning the aforesaid things is more fully plain in the letters of the chapter drawn up on these matters."

[111] an endowment being instituted for this The same decree, almost word for word, if you except the preamble, was renewed in the year 1339 at the beginning of the fast. For the rest we do not have at hand the chants, Antiphons and Hymns which were sung on the feast of St. Bernward. The liti moreover were men bound to the soil, whence the litonic right, which I have nowhere found defined and of which there is treatment in both decrees, I should believe to be a complex of those laws which order the relation between the lords of the land and those bound to the soil. And it is said in the second decree that when two manses have fallen vacant through the death of the possessor without heirs, it is lawful for the provost of the cathedral church of Hildesheim to sell them to any litus of the Office of Lusbeke, in which the manses were situated, at the accustomed rent. But that in the XII century, when the first decree was passed, the condition of the liti was far harder, the author of the Life of St. Meinwerk, contemporary of St. Bernward, makes manifest at the V day of June Acta SS., vol. I of June p. 535.: "The hard justice," he says, "of the ancient servitude of the liti he relieved by a new grace of fatherly goodness; establishing that they should be assisted by the bailiffs in the necessities of food and drink, which before was not done at the time of harvest." To furnish more food and drink to workers at harvest does not seem a great correction of severity: but from that very mitigation we understand how hard still in the XI century was the condition of the liti, which however gradually grew milder. Thus in the XIV century, when the second decree was drawn up, it was already lawful for a litus to buy for himself whatever manse or litonic holding he wished at the accustomed rent.

[112] and with indults obtained from Rome: In the lapse of time the memory and cult of St. Bernward had partly grown cold among the people: and the churches in which his festivity was kept were for the most part deserted. Wherefore in the year 1763, on the XII day of February, the cathedral chapter brought into deliberation in what way the laity could concur in the solemnity of SS. Bernward and Godehard, secondary patrons (for the primary patron of the cathedral and diocese is the Blessed Virgin Mary): and it was resolved that the faculty should be obtained from the apostolic see of celebrating the feast of each Saint on a Sunday. To the pious prayers the apostolic see assented by a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, which we display here Kratz, Der Dom. zu Hildesh. part II, p, 139.: "Since the most reverend bishop of Hildesheim" (this was Frederick William of Fürstenberg, who occupied the see from the year 1763 to 1789) "has most humbly supplicated the Congregation of sacred Rites, that the rite of Greater Double, by which from time immemorial the holy bishops Godehard and Bernward, less principal patrons of the Church of Hildesheim, are venerated, should be raised to a Double of the second class with an octave, and that their feast days should be transferred, namely that of St. Godehard from the fourth day of May to the fifth Sunday after Easter, and that of St. Bernward from the twenty-sixth day of October to the third Sunday of November: the same Sacred Congregation, on the report of the Most Eminent and Most Reverend lord cardinal Alexander Albani, ponens, has benignly granted that the rite of SS. Godehard and Bernward be raised from Greater Double to Double of the second class without an octave, and that their feast days be transferred at the discretion of the Ordinary. Rome, on the XXI day of January 1766. Joseph Maria Card. Feroni, prefect, S. archbishop of Theodosia, secretary of the S. C. R." Accordingly the canons by a capitular act of the IX day of March 1767 ratified the assignment made by the bishop, namely that the feast of St. Godehard should be celebrated on the fifth Sunday after Easter, and that of St. Bernward on the third Sunday of November, and at the same time they asked that the bishop should deign on these two festivities to sing Mass with pontifical rite. And this condition of the two solemnities has remained to this day.

[113] the remains of the Saint in the years And let these things be said concerning the solemn rite accustomed to be done each year: almost all of which we have by the kindness of the celebrated men Joh. Kratz and J. Koch, president of the seminary. Immediately after the elevation of the sacred body had been accomplished, the Relics of St. Bernward began to be held in the highest honour. The body of the holy prelate, first buried in the monastery of St. Michael, remained there until the beginning of this XIX century. When the XIV century was verging to its end, Albert Gripetan, XXIV abbot of St. Michael's from the year 1396 to 1430 Meibom, Scriptt., vol. III, p. 522., ordered a sarcophagus of St. Bernward to be made by the squires of Gallen, goldsmiths, which was gilded at great expense. The remains, taken from the old monument, were laid in the new one: thereafter on the very day of the deposition, the XX of November, each year the Relics of the Saint were carried around through the city of Hildesheim by the vassals of the monastery in solemn supplication. In the year 1542 a great part of the people of Hildesheim together with the city magistrate followed the errors of Luther: whence they came to the despoiling of churches and monasteries: on the XVI day of August 1546, the bones of St. Bernward having been cast on the ground, LXXVII marks of silver and gold with which the casket was adorned were carried to the town hall, to serve for sustaining the Schmalkaldic war. The monks of St. Michael piously gathered the scattered bones by night and hid them in the inner Oratory, until, peace having been restored, Jacob Dedeken, XLII abbot, laid them in a wooden case, decorated with silver and precious stones, on the XX of November 1698 Kratz, Der Dom zu Hildesh., part II, p. 155 and part III, p. 46 and following..

[114] 1398 and 1750 were translated into new caskets; But Louis Hatteisen, third from Abbot Jacob, prelate of the same monastery, about the year 1748 began to agitate the design of a more magnificent shrine for his patron St. Bernward: which at length in the year 1750 was carried into execution by the Augsburg goldsmith William Rauner. The weight of the casket is 244 marks or 122 pounds of pure silver. In it St. Bernward is displayed lying, clothed in pontifical manner, whose mitre and the borders of his vestments are decorated with many precious stones. There stand around six silver statues, a foot and a half in height, namely of SS. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Benedict, Scholastica and Benno. In the tomb itself the following instrument was found: "To the praise and glory of Almighty God, glorious in his saints: in honour of St. Bernward, XIII bishop of Hildesheim, most munificent founder and primary protector of the monastery at St. Michael's: that the sacred Relics, hitherto kept becomingly in a wooden chest covered with silver by Abbot Jacob the XLII, may according to their dignity rest more honourably, this tomb, wholly of silver, namely of CCXLIV marks, for the sake of devotion and gratitude, at Augsburg with great zeal the most reverend, most illustrious and most ample lord D. Louis Hatteisen, most worthy XLIV abbot of this monastery, caused to be made. And the aforesaid Relics, the sarcophagus having first been solemnly blessed, in the presence of the R. Father prior and of the whole venerable convent, with great devotion, on the Tuesday of Pentecost, which was the I of June of the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty-one (1751), were replaced: and for greater certainty wrapped in white silk cloth and sealed with a double seal, namely of the most reverend lord abbot and of the convent." That shrine with other relics of saints was carried about in the procession of Corpus Christi until the year 1803, in which, the monastery of St. Michael having been suppressed, the body of St. Bernward, together with the golden cross and the candlesticks, of which we have treated above at numbers 54 and 56, was translated to the nunnery of St. Mary Magdalene, erected into a parish Ibid, p. 47 and following..

[115] but the head and arm are kept in the cathedral. When in the year 1194, as the History of the Canonization has it at number 19, the body of St. Bernward was elevated, it is said to have been carried to the principal church, and there, the solemnities of Masses having been celebrated for the presence of so great a father, thronged by an incredible crowd of both sexes, to have been brought back again to the monastery. Nevertheless a part of the body, namely the head and right arm, the canons of the cathedral church retained for themselves, as the Chronicle of the Slavs relates Leibniz, Rer. Brunsw., vol, II, p. 702.: "The praises of God having therefore been completed, the head and right arm were laid up with glory in the shrines of the same church; and the head indeed adorned with most exquisite work with precious gems and tawny gold: but the rest of the body was brought back to the church of St. Michael the Archangel." The head of St. Bernward, therefore, wrapped in red silk, in a silver bust covered with thick gold, is still preserved among the treasures of the cathedral church of Hildesheim. Once it was encircled with a golden crown; but in the XVII century a gilded mitre was placed on it: and in the year 1780 the chapter ordered the bust, dissolved by the lapse of time, to be repaired with new work Kratz, Der Dom zu Hildesh., part II, p. 154.. Each year on the feast of the holy prelate the very bishop who celebrates carries the venerable bust in procession. The right arm too, kept, as we have said, in the cathedral, has its honour. For at first it was enclosed in a wooden arm, covered with silver: but in the year 1717 Ferdinand von Lippe, canon of Hildesheim, had a new one made of gilded silver after the likeness of the former arm, in which the suffragan bishop, the Most Reverend de Weichs, laid the sacred Relics of St. Bernward Ibid., p. 157.. Finally in this XIX century no translation or visitation of the sacred body has been made. The monastery of St. Michael having been suppressed, as we have already said, the sacred furnishings together with the body of St. Bernward passed to the parish church of St. Mary Magdalene. The last abbot of St. Michael's, Wilhelm Röun, by his testament, drawn up on the XVIII day of December 1820, left to the church of St. Magdalene a capital sum of one thousand Prussian crowns, for the annual canon of which the parish priest on the Wednesdays of every week of the year must sing one Mass, and privately celebrate another

Mass: at which many citizens of Hildesheim attend to this day.

LIFE OF ST. BERNWARD, BISHOP OF HILDESHEIM,

By Thangmar, a contemporary priest, from Mabillon's Acts of the Saints of the Benedictine Order, century IV, part I, collated with the Pertz edition, volume VI of the Historical Monuments of Germany.

Bernward, confessor and bishop, at Hildesheim. (S.)

BHL Number: 1255

BY THANGMAR.

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's birth; his discipleship in the school of Hildesheim; his priesthood; his mastership with Otto III; his episcopate.

Prologue. The wise and admirable disposition of divine providence human reason is sufficient neither to behold clearly nor to admire worthily. For by the wonderful benefits of the divine clemency we are sustained in daily successes; so that it seems to be a grave fault to be silent on the praises of God, since it is most manifestly written: "It is good to hide the secret of a King, but honourable to reveal and confess the works of God." Tob. XII, 7. Persuaded therefore, or rather compelled, by these angelic oracles, I, Thangmar, a sinner and unworthy priest, also the most humble librarian and notary of our holy church, have undertaken to collect the magnificent deeds of the memorable man, namely of the lord Bernward, our bishop, not provoked by the pride of vanity, God being witness, but so that, if by God's clemency anything imitable should shine forth in them, I might proclaim to posterity the grace of the divine goodness, from whose dew it flowed, and might stir them by such an example to progress in the virtues. And because I knew it to be rash to undertake this without his knowledge, after long delaying to speak of these things openly with him, at length having found an opportunity I attempted an approach. At first, then, he opposed me with strong authority; for in all things he avoided boasting and popular favour, as a deadly poison. At length, when I more often pressed on him that it was a grave sin to conceal good works, lest others should profit by such an example, since the Lord says: "Let your light shine before men, etc.," Matth. V, 16. he yielded to my judgment, leaving to me what I should compose, because from a boy until the age of youth he lived with me, he clung to me and lived with me more familiarly, as a son to a father, nor could anything in all the pursuit of his life cheat my knowledge, without my knowing it most fully.

THE LIFE BEGINS.

[1] Bernward, a Saxon by race There was born then the boy Bernward, of excellent character, of the illustrious blood of our nation, from the daughter of Athelbero, count palatine ^b, and he is handed over to the lord Osdag ^c our bishop by his uncle, the religious deacon Folcmar, afterwards also bishop of Utrecht, and by the diligence of both he is assigned to my littleness, who as primicerius presided over the school of boys, to be imbued with letters and also instructed in morals. Having received him with all devotion, I thought the capacity of his understanding should first be tried with the lighter milk of the divine page. Soon then, as is read of holy Daniel: "I found in him ten times more in all understanding than his contemporaries." Dan. I, 20. For in a wonderful manner his tender age, irradiated by heavenly light, with subtle meditation searched the inward things of divine wisdom with constant study. Now in common study with others, now taking aside more familiarly those whom he saw more diligent in holy meditation, proposing questions, he winnowed each difficult thing to the marrow, and in the manner of a most prudent bee, sitting in a more remote place, he caught with intent hearing the several lessons which I expounded in the schools from various books: which however afterwards, sitting with the boys, by a happy theft he taught perfectly and impressed on their knowledge. Finally I embraced with grateful affection the boy's labouring at the happy theft of the lesson, and I pressed on much more vigilantly to stir up his genius to the knowledge of true wisdom.

[2] he is ordained exorcist by Osdag; None the less therefore the venerable lord Osdag, foreseeing by a certain presage of merit that something great would come of him, ordained him exorcist, admonishing me more diligently, again and again, to take care of him, whom also I sometimes took with me when I went out from the monastery ^d in the service of the lord bishop; that his genius, which in the multitude of youths I could not distinguish and discuss according to my wish, these being removed, I might by singular study winnow out more subtly and diligently, and in a wonderful manner I found him sprinkled, beyond what belonged to that age, with a varied perfumery of the virtues. For often we wore away the whole day between * riding by studying; now reading a lesson no less long than if we were engaged on it in the schools: now playing together in metre by composing poetry along the way; thence alternating the exercise to the wrestling ground of prose; sometimes we compared reasons in simple discourse, often we sweated over syllogistic cavils. He himself also frequently, though modestly, plied me with acute questions brought forth from the inmost entry of philosophy. With such facility then his longed-for genius applauded me: for almost no hour, not even of refreshment, accused him of sloth.

[3] and he is skilled in the mechanical arts. And although with a most lively fire of soul he blazed in every liberal knowledge, he nevertheless gave attention to the lighter arts, which they call mechanical. In writing he shone out especially, he also practised painting with finish. In the craft of the smith also, and in the art of setting, and in every kind of construction, he excelled wonderfully, as also afterwards appeared in many buildings which he composed with stately beauty ^e. And in domestic affairs and those pertaining to the use of the household, a most lively executor, he was as skilled as if he had been brought up in them from a boy. By the grace of a character of this kind, pleasing to God and acceptable to men, he was made worthy and familiar to the lord bishop with whom he was staying and to the whole congregation, and was held most approved in the love of his kin. For his grandfather Athelbero, count palatine, a man distinguished by the very great praise of the virtues, who carried out the exaction of the prefecture committed to him more from duty than from intention, although he abounded most happily in offspring of both sexes, adopted into the affection of a son this illustrious young man, flourishing in the first auspices of budding beauty. And since he found in him a most salutary station of salutary counsel, he joined him to himself more familiarly, so that he did not do even the least thing without his advice.

[4] He receives Orders and clings to his grandfather. Having obtained then from Willigis ^f, the venerable archbishop, the rank of subdeacon, he lived with him for some time, and when on account of the honesty of his conduct and the uprightness of his life he perceived the progress of religion in him, he ordained him deacon, and after no long space intervening he raised him to the honour of the priesthood. And returning to the aforesaid Count, namely his grandfather, he was most affectionately received by him, and being very much asked not to depart from him, he readily acquiesced. He served him with such humility and earnestness, that when the others were sometimes removed for the sake of refreshment, he himself, continuing days and nights, clung to him unwearied, most patiently supporting the weakness and manners of the sick old man full of years; he walked as a mediator between him and the household, by daily wholesome admonitions forming them to what was to be done, and frequently pressing their care with the Count with vigilant kindness. With fatherly affection also toward the sons he poured himself out wholly, and brought about great goodwill among them. And although in a familiarity of this kind envy easily creeps in, he avoided it in most cases with the greatest caution. Between the father also and the son, namely the lord bishop Folcmar, he often ran as a go-between, and brought about great goodwill of familiarity between them. To the bishop himself also he was so pleasing, that he wished to set him over the monastery of Deventer ^g as his deputy, and there arose between the bishop and the count a religious contest concerning a young man of such character, so that each intended to adopt him for himself for the grace of his conduct. But he preferred to sustain the infirmity of his feeble grandfather, rather than to seek episcopal delights. With whom until the day of his departure he laboured with faithful devotion.

[5] The education of Otto III is commended to him: He being dead, he betook himself to the palace, namely to the service of Otto the third, the Emperor ^h, who, still a boy of seven, presided over affairs with his venerable and most wise mother the lady Theophano Augusta ⁱ; by whom this venerable young man was most kindly received, and in a short time obtained a place of the highest familiarity with her; so much so that she commended the lord king to his faith, to be imbued with letters and trained in morals, with the consent of all the magnates: in which he so excelled, although he was bitten by the envy of some, that the imperial boy advanced wonderfully in learning, and yet he gave his mind holiday for attending to all things abroad in the most liberal fashion. And while others waited on the boy king with flattery, to the point of persuading him to sports and what his tender age demanded, and the empress also, fearing that her son's affection would be snatched from her, had been softened in a favour of this kind to such a degree that she herself consented with most pleasing affection to everything to which his boyish age drove him: he alone pressed on with such art as to restrain him by fear from things not to be done, and yet to bind his spirit to himself with the fullest affection. Meanwhile the lady Theophano the empress departed from affairs at Nijmegen, to the greatest grief of the whole realm, whence the lord king, deserted by both parents, gave himself wholly to be ruled in the * station of his most faithful master. By his counsel he examined whatever others persuaded by flattery: because, although he was at leisure in boyish beginnings, yet with a loftier industry he foresaw the pretences of certain people. He embraced his master therefore with singular familiarity, nor suffered him to be treated by anyone as inferior, whom he venerated as sprinkled with the universal beauty of the virtues.

[6] He succeeds Gerdag, bishop of Hildesheim. About the same time, the venerable lord Gerdag dying ^k, this religious young man Bernward is elected to the pontificate by the wishes of all: and although many noble clerics, long serving in the palatine warfare, desired the discharge, yet the consent of all concurred on this young man chosen by God. By common election therefore he is ordained bishop of the holy Church of Hildesheim by Archbishop Willigis on the XVIII of the Kalends of February ^l in the nine hundred and ninety-third year of the Lord's Incarnation, in the sixth indiction. Having obtained the pontificate, then, with how great continence he drove his youthful body to the summit of the virtues cannot be told, embracing moderation above all in all things, according to that saying of the wise man: "Nothing in excess". By gravity of conduct also he wonderfully surpassed the old men themselves; so much so that by the censure of his severity he trained his subjects in most things to what was to be done. And his frugality in desiring the delights of foods scarcely anyone is sufficient to praise in him. And at the time of nightly rest, lying on his bed, he was intent on reading sometimes about cockcrow; often breaking off sleep, he gave himself stealthily to prayer, until the clerics rose for the morning hymns; the hymns completed, he many times extended the psalmody until the daylight dusk.

[7] His regular life. Then, resting a little, he refreshed his small body, until at dawn again he discharged the canonical course of the first hour, which being completed, as if placed under regular discipline, he went to Chapter with the brethren who lived with him; he ordered also the weekday and the phase of the moon, and the names of the brethren whose yearly memorial was at hand, to be recited daily. Prayer being finished, about the third hour, proceeding to the solemnities of Masses with festal celebration, with great contrition of soul he poured himself out to the Lord. Thence going forth into public, he briefly examined legal cases and the affairs of the oppressed: because he was thoroughly skilled in understanding and eloquence; and so he awaited the cleric dispenser who had charge of alms and the poor, whose multitude, namely hundreds and more, he refreshed most abundantly every day, relieving many also either with silver or with other aids, as means allowed. Thence going around the workshops, where metals for various uses were made, he weighed the works of each, until about None, all things being duly performed, with the fear and blessing of the Lord he sat down to table, thronged by a crowd of brethren and people, not

in pomp indeed, but in religious silence, all being intent with most honourable discipline on the reading, which was read at no little length during dinner. To the sick brethren and those worn out by old age he cheerfully sent a blessing ^m from his own hand, while yet depriving no needy person in the city or suburb, whom he could know of, of a goodness of this kind ^{n o}. For thus indeed, according to the Apostle, "He desired to be all things to all men, that he might gain all in Christ" I Cor. 9..

ANNOTATIONS.

* Perhaps equitandum

* perhaps tuitonem

CHAPTER II. He is a supreme artist; he cares for ecclesiastical and civil affairs; the state of the controversy about the monastery of Gandersheim is set forth.

He gives himself to various arts It is arduous and difficult to touch in words on his daily pursuit, because, God being witness, with every effort between day and night he persevered in divine things. None the less also he drove all who clung to him to business of this kind, so to speak, beyond their strength, nor was there anything of art which he did not attempt, even if he could not reach perfection. For he applied himself to the scriptorium, not only in the monastery, but in various places: whence also he procured a copious Library of both divine and philosophical codices ^a. Painting too, and the art of the smith and of setting, and whatever more elegant thing in an art of this kind could be devised, or investigated by anyone, he never suffered to be neglected: so much so that from overseas and Scottish vessels, which were brought as a singular gift to the royal majesty ^b, if he found anything rare or outstanding, he did not allow it to pass by uncultivated. For ingenious boys, and those of exceptional character, he took with him either to the courts or wherever he travelled farther, whom he drove to the practice of whatever more worthy thing occurred in that art.

[9] and to civil cares. He moreover by his own industry, with no one showing him, composed mosaic work for adorning pavements, and bricks for tiling ^c. And to touch on it briefly, he did not stay idle for a moment of time: but as a faithful steward of the Lord's household he faithfully ministered to his fellow-servants the necessary aids: and while in Christ's treasury he gathered with faithful devotion whatever suitable things he knew, yet none the less he rendered to Cæsar his own, according to the Gospel. For he obeyed the emperor Otto the third with a most affectionate spirit, according to his knowledge and power: whence he stirred up against himself the envy of many, who were indignant that he attended to the business of the state with more vigilant zeal ^d. For Saxony, laid waste in great part by the fierceness of pirates and other barbarians, lay open without intermission to the continual incursions of robbers, and he was ever pressing on to drive away this plague of the state at great peril to himself and his people: and now with others, sometimes also alone with his own men, falling upon them, he had bravely worn them down.

[10] Barbarians infesting his diocese But when irruptions of this kind could in no way be calmed, since indeed the barbarians, who held both shores of the Elbe and all the ships under their dominion, most easily poured themselves through all Saxony by naval passage, the most vigilant bishop of God, taking the care of the people committed to him, wavered in spirit how he might rescue the people of God from the savagery of the barbarians. For they were threatening the fury of their onset almost as far as Hildesheim: and were promising themselves that holy place itself for a prey. By divine instinct, therefore, almost at the extremity of his bishopric, where the rivers Aller and Oker flow together, he built a small and very strongly fortified fortress, in which, having disposed troops of soldiers, he drove back the onset of the barbarians, and freed the people of God from hostile fierceness. For by the grace of God so great a security of peace was granted through him to the faithful in those places, that afterwards they suffered no damage or peril from the barbarians ^e.

[11] he drives back by building strongholds. The barbarian tumult having been thrust out of those places by this industry of Christ's priest, they raged more sharply in the surrounding places, whence the most vigilant shepherd of the divine flock, after the type of Christ his Lord, opposed himself to the adversaries of the Church, exulting to run the way like a mighty giant, and in the country place called Vorinholt, where their safest station had been, also the free sally of brigandage, in whatever direction they aimed the snares of their fraud, he established a most strongly fortified garrison: and he made it most safe by ditches also and channels of waters flowing in through a stream, and he placed there in great abundance troops of soldiers furnished with food and arms and other necessaries. So the divine grace made a most dangerous place peaceful and tranquil for the people of God to such a degree that, all the filth of diabolical and barbarian fraud being thrust out, it made the abyss of irruption and hostile incursion a place of prayer, and consecrated to God an oratory of St. Lambert, bishop and martyr: and from that day, the highest peace being given back to the Church of Christ, the people of God, from every hostile onset, by the industry of their most lively provider, kept most quiet holiday.

[12] He suffers many things from the envious. For these and other benefits, which he exercised with most devoted zeal toward the state and the faithful people, he stirred up against himself the envy and indignation of many, and above all of Princes, whence also from the archbishop of Mainz he suffered many pitiable things by open enmities, bearing whose animosity most patiently, he most kindly administered things divine and royal. And although he spent much with most copious expenses abroad for driving back the barbarian savagery, it cannot be told how much he bestowed in the bishopric for the use of his church. For in estates he gathered so much as to procure thirty or more chief farmsteads with servants of liti and coloni, shining with most splendid buildings, while in other innumerable places he brought ten manses or eight, or less or more, as it happened, into the possession of his church. For ancient places possessed by his predecessors, which he found uncultivated, he illumined with excellent buildings: among which certain ones more elegantly

in design, intermixing white and red stone, he rendered a most beautiful work variedly in mosaic painting.

[13] He enriches and adorns his Church: What shall I say, with what zeal he ennobled our holy place or principal church? since he preferred to bestow himself and all that he could have to its use. His works testify, which to a future age speak by manifest indications of the pious wish of his spirit. For he pressed on ardently to adorn the church with wonderful zeal: whence with exquisite and luminous painting he adorned both the walls and the ceilings, so that you would suppose it a new one from the old. He made also for the solemn procession on the chief feasts Gospels most brilliant with gold and gems: censers also of magnificent price and weight: chalices none the less, many, and one of onyx, and another of crystal he provided with wonderful industry. Moreover also he cast for the use of the ministry a golden one, worth twenty pounds of public weight, of the purest gold. A corona too, radiant with silver and gold, of wonderful size, he hung in the front of the church, and very many other things, which we have thought should be passed over, lest we induce weariness by length. Having undertaken with the greatest earnestness to entrench our holy place also with a circuit of walls, towers being disposed around, he began the work with such prudence, that in beauty and at the same time in fortification, as is plain today, you would find nothing like it in all Saxony.

[14] he builds the chapel of the Holy Cross; A very splendid chapel also he built outside, namely in honour of the wonderful cross, of which also a certain part, given by the lord Otto the third, August emperor, he laid up there enclosed in most brilliant gems and gold; where also the divine goodness showed very many indications of its goodness, by the manifest miracles of signs through the power of the holy cross. Among which it is a pleasure to insert that single one, by which the Lord deigned to console the devotion of our prelate. For the venerable bishop Bernward prepared a case most sumptuous with gold and gems, in which to enclose the life-giving wood, and when from three particles of the holy wood he was trying to cut out a fourth, if it could be done, that he might lay up a portion in each of the several apses, and the slenderness or smallness would not for any cause admit of a cutting: as the most devout servant of God wavered in spirit; behold suddenly between the hands of the prelate himself the fourth part of the most sacred wood, brought to him, as is believed, by angelic ministry, appeared. Soon therefore the bishop of Christ joyfully arranged the holy wood through the four apses. O how many, drinking from it, often quenched the burning of a most vehement fever by the power of the holy cross!

[15] and through the Holy Cross he provides for the safety of his people. Many times the faithful, purifying themselves and theirs with this life-giving wood, calmed a pestilence arisen from unevenness of the air. Excessive drought also, this singular wood being brought forth in public, we have driven back, commanding rains; and by the power of the most holy triumph many daily remedies are wrought, while each sorrowing person, prostrate there, receives ready consolations. That very chapel of the Holy Cross, finished with varied beauty, he dedicated on the fourth of the Ides of September, in the nine hundred and ninety-sixth year of the Lord's Incarnation, in the ninth indiction, in the thirteenth year of the reign of the most glorious emperor Otto the third, in the first of his empire, and in the fourth of his own ordination: and a place formerly bristling with brambles and thorns he made for the neighbouring inhabitants, glory to you, O Christ, from your gifts, an eternal consolation of baptism, burial and anointing.

[16] Concerning the Gandersheim dispute For such and other acts of pious devotion, then, in which he laboured for the advantage of the church with every effort of mind and body, the bishop of happy memory was most acceptable both to God, presiding inwardly in the heart, and to the church, approving the effect of the work outwardly: and therefore it followed that the blessed man, to whom, as is read of holy Job, no one was thought at that time to be like on earth, should through the troubles of temptation be shown wonderful to all, as in the proclamation of the other virtues, so also of humility and patience. In the eighth year of his ordination, then, he is attacked with grievous annoyances of persecution over the territory of Gandersheim by Archbishop Willigis, plainly against the ecclesiastical sanctions; but by them he is in no way moved from the tenacious observance of his accustomed humility and patience. Yet the things which the archbishop attempted, not so much in the execution of just reason as in the presumption of free power, the man of sagacious mind opposed with the constancy of authority, not with the audacity of rashness: and according to that saying of Paul, "as long as I am the Apostle of the Gentiles, I will honour my ministry", so long as he presided over the Church of Christ in the place of a shepherd, he took care with the highest solicitude that the rights of his bishopric should be preserved in the state of their proper honour, which also, God assenting, though with labour, he obtained. But lest a like controversy concerning that church of Gandersheim should be able to spring up, I have thought it convenient to insert here the whole order of the dispute between the archbishop of Mainz and the venerable man the lord Bernward. And I think it necessary to trace these things back a little further, which however ought by no means to be burdensome to the reader, because for posterity perhaps it will be of profit in many things.

[17] the state of the controversy is set forth. The territory of Gandersheim, situated in the district of Flencchi ^f, with the adjacent villages, is certain to belong to the care of the bishops of Hildesheim, from the time when bishoprics were first marked out throughout Saxony. Which from this appears clearly to all who desire to know, because from the very beginning of the new Christianity of our nation, even before the building of the aforesaid monastery, it belonged to the care of our bishopric. For in the times of the lord Altfrid ^g, who was the fourth prelate of our church, Luidolf, duke of Saxony, with his religious consort Oda ^h, kindled with great zeal in divine worship, by the counsel of the aforesaid prelate went on to Rome, and were there magnificently received by the lord Pope Sergius ⁱ; and when he had recognized their vow in divine things, he dismissed them from himself with a blessing, having given them relics of the holy bishops Anastasius and Innocent ^k. Coming therefore by God's grace to their native country, by the counsel of the lord Altfrid they gathered a house of virgins of God first at Brunesteshusen: and they assigned their daughter, the lady Hathumod, twelve years old ^l, to the aforesaid bishop to be introduced to the rule, in the eight hundred and fifty-second year of the Lord's Incarnation, Rabanus presiding at Mainz ^m: and all provision of the aforesaid place and congregation they committed to the lord Altfrid.

[18] The origin of the monastery of Gandersheim. Then, some years having rolled by, Charles succeeding Rabanus ⁿ, in the eight hundred and fifty-sixth year of the singular nativity of Christ, he himself chose by auspice a certain place on the river Gande, which from the river he named Gandeneshem: and there with the consent of the Duke he began the building of a monastery of greater compass; Lutbert being bishop of Mainz ^o, who came in after Charles. For the place, more suitable by the pleasantness of meadows and groves, seemed also safer, by the thickness of the forests and the marshy protection, for the dwelling of those serving God. Before the building of the church of Gandersheim was finished, then, both the duke and the lady Hathumod died, and were buried in the old church at Brunesteshusen: and Gerburg, the first, sister of the lady Hathumod, was placed in the rule, the venerable bishop Altfrid mediating, and also Lutbert, archbishop of Mainz, who succeeded Charles [p]: and not long after, two years only having passed, the venerable lord Altfrid departed. He sat with the bishops of Mainz Rabanus and Charles and for twelve years with Lutbert.

[19] The series of the bishops of Hildesheim. The church of Hildesheim too having been completed with beauty, which he himself had built from the foundations, and consecrated by God's grace, he departed full of good works: and he was succeeded by Marcward, the fifth bishop of our church [q], who, sitting only four years, put together the beams of the church. After him there came in the lord Wigbert, the sixth bishop [r]. He finished the building, and none the less consecrated the church. He began and perfected all religion and discipline with the lady Oda and Gerburg the abbess in the aforesaid place [s]; by his counsel they arranged and did all things. And the lady Gerburg presided over the congregation for twenty-two years; and she was laid in the new church beside the lady Hathumod, and her sister Christina the lord Wigbert introduced to the rule, and consecrated. The lady Oda also in the hundred and seventh year of her age, all her children having gone before, Christina alone surviving, departed; and she was laid beside her daughters. But Christina herself too, surviving her mother only six years, by a happy departure passed to the Lord. The lord Wigbert also sat with the bishops of Mainz Lutbert, Sunderald [t] and Hatto.

[20] for cc years, After him Walbert, succeeding as seventh bishop, introduced to the rule Roswitha, a venerable woman, chosen from that same congregation [v]: and he performed the consecrations also in the aforesaid church, and the veilings of the handmaids of God, and the other things pertaining to the ecclesiastical ministries. After Walbert, Sehard, a venerable man, is ordained eighth pastor of our church [w]. He without any contradiction ministered in the aforesaid place whatever pertained to the ecclesiastical ministry. Ninth after Sehard, Thiothard is set over us as prelate, Archbishop Frederick presiding at Mainz [x]. He consecrated the new church, where nuns now serve Christ, and duly attended to all episcopal matters in the aforesaid place, with no one opposing. Tenth after Thiothard the lord Otwin presided [y]. He appointed the lady Gerburg the second to the rule and consecrated her; and he faithfully provided all episcopal matters, the lord William, son of the great Otto, in nothing opposing him: likewise Hatto and Robert [z], in nothing opposing him, held him as a very great friend. Willigis also, succeeding him, in awe of the old age and gravity of conduct of so great a man, publicly cultivated him; but secretly a little more bitingly, from a certain indignation of spirit, he made war on him: yet he showed nothing harsh in the rule of the aforesaid monastery either in words or in deeds.

[21] Sophia, sister of Otto III These things then I have set forth so that all may understand with what levity and rashness that has been violated, which for almost two hundred years, strengthened by the concord of so many venerable Fathers, the prelates of both places, fixed by every canonical authority, and ratified, has endured. But the daughter of the emperor Otto the second [aa], the kindling, to speak with the peace of all, of this kind of dissension, while she disdains to receive the sacred veil from her own bishop, namely the lord Osdag, seeks Willigis; judging it unworthy to be consecrated except by a wearer of the pallium, to which he himself willingly nodded: not considering how greatly he violated the ancient statutes of the canons: nor did he seek an approach with brotherly charity, but commanded a day to his brother and fellow bishop, to meet him for the veiling of the handmaids of God on the festivity of St. Luke the evangelist. Having found therefore a suitable time, the lord Osdag more secretly asked the archbishop by what authority he was doing this: to whom he with threatening look replied rather bitingly that it belonged to his parish, and promised that on the appointed day he would veil the handmaids of God, and that he would obtain all episcopal power in that place.

[22] When then the day came, the lord Osdag resisted him with full authority, in the presence of the king, the lord Otto the third, with his mother the empress, the lady Theophano, there sitting by also the bishops Rhetar, bishop of Paderborn, Milo, bishop of Minden, Hildewald, bishop of Worms, with other princes who had come together for the solemnity of the veiling of the Virgins [bb]. When there was then a long dispute, the lord Osdag, a man of simple spirit, stirred by divine prompting, ordered the episcopal chair to be placed at the apse of the altar, defending for himself the place and rule by this protection [cc], almost all favouring him; because the animosity of the archbishop, although it was dissembled through fear of him, displeased all. Forsaken therefore by the multitude, the archbishop

favour, he who before had promised all things to his right, scarcely, the lady Theophano and the bishops prevailing, and he himself supplicating beyond what can be believed, obtained that he might perform the mysteries at the principal altar on that day; in such a way, namely, that they should perform the veiling of the lady Sophia together, but that the lord Osdag alone should attend to that of the others: and there came about a thing unwonted and not before seen by us, that two bishops sat together at the side of the altar, festally mitred in pontifical vesture.

[23] she wishes to be veiled by the archbishop. And it came to the consecration of the handmaids of God, when the bishop who before was feared to be cast down from pontifical right was suddenly by God's grace raised up. During the solemnities of Mass he first humbly asked the lord king if he consented to the veiling of his sister, then the other guardians. When they declared their consent, he first asked the lady Sophia if she professed subjection and obedience to the see of Hildesheim, to him and his successors, then the others to be veiled: who with unanimous consent professed religion and subjection, and it was publicly announced to all the clergy and people that the archbishop claimed no right for himself in that church except with the consent and permission of the bishop of Hildesheim. All things also having been duly performed, they departed in the highest peace and concord; and that unanimity stood under the lord Osdag, and Gerdag, and for some years of the lord Bernward, so much so that he consecrated some churches there with the archbishop present. He held also a great Synod, in the presence of the lord king Otto the third, the aforesaid archbishop none the less sitting by, yet decreeing nothing by his own authority, except that he gave his assent, equally with the other brethren, to blessed Bernward, who presided over the synod. There took part Islar, archbishop of Magdeburg, Ludolf, archbishop of Trier, Milo, bishop of Minden, Hildewald, bishop of Worms, Hugo, bishop of Zeitz [dd].

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Gerberga succeeded her venerable sister Hathumod at the beginning of the year 875, and died in the year 897. Her deeds are narrated by the already often commended Joh. Harenberg Hist. Gandersh., p. 578.. This memorable thing is related from Henry Bodo Leibniz., Rer. Brunsw., vol. III, p. 704.: "Gerburg herself was indeed betrothed to a certain powerful Bernhard, and as a betrothed, so far as honesty required, she was indeed clothed; but in spirit she did not cling to that betrothed. Whence renouncing marriage, she devoted herself to God. When the betrothed learned of this, coming to Gandersheim, he sought conversation with his betrothed: she refused; he acted more importunately. She at length, obeying her mother's commands, offered her face. He thus began to her: 'From report, and, as I seem to see, a report not lying, I have learned that you are striving to break our pact, and to dissolve your promise as a breaker of covenant. This I wish you to know, that when I return safe from the war, to which I am hastening by order of our senior the king, I will join you to me even unwilling and will bring your vow to ruin.' He had spoken, and with a rather light mind tossing his head and face, he swore by his sword and his fair neck that the words he had said he would bring to fact. To him Gerburg replied in a more subdued voice: 'I commit myself to the will and protection of Christ: so let it happen to me, as he himself shall decree.' He departed, entered the war: quickly he perceived that he had not spoken rightly. For he who wished to thrust a virgin down from a high purpose, thrown from his horse, there met the end of his life. And so the virgin, joined to the love of Christ, remained in his espousal, being made mother and teacher to those who had flowed to the monastery of Gandersheim."

q. Marquard, bishop from the year 874 to 880, in the IV year of his ordination, as the Chronicle of Hildesheim has it Ibid., vol. I, p. 743., was killed by the Slavs: ours report the passion of his companions at the II day of February Act. SS., vol. I of February, p. 315.

r. Wigbert held the chair of Hildesheim from the year 880 to 903. Of him the Chronicle of Hildesheim says Leibniz., Rer. Brunsw., vol. I, p. 743. that he was in his time most skilled in the art of medicine, and that he wrought with his own hand the library which is still preserved in the monastery, and provided manifold advantage for his Church.

s. Christina succeeded her sister Gerberga, who died in the year 897, as abbess, and ceased to live in the year 919: for she presided over the monastery for twenty-two years, as Thangmar himself teaches us.

t. Sonderald or Sunzo from the year 889 to 891 and Otto or Hatto I from the year 891 to 913 governed the Church of Mainz.

v. Roswitha or Roswida, who followed Christina, and held the helm of the monastery from the year 919 to 927 Migne, Patrol., vol. CXLI, col. 495., is not to be confused with her namesake, the poetess nun of Gandersheim, who flourished at the end of the X century: whose works may be seen in the Latin Patrology, of the celebrated Migne, vol. CXXXVII. And Walbert, who instituted Roswitha as abbess, was bishop from 903 to 919.

w. Sehard ruled as bishop of Hildesheim from 920 to 928.

x. Thiothard or Dithard sat at Hildesheim from the year 928 to 954 and Frederick at Mainz from the year 937 to 954 Schmid, Die Säcular. Bisth. Deutschl., vol. I, pp. 228 and 390..

y. Of the age of Otwin of Hildesheim we have spoken above, Annotation c to chapter I. Of Gerberga, who is also called Gepta, Harenberg treats Hist. Gandersh., p. 604.. Finally William was archbishop of Mainz from the year 954 to 968 Schmid, p. 390..

z. Hatto II and Robert or Rupert sat at Mainz, the former from the year 968 to 969; the latter from the year 970 to 975. Thereafter until the year 1011 Willigis, of whom there will be frequent discourse in the Life, administered the Church of Mainz. Cf. what we have already said in Annotation f to chapter I.

aa. The daughter of Otto II, Sophia, first a nun, then abbess of Gandersheim, bore lofty spirits, on account of which she wished to receive the sacred veil from a wearer of the pallium, that is, from the archbishop of Mainz. The same in the Life of St. Godehard at

the IV day of May it is read was done, the bishop consenting, though perhaps reluctantly. Here are the words Act. SS., vol. I of May, p. 509.: "Scarcely at the entreaty of the king and his mother did he (Willigis) obtain permission from the same bishop (Osdag) that there (at Gandersheim), on the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist, the archbishop might celebrate Mass and perform the veiling of the aforesaid Sophia together with him; and that concerning the other virgins to be veiled our prelate should provide by his own right." In this then lay the error of Willigis, that he claimed this veiling as a right of his see.

bb. Rethar held the see of Paderborn from 981 to 1009, Milo that of Minden from the year 969 to 996, and Hildewald or Hildebold that of Worms from the year 979 to 998 Schmid, vol. II, p. 110, vol. I, p. 434 and vol. II, p. 549..

cc. The place of dignity in churches was of old a seat placed in the middle of the apse Binterim, Denkwurd., vol. IV, part I, p. 54.. For that reason Osdag, although for the rest it was not lawful for bishops to place a seat in monasteries, ordered this to be done that he might defend his right.

dd. Islar or Gislar was archbishop of Magdeburg from the year 981 to 1004; Ludolf of Trier from 993 to 1008; Hugo II bishop of Zeitz from the year 984 to 1002 Schmid, vol. I, p. 355, vol. II, p. 512. Ibid., p. 18.. The episcopal see was moved from Zeitz to Naumburg in the year 1029 under his successor Hildeward Ibid., p. 6.. Of Hildewald we have spoken above in Annotation bb.

* Flenithi P.

* contectali P.

CHAPTER III.

In the midst of the controversy over the nunnery of Gandersheim the Saint goes to Rome; there he is present as counsellor to Otto III, and takes part in synods.

The abbey of Gandersheim gradually falls away from the rule. Yet a concord of this kind did not remain ratified: because certain things came up in the midst, which destroyed the rising charity with the darnel of falsity. For it is hateful in our time to brand anyone with the truth, as was said by a certain person: "Truth begets hatred." But for writers it is a grave fault either to say false things or to leave out true ones, whence with the peace of all let it be permitted to say what it is a crime to conceal. For that illustrious congregation of handmaids of God was established by such zeal and devotion of our lords, the fathers of the country, dukes and kings, through Altfrid and his successors, that in the beginning they flourished imitable by all, a pattern of humility and charity; that they heard, honoured and loved their bishop, set over them by God, as a messenger of God, and as a father; that they received all who came with singular kindness, as was fitting for each person. This was their usage, this their zeal, this displayed reverence for the holy place and favour with all for them: by this privilege of humility, when they were summoned to the palace for the causes of the church, coming in a habit not very bright, or abject, they were held and venerated as true handmaids of God.

[25] What the roots of the undermining of discipline were, But after luxury and superfluity had come in, insolence of manners crept in, obedience grew torpid, the reverence for bishops was repulsed: what was pleasing to each, she made lawful. There was added also to the increase of the evil the long-lasting infirmity of the lady Gerburg, most venerable mother of the same monastery, on whom the Lord conferred very many signal virtues: the departure also of religious sisters, who had been trained under the nurture of the ancient discipline. And a numerous youth of virgins had borne fruit in the recruit-school of Christ; who, reared more delicately, ignorant of the bound of the former discipline and severity, as is human, turned aside after their own desires. Sophia too, the lady Gerburg being unwilling and much resisting, betook herself to the palace by the faction of Archbishop Willigis: and staying there for a year or two, walking the path of a dissolute life, she scattered a varied rumour about herself, which the venerable Bernward, not bearing it, seeing that he had always cultivated her with the highest love and favour, having admonished her rather gently, persuaded her to return to the monastery.

[26] Bernward condemns Sophia's luxury, whence he incurs her displeasure. And when she scarcely admitted his words with her outer hearing, he, repeating the same things more often, admonished her more familiarly to go back to the monastery. But she at first avoided his approach and conversation; then she fled to the archbishop, as though to be protected by him, and exasperated his spirit with more bitter words; she annulled the pact made at her veiling with empty words, saying that she had been veiled by him, not by the bishop of Hildesheim; that she in no way belonged to the care of blessed Bernward the bishop, that the monastery of Gandersheim looked to his diocese; that she had found many who would truly testify to this. By these and such like words she gravely moved the archbishop against blessed Bernward. After this she went back to Gandersheim, scattered various things about the bishop among the sisters, and with what effort she could she was preparing to drive him from the place and alienate it from him.

[27] He comes to the monastery, is received without honour: Meanwhile the bishop, learning that such things were being plotted about him, came to Gandersheim; he took it gravely that he was being alienated, and that no honour or charity was shown to him, as to his predecessors, but that he was treated below strange bishops; whereas by his predecessors innumerable goods had been bestowed on the holy place: many tithes also from his part, both of old and in modern time, had been spent: and that for these benefits injury and insult were repaid: that the tributes which were to be paid for the tithes were diminished, and often also fraudulently denied; he urges them to immolate obedience, than which no victim is more pleasing to God, with humility on the altar of the heart; that he could patiently bear all things; yet let them dread to offend Christ in him, in whose place he acted; nor let them urge that anything is lacking to him in merits: yet let them not dare by their levity to neglect the obedience, charity and reverence shown to his predecessors by their elders. When he had spoken these things with a fatherly spirit, with their sins goading them he stirred them to greater hatred against himself, Sophia pressing on both sides, from the archbishop's party and the congregation's. And the hour was at hand, at which the lady Gerburg asked for the church which she had built to be consecrated. Whence because she herself, wearied by long-lasting infirmity, was by no means sufficient to carry out the solemnities of so great a festivity, Sophia, the lady and mother consenting, had taken up the pursuit of so great a labour; and after their manner they put aside and cast off their own bishop. The archbishop is summoned, by whose ordering all things pertaining to the dedication are arranged. They appoint the day of consecration, namely the solemnity of the Exaltation of the holy cross ^a. And a legate also is sent from the side of the lady abbess, to invite blessed Bernward to the dedication, and to announce the day. But although many objected to him that he had been anticipated by the summoning of the archbishop, yet bearing it with a mild spirit, he promised that he would come on the appointed day.

[28] The dedication of the church from the XIV of September Meanwhile, for what cause is uncertain, the archbishop changes the decision, renounces the day, and appoints the same dedication for the festivity of St. Matthew the Apostle; and to Blessed Bernward too, with the same power as once at the veiling of Sophia to the venerable lord Osdag, he sends a legation, commanding him without delay to meet him at the dedication on the aforesaid festivity. But he sends back his legate and writings to the archbishop, stating that, bound by imperial orders, he was occupied with certain serious matters; nor could he meet him at the dedication, as was ordered, on that day. Yet on the exaltation of the holy cross he came to Gandersheim to dedicate the church, as the lady abbess had arranged from the beginning: he found nothing prepared; rather some persons gathered who would resist him, and cast him out with injury, if perhaps he should seek violently to consecrate the church with his people, for they had spread this report, although, God being witness, he attempted or conceived in mind nothing of the kind. For now they had fled with their whole mind to the archbishop, and had devoted themselves and the place to his protection. For Sophia, constantly clinging to him and living with him, went about these things day and night.

[29] translated to the XXI of the same month, The lord bishop celebrated the solemnities of Masses there on that day, though with the greatest indignation of the congregation; yet he admonished them to offer their oblations, and to receive the blessing ^b. The people also, having learned of the arrival of their bishop, came together as to a solemnity, mourning and, beyond what can be believed, taking it ill that the bishop should be thrust from the place by insolence and disobedience. And consoling all those coming with polished speech, with tearful complaint he publicly recalled that he had been invited to the dedication of the church on that day, that no honour had been shown him, but rather that he had been shut out: whence he forbids to all by canonical authority the consecration of the church, which belonged to him, without his consent. At which the congregation of the sisters, indignant, was kindled with the fire of greater indignation: and when it came to the offering, they threw down the offerings with incredible fury and indignation, and heaped savage curses on the bishop.

[30] is impeded Struck by this unwonted tumult, the bishop, flooded with tears, weighing not his own injury, which he held of little account, but, after the example of the true Shepherd praying for his persecutors, deploring the ignorance or rather the malevolence of the raging women, returned to the altar, carried out the Mass in its order with great contrition of soul, then addressed the people, blessed and strengthened them; and, honourably escorted by them, he went back whence he had come. O man of worthy memory, to be celebrated by the mouth of all, to be intimately embraced by the devotion of all, incredibly humble in his own eyes, but truly sublime before God the beholder and his faithful! Who would believe that he, in so great an honour of pontifical dignity, nobility of race, multitude of ministers, preferred to be fortified against the injuries inflicted on him with the shield of patience rather than of power? But the blessed man did not care for the reproaches of human abjection, who, wholly bound over to the divine love, longed above all to please the eyes only of him whom he singularly loved. It has been a pleasure to insert these things for commending an example of great humility to the imitation of hearers; now let us return to the order.

[31] by the bishop of Schleswig Meanwhile the archbishop and Sophia diligently prepare all the apparatus necessary for the consecration of the new church, without consulting blessed Bernward the bishop: whom however she tries to join with them, but, in awe of the archbishop, she is afraid to oppose his wishes. Moreover the archbishop on the vigil of St. Matthew came to the aforesaid monastery with bishops, Rethar, bishop of Paderborn, and Bereger, bishop of Verden ^c, and Duke Bernhard also, with very many others, to consecrate the church on the following day; persons are sent also to blessed Bernward the bishop, to invite him to the solemnity of the church. On the following day, at dawn, there is present in place of our lord the venerable bishop Ekkehard ^d with the elders of our congregation, and some leading persons of our monastery. Leave to speak having been given him, he saluted the archbishop with all honour in the name of blessed Bernward the bishop, with devoted service, saying: That he, detained by imperial service, could not be present; that he wondered however vehemently that in his parish and church, always possessed by his predecessors without any contradiction, the consecration of the church should be announced without his consent, and that with brotherly charity he entreated him to desist from an invasion of this sort: nor to intrude himself, except so far as the canons grant: if he judged that by his right, by a singular privilege, anything supported him, that he would not fail, but by the common counsel of the brethren, wherever he should choose, would most fully carry out justice.

[32] in the name of Bernward But the archbishop, inflamed with sharper indignation, commands that early in the morning

of the following day, which then dawned as a Sunday, he should hasten without delay to the consecration of the aforesaid church; that if he delayed to come, he would none the less dedicate the church. Now this wrath and indignation of the archbishop against the venerable bishop was created above all by the special familiarity of the lord emperor, with which by a particular devotion of goodness he cultivated him more familiarly than the others. For with most affectionate service he bound the emperor to himself, who attended with most vigilant zeal to all things which he knew to pertain to his favour; and on this account he stirred up against himself the animosity and envy of very many, especially also of the bishop of Mainz, who was indignant that anyone besides himself had a place of familiarity with the emperor. When Sunday therefore shone forth, the aforesaid bishop Ekkehard was present, with the venerable company and senate of our brethren, sent in the place of our lord, who, objecting the canonical authority and the ancient custom of the holy Fathers, bravely resisted the undertakings of the archbishop; and so the consecration of the aforesaid monastery was intercepted.

[33] acting and forbidding. And the bishop himself, a sermon having been made to the people during the solemnities of Mass, announces his synod for two days before the feast of St. Andrew, with the approval of the ban ^e: then returning to the altar, sitting in the chair, he orders certain privileges previously unknown to be recited: in which it was contained that no one should take away anything from the right of that church, whether in tithes, or estates, or anything held by investiture: this too he strengthened by the ban, and so they departed. And the bishops who were present, complaining quite ill-pleased of the archbishop's animosity, sent word through us to their brother and fellow bishop that they could not restrain his pertinacious and rash undertaking; that this one thing was left, that he should go to the Apostolic lord and the emperor; that his cause was common to them; nor would they fail to write concerning the same matter to both, namely to the Apostolic lord and the emperor.

[34] The dispute is brought to the Pope and the emperor. The venerable Bernward therefore, bearing with anxiety beyond measure that any schism however small should spread in the church, knowing also that the poison poured in could not be checked except by an Apostolic and imperial antidote, although he was wearied by a grave distress of body, and so long a journey was in every way contrary to his feeble body, yet that he might restore peace he did not refuse to undertake it beyond his strength. For he had long been burning with a wonderful desire to see the lord emperor, whom he uniquely loved. The things necessary for so great a journey having been prepared, he took care to go through the valley of Tarentum ^f, because that way seemed more convenient, having with him the writings of all the bishops on this side of the Alps. Further, in the year of the Lord's incarnation one thousand *, on the Nones of November, going out from the monastery to the excessive sorrow of the whole congregation and people, he is escorted with great compunction; accompanied by God's grace, things turning out according to his wish, on the second of the Nones of January he entered Rome.

[35] Bernward makes for Rome. When the most humble and most pious emperor heard this, burning with a wonderful affection to see his beloved master, he nevertheless did not wish to tire him by bringing him to his presence; but hastening from the palace he met him almost two miles away at St. Peter's, and having most kindly received him, kissing him most familiarly amid embraces he led him to his lodging; and having conversed long with him, he asked him to come to the palace on the following day. He sent word of this beforehand, that he should spend something however small of his own on his ministry, but for six weeks, during which he stayed with him, he ordered all things needful to be supplied generously and sufficiently for the use of him and his. In the morning he called together the lord Apostolic to meet his dearest guest; and going forth to meet him as he came outside in the courtyard they most willingly received him; nor was he permitted to return to his lodging, but next to where the lord emperor himself dwelt, he furnished him with a most splendid dwelling ^g. By turns also, sitting now in the emperor's chamber, sometimes in the bishop's, they discussed both legal causes and the necessities of the state. For concerning the archbishop and the tumult arisen at Gandersheim, report running before the arrival of the lord bishop had divulged everything: whence he had no need to unfold each thing, but, the emperor questioning briefly and summarily, he put together a few things.

[36] The archbishop does not desist. But the archbishop had carried out in act what he had conceived in mind. For certain malignant persons drove him on, Sophia none the less had pressed on. He came therefore two days before the feast of St. Andrew to Gandersheim to the synod, as he had arranged, having with him the venerable bishop Rhetar, and many other outsiders, namely of the Thuringians and Hessians, to whom this was of no concern, some also of his own diocese, within Saxony. But at the beginning of the proceedings, the venerable prelate Ekkehard admonished the archbishop to desist from the synod, nor to presume such things in another's church; especially since the lord bishop, to whom the church belonged, was absent, and was staying with the lord Apostolic and the emperor. At this the archbishop, kindled with incredible fury, with fierce and threatening look ordered him to be silent; that nothing of such matters pertained to him, let him have his own church, let him govern that. To which Ekkehard said: "By reason of sins the bounds of my bishopric have been laid waste by barbarian fierceness, the city deserted, the church desolate ^h; I have no see, I acknowledge myself a servant of St. Mary and of Hildesheim *, and in all things, so far as I can, I shall study to benefit the holy place."

[37] The archbishop therefore, bringing forward the men whom he had brought with him, asked the bishops whether it was lawful to bind those men by his ban to oaths as to whose diocese that monastery belonged. They, although fearing the dread of him, say that it cannot lawfully be done in the absence of the bishop. Ekkehard the prelate therefore and our brethren, the people also, earnestly beg that the oaths be suspended. Moved by this unanimity of clergy and people, the archbishop threatened the aforesaid bishop to be silent, or that he must be cast out with injury. Many being indignant at this, and some whom the archbishop had brought with him, when a tumult was almost arising, Ekkehard the prelate, asked by the bishops, withdrew, and invited all the people of Gandersheim and all who belonged to the diocese of Hildesheim to his synod. At whose ban all with one accord went out and followed him, only those who were his own, whom he had brought with him, being left with the archbishop. And when they were examined by oaths concerning the diocese, some affirmed that the Ethrina, the river of Fritzlar, was the boundary of the parish of Hildesheim ⁱ; the name of the river Edern, which washes Gandersheim, creating the error; others declare that they know nothing certain, except so far as they have learned by the report of others, and no one asserted anything even worthy of memory. The archbishop however, as though all things stood fixed in truth, fortified by the ban, that no one should take away from him the monastery held by oath, and so with free error they departed. But the people obediently did whatever was ordered by the senate of Hildesheim.

ANNOTATIONS.

washing it, was the boundary between the bishopric of Hildesheim and the archbishopric of Mainz: and this being admitted, there could no longer be any controversy to which diocese the nunnery belonged. But if the Ethrina (die Eider) constituted the boundaries of the bishopric of Hildesheim Hydrograph. Lexicon Deutschlands., nothing was effected against the claimed right of the archbishop of Mainz, because, if the Ethrina separates any boundaries, it rather divided the bishoprics of Osnabrück and Münster. The boundaries therefore remained uncertain between Bernward and Willigis.

* otherwise MI

* P. adds: of the Church

CHAPTER IV.

Many assemblies of bishops are celebrated in Germany in the Gandersheim case, in which the Saint everywhere wins, but without fruit.

The archbishop's doings are disapproved at Rome. Meanwhile a legate is sent to Rome concerning these things to the lord bishop; writings too were brought to the lord Apostolic and the emperor in a very tearful style. Whence both the Apostolic lord and the emperor, and all the Romans, gravely moved, knowing that the authority of the canons and none the less the tradition of the Fathers had been violated; that the greatest contempt also had been inflicted on the Roman see, and on the Apostolic lord, and also on the emperor, by such presumption, and that by this insolence a dangerous scandal could be generated in the Church, resolved that a poison of this kind should be utterly rooted out. At the same time there remained with the emperor the unique glory of the empire, the lord Henry ^a, at that time a most powerful duke, soon indeed by God's goodness to be king, on whom the Lord bestowed the treasures of divine and human wisdom.

[39] in a synod gathered there, He always took gravely the controversy that had arisen at Gandersheim, and pressed on ardently to pacify the Church, and to restore those serving under the standards of Christ to charity and favour. By his persuasion, therefore, a synod of clergy and people was gathered of twenty bishops of Romania. Some also were present from Italy and Tuscany ^b: of ours also Siegfried of Augsburg, Henry of Würzburg, Hugo also the younger of Zeitz ^c, the lord Gerbert the apostolic ^d presiding with the emperor in palare ^e, in the church of St. Sebastian the martyr, in the presence none the less of the man of singular merit, Henry, the most peaceful duke, and of abbots, priests and deacons also standing by, and all the Roman dignity. At the opening of the proceedings, then, after the Gospels had been read and certain chapters of the Fathers, the blessing having been given, when they had sat down, silence being made, the venerable bishop Bernward, going forward a little from the place of his sitting, humbly set forth in polished speech to the lord Apostolic and the emperor, and to the lord Duke Henry, and to the whole synod the cause of his church. All being pricked at heart by his complaint, the most wise Pope asked the council whether that was to be held or called a synod which the archbishop with those whom he had brought with him had gathered in a church always possessed by the bishops of Hildesheim; above all when the bishop was absent, and had fled to the Roman see for the same causes: or by what name such a conventicle was to be called.

[40] and they are rescinded, The holy council asks to withdraw, that they may inquire of these things among themselves more secretly. To which the most pious Pope willingly assented. And the Roman bishops alone went out, and afterwards came in, and when they had sat down again, the Apostolic lord said: "What do you enact, brethren, concerning the synod?" The holy council answered: "In another's church, and one possessed by others, he had no right; nor could he canonically celebrate a synod there, or establish anything without the consent of the proper bishop, nor can it in any way be called a synod." The most wise Pope said: "By what name then can it duly be called?" The holy council answered: "A schism conciliating discords." The most wise Pope said: "Are the things done there to be cast away?" The council answered: "By canonical authority and that of the holy Fathers the things devised or established there are to be banished." To this the Apostolic lord said: "By the power of the Apostles, and the authority of the holy Fathers, we scatter and break and annul the things which, in the absence of our brother and fellow bishop Bernward, at Gandersheim in his diocese were devised by Archbishop Willigis and his accomplices, and established by oaths." And he added: "Our brother and bishop Bernward asks to have restored to him the investiture taken from him by the archbishop; what do you enact, brethren?" The holy council answered: "The investiture which the archbishop could not take away it is not necessary to give back to him. But since he presses on with asking this, if it please the lord emperor, let the investiture be restored to him and confirmed by the staff ^f of your Apostolate." The Pope answered: "Let it be done according to your pleasure." And he handed him the Apostolic staff saying: "The monastery of Gandersheim with the adjacent villages and bounds I restore to your right and confirm; and by the Apostolic authority of Saints Peter and Paul I forbid anyone, except so far as the canons permit, to oppose you."

[41] and the right of the Church of Hildesheim is confirmed. These things finished, the lord Apostolic asked the council what was to be done. It was answered: "If it suits the princes of both, by writings to the archbishop *, that a man of the highest gravity has attempted so bold an undertaking contrary to the canons and rules of the Fathers; and at the same time that in future he should desist from such controversy, nor intrude himself in anything, unless he canonically emancipates." It was resolved also that a synod be appointed for the bishops throughout Saxony, and none the less that a vicar be appointed on the part of the lord Apostolic, to preside over the synod. The place of holding the synod is arranged as Palati ^g; the day is announced as the eleventh of the Kalends of July, and Frederick, Cardinal Priest of the holy Roman church, afterwards archbishop of Ravenna, a Saxon by race ^h, a young man in age, but older in uprightness of conduct, is chosen and sent as vicar of the lord Apostolic. He was mitred with Apostolic vesture and insignia no less than if he himself were going forth.

[42] Otto besieges the city of Tibur, For in those days the lord emperor encircled the city of Tibur with a close siege ⁱ. And machines and very many instruments having been prepared for the assault, ditches also of wonderful size, to lead the water away from its channel, when they were bringing great force on the citizens, and could not compel them to surrender, the emperor is invited. Without delay he is present with the Apostolic lord and the venerable bishop Bernward. And when, as happens in such things, some urged increasing the siege; others said that they had advanced little by long and great labour, that it seemed good, provided it were done with honour, that the siege be raised, the emperor, leading blessed Bernward the bishop apart, consulted what he should do; that he took it very ill to desist from his undertakings with injury. To him he said: "I do not suffer you, my soul, whom I hold dearer than life, to be moved over these things. But now command the city to be encircled with a closer siege, for, although I desire return to my native country, I will not turn aside from your Majesty before I see, by God's goodness, the city and people subjected to your right." At this the emperor, glad, thanks his beloved master, fortifies the place with a closer siege, instructs the soldiers for the assault, forbids to all by imperial authority leave to enter or go out.

[43] and he makes peace with it: Some days having passed, the lord Bernward and the Apostolic lord go to the aforesaid city. The citizens, glad, receive with honour the servants of God as they come, and admit them into the city; nor do these desist until, helped by God's grace, they subject all, pacified, to the emperor's dominion. For on the following day, with a noble triumph following, the bishops go to the emperor: for all the chief citizens of the aforesaid city are present naked, covered only with breeches, holding out to the palace swords in the right hand, and rods in the left: that they are subjected by imperial right, that they bargain for nothing, not even for life itself: those whom he judges worthy let him strike with the sword, or for mercy have them tried with rods at the stake; if it suits his wishes that the walls of the city be levelled with the ground, that they are ready to carry out everything with a willing spirit, and will not gainsay the orders of his Majesty while they live. The emperor magnificently extols with thanks the mediators of peace, the Pope and the venerable bishop Bernward, and at their nod grants pardon to the guilty; and, counsel having been held, they deliberate in common that the city should not be destroyed. The townsmen are presented with the emperor's favour, and admonished to behave peacefully, and not to fall away from the emperor.

[44] The Romans rebel against the emperor. The Romans finally, taking it ill that the people of Tibur were at peace with the emperor, fortify the gates of their city also with bars, block the ways, the faculty of freely entering or going out of Rome is denied; the trade of selling or buying is forbidden; some also of the king's friends are unjustly slain. And the men of the palace, instructed by blessed Bernward the bishop with salutary admonitions, purified none the less by confession, fortified also with the sacred viaticum during the solemnities of Mass, try to go out against them, and to attack the enemy. Bishop Bernward took up the Lord's lance ^k: and signing himself and all with the bulwark of the life-giving cross, the blessing having been publicly given, and consoling and strengthening them with life-giving admonitions, himself as standard-bearer with the holy lance he prepared to go out in the very front of the battle line. And on the following morning the emperor with his men, after the solemnities of Mass, consoled by the venerable Bernward with heavenly sacraments and divine exhortations, draw up the contest against the enemy, the prelate himself with the holy lance terribly flashing, and with the earnestness of his heart suppliantly entreating peace from the author of peace. Whence it came about that, entreated by the prayers of his devoted soldier, the presence of Christ the peaceful king was soon at hand, of whom at the rising of his nativity the joys of peace were first announced, and afterwards the lovers of that same peace, by the Gospel truth, are reckoned with the appellation of sons of God.

[45] Otto's speech to the Romans. By his goodness therefore, the rebellion of the whole discord being put to sleep, the enemy ask for peace, throw down their arms; they promise that they will come to the palace on the morrow. In the morning, by God's clemency, they are present; they ask for peace, renew their oaths, promise that they will keep faith with the emperor perpetually. Meanwhile the most pious emperor, ascending a certain tower, addressed them, saying: "Hear the words of your father and attend, and store them diligently in mind. Are you my Romans? for your sake indeed I left my country and kindred, for love of you; my Saxons, and all the Germans, my own blood, I cast away; I led you into the remote parts of your empire, where your fathers, when they pressed the world under their dominion, never set foot; namely that I might spread your name and glory to the ends of the earth. You I adopted as sons, you I preferred to all. On your account, while I set you before all, I stirred up against me the envy of all; and now for all these things you have cast off your father, have slain my intimates by a cruel death, have shut me out, although you yet cannot shut me out: because those whom I embrace with a father's spirit I never suffer to be exiles from my affection. I know indeed, and with a nod of the eyes I point out the leaders of the sedition; nor do they fear, while they are publicly noted by the eyes of all, none the less to stain also my most faithful ones, in whose innocence I triumph, by mixture with the wicked; and that they cannot be distinguished I think like a monster." By this speech of the emperor, pricked even to tears, they promise satisfaction; they seize two, Benilo and a certain other, whom, cruelly beaten, dragged naked by the feet down the steps, they throw half-alive in the aforesaid tower before the emperor. This sedition having been calmed, the venerable father Bernward went to St. Paul's for the sake of prayer; and the sarcophagus of St. Timothy having been opened, of whom it is read in the life of St. Silvester, the keeper whom the emperor himself had placed there standing by, he took away from the entire body an arm of the holy Martyr ^l. His priest also carried away with him no small part of the same relics.

[46] Bernward, enriched with relics, goes out from Rome The Pope and the emperor therefore going out on Sunday Exsurge ^m, with the immense tears of the citizens, pitch camp not far from the city. Blessed Bernward too the bishop, long before

they left the city, having received leave to return to his native country, having sent all his people ahead, in simple dress only, accompanied the emperor for two stages, and on the fifth day of the same week was dismissed by him. It cannot be told with how great sorrow, with how many tears shed by both, so that they feared to go out in public. The most gentle emperor commends to his faithful master, to be weighed in the secret closet of the mind with a wise balance, what he had hesitated to communicate by pen or by envoy. Relics none the less, namely the entire body of St. Exsuperantius the martyr, deacon of St. Sabinus the bishop ⁿ, he sent through him to Goslar, to be laid up there in a celebrated place by his industry.

[47] which he partly transfers to Goslar. The bishop too, with honeyed address, with magisterial guidance, as once he played with the boy, recalled each thing to be done. He urged that vices were to be fled, that the manners of all were to be weighed in the balance of equity, that he should win patience to himself as a most familiar household servant in all things, and before all things that he should not intend anything too pertinaciously. These things done, leading his like-minded master to his lodging, he rewards him with exquisite gifts; then, the Apostolic lord having been called, the blessing having been given, weeping amid kisses they dismiss their dearest master in peace by God's grace. The emperor sends also companions of the way from his own men with him, to escort him, and on their return to set forth to him his safety and the prosperity of his journey. Things turning out by God's clemency according to his wish, he came to Pavia; where the prelates and counts of all Liguria were awaiting his arrival. To whom he gave the emperor's legation, and sitting in assembly he discussed many things with them concerning the advantages of the state. For all obeyed his counsel; because they knew how greatly he was loved by the emperor.

[48] He is presented with gifts by Rudolf, king of Burgundy. For Leo, bishop of Vercelli, a man learned in letters ^o, also practised in abundance of speech, invited him to his city with the greatest honour and affection; he scarcely also obtained it: and going before, a very great company of clergy and people having been collected, all singing psalms in the praise of God, the bells also ringing, he being received with no less display than if the Pope had come, he spent everything in his service with most opulent luxury, so far as was commanded, and honoured him also with outstanding gifts: he sent also companions with him, who on the following day provided lodging with full supplies. Thence coming through various places and cities, enjoying the kindness of very many in many places, going out from the Cluses, the Alps having by God's mercy been surmounted, passing beyond Octodurum he went to Agaunum [p]; and there he is most liberally received by Rudolf, king of Burgundy [q]; who handed over to the bishop in ownership, near Pavia, three farmsteads with a written document, and strengthened it with his subscription and the impression of his ring. Thence, fortified by God's grace, turning by a prosperous journey, God helping, he entered Hildesheim with the greatest rejoicing of clergy and people, on the holy festivity of the heroic Supper [r]. The relics of the saints also which he had brought he laid up in the church with great honour; and he spent an immense sum of money on the service of the altar and on the uses of the poor. The whole summer season he pressed on with the building of the walls of the city of Hildesheim, which he had begun, sometimes also suffering from a grave distress of the stomach.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Octodurum (Martigny), formerly the see of the bishop of the Valais, afterwards moved to Sion, and Agaunum (St. Maurice) are towns situated at the foot of the Alps.

q. Rudolf III, called the Sluggard, ruled Burgundy from the year 993 to 1032.

r. The festivity of the heroic Supper is the fifth weekday of Holy Week, on the Lord's Supper: Easter occurring on the XIII day of April, as we have said above, the Lord's Supper was celebrated on the X day of April.

* supply "to be admonished"

CHAPTER V.

The Gandersheim dispute, still pending, is vainly determined, Willigis obstinately resisting.

Cardinal Frederick arrives, Meanwhile there arrived, sent by the Apostolic lord and the emperor in the place of the Pope, Frederick the cardinal priest, mitred with all the Apostolic insignia, as if the Pope were going forth, his horses spread with the Apostolic saddle with purple in the Roman manner. Writings also are sent by the Pope and the emperor to the bishops and other princes, that they should receive the Roman legate with worthy honour, and that all should obey his legation without hesitation, as if the Apostolic lord were seen present. They came together therefore at Palithi for the synod on the tenth of the kalends of July, according to the prescribed decree of the Apostolic lord. And they received the legate with varied affection. For the archbishop and those who favoured him spurned him with wonderful indignation and execration; but Bishop Bernward, and Lievezo, archbishop of Hamburg ^a, and very many others treated him reverently, and honoured him with special honour, but after it came to the council, it can scarcely be told with how great sedition and tumult it was agitated. For neither was a suitable place of sitting granted to the Apostolic lord's vicar; a horrible din was redoubled, right and law were despised, canonical discipline annulled.

[50] and he takes part in the synod. The vicar, sitting between the bishops Lievezo and Bernward, prayed that the faculty be granted him of carrying out what he bore, that he had writings and a legation of the Apostolic lord to the bishops. Silence at length being commanded, he first with sweet address admonishes the bishops concerning peace and charity and concord; then he brings forth the letter of the Pope directed specially to the archbishop, and begs that it be publicly recited in the ears of all, which, when the archbishop disdained to touch or look at it, by the judgment of the bishops was openly recited, in which that bishop is openly rebuked, and admonished concerning brotherly concord and obedience. The vicar, although he spared with great zeal to irritate the archbishop, yet with mild address admonished him by Apostolic authority to satisfy obediently, by the advice of the brethren, whatever things were objected to him. Concerning these things, though indignant, he sought counsel from the brethren and above all from Archbishop Lievezo. To this he said: That it seemed good to him, since a brother who had been injured had sought the suffrages of our lords the Apostolic and the emperor, that he should satisfy him before the vicar by the judgment of the bishops.

[51] The archbishop of Mainz goes out of the synod, then out of the city itself. The doors of the Church meanwhile are thrown open, laymen are let in: there is a din and a mighty tumult, the men of Mainz exulting, they demand arms, heap immense threats against the vicar of the Apostolic lord and blessed Bernward the bishop. But the legate and the aforesaid bishop, neither moved by the tumult nor terrified by the threats, although they had more numerous troops of soldiers, do not rattle arms, but check the sedition. And the bishops suggest that the business be deferred to the following day; they take upon their faith that the archbishop will come, and will obediently carry out justice. Meanwhile the archbishop, kindled with excessive fury, goes out, and within the circle of the brethren the vicar follows him, and by the ban of Apostolic authority invites him to the synod in the same church at dawn on the following day, and so that session was dissolved. At the morning twilight, then, secretly the archbishop, all being ignorant,

withdrew with his people. And the vicar, entering on the second session of the synod on the following day, at the beginning of the session asks for the archbishop: whom, since he was not present, he suspended from every episcopal ministry until the presence of the Pope; and to all the bishops he appointed by Apostolic authority a synod on the Lord's nativity at the presence of the Pope: to the archbishop none the less he directs writings in this manner: "Because you have withdrawn yourself from the synod, and have been disobedient to the orders of the Roman Pontiff, by the authority of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul and of their vicar Pope Silvester, know that you are suspended from every priestly office until his presence." Thus the second session was ended.

[52] Another synod is appointed; The vicar, having stayed some time with blessed Bernward, he and all his people being rewarded with special gifts, was dismissed in peace: and coming to the Apostolic lord and the emperor, he laid open the course of his legation. Gravely indignant at this, they order all the German bishops to hasten to their presence about the Lord's nativity, not only for the synod, but with all their vasaticum ^b so furnished, that they could proceed to war wherever the emperor should command. The aforesaid Frederick also not long after obtained the episcopal chair of Ravenna. Therefore blessed Bernward, hoping that by the grace of God and the clemency of both princes he would live in the highest peace, was arranging to go, on their chief festivity, to the abbey of the church of Hildewardeshusen ^c, delivered to him by the emperor and most devoutly consecrated by him with a solemn dedication and cultivated with divine service, and enriched by him with many benefices and gifts, where also his maternal aunt held the rule of mother, all the apparatus necessary for those flocking to so great a solemnity having been sent ahead.

[52] but through the men of Willigis When now all things were prepared, and he himself was about to be near, there came upon them by night the archbishop's men, Bernward is attacked. who, invading, scattered everything, and some of the bishop's household they left cruelly beaten. This injury having been inflicted, the venerable prelate was arranging to go to the monastery of Gandersheim, and to correct whatever things needed amendment, lest anything should be neglected by his fault. There opposed him an immense multitude, no less furnished with arms than if they were gathered for public war. These Sophia had enlisted, namely all whom she could call together from the vasaticum of the archbishop, or from his household, all her acquaintances and intimates, a strong band, they fill the towers and more fortified places around the church with armed soldiers; and against one man, namely their bishop, unarmed, and bearing a blessing to them, they so fortify the castle, as though they were preparing to defend themselves in barbarian array, so that truly that saying of the Apostle may be seen to have been fulfilled in him: "All who wish to live piously in Christ will suffer persecution." II Tim. III, 12

[54] A new synod is appointed at Frankfurt, The holy prelate, having heard these things, consults his people what he should do. All resolve that one must yield to the danger, and they send also persons to investigate the truth diligently; who announce that all that had been spread abroad was true, and more than this. These things having been done in this way, the bishops, seeing a controversy of this kind spreading in the Church, and over-much grieving at the injuries so unheard-of and intolerable to so great a man, seek an assembly at Frankfurt after the assumption of Blessed Mary. The archbishops also of Cologne and Trier are invited. It came to the day of the council, the archbishops presiding, Willigis of Mainz, Heribert of Cologne, Ludolf of Trier, with the other servants of God, Rhetar of Paderborn, Rotbert of Speyer ^d, Beringer of Verden, Ekkehard of Schleswig. But, because Ekkehard was being lodged at Hildesheim, his city and church having been laid waste by barbarian tumult, blessed Bernward the bishop, hindered by distress of body, sent him to the assembly in his place, adding to him the notary Thangmar, priest and dean of the monastery, to be present as a reserve, if perhaps anything adverse should arise from the archbishop's side.

[55] in which nothing is determined. At the beginning of the first session, then, the archbishop with a milder account complains to the brethren of the absence of the lord Bernward, and asserts that he would do justice to him by fraternal judgment, if he were present. On the other side it is refuted that he is absent by rashness or disobedience, but that he is hindered by a grave distress of body; that whatever the sacred assembly, illumined by divine * state, should deliberate, determine or command, he would obediently follow and keep. Thus also, a mutual blessing having been given, the session on that day was ended. On the following day the archbishop, at whose impelling is uncertain, proceeds more bitingly to the sitting. For some, and certain of the bishops, led by favour to him, urge that blessed Bernward the bishop should be publicly summoned in the synod. But Thangmar the priest admonishes the bishops to restrain the archbishop in his pertinacious animosity. Finally by God's goodness the archbishop is made milder, all however pressing that blessed Bernward should possess the investiture of the monastery of Gandersheim; the bishop in no way consented, but that neither of them should intrude himself, until at the octave of Pentecost they should come together at Fritzlar at the palace. And so the council was by God's grace dissolved.

[56] St. Bernward sends Thangmar into Italy in his place. Blessed Bernward accordingly, for a twin favour, burned to go to Italy, namely to satisfy the precept of the Apostolic lord, and to see his dearest lord the king, whom he cultivated as more precious than life. He sent, however, Thangmar the priest in his place, who also in the previous year had been the companion of his journey and pilgrimage to the emperor, and who from his earliest age or youth until grey hairs, intent on scholarly study, gave his labour to rearing boys. He, sent to the presence of the Pope and the emperor with letters and mandates, enjoying the benevolence of very many along the way by favour of his lord, found the emperor in the parts of Spoleto, by whom, for the merit of the lord bishop, he was most kindly received, and awaited the arrival of the Apostolic lord. When they came together, he delivered the legation and writings, the emperor clemently pursuing the bishop's cause with the Apostolic lord. Then he is ordered to await the synod, which was to be at the city of Todi on the Lord's nativity, being most opulently sustained with all good things on the part of both princes. At the same time, certain imperial persons prevailing, the brother of the blessed prelate Bernward, Count Tammo, pleasing to the emperor, a man certainly illustrious for uprightness in all his conduct, at the king's command occupies of Sommerschenburg * ^e the paternal, strongly fortified fort; by whose skill and industry the state was well protected in those places and villages.

[57] The Council of Todi, In the one thousand and second year of the singular nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the fifteenth Indiction, the Apostolic lord with the emperor celebrated the Lord's nativity at Todi ^f. Where on the feast of St. John the Evangelist a council was gathered of bishops throughout Romania, and of some from Tuscany and Italy. Of ours also there sat Notger of Liège, Siegfried of Augsburg, Hugo of Zeitz ^g. During the solemnities of Mass, then, about thirty fathers sitting together, there presiding also the lords and princes of the city, the Pope and the emperor. After the Gospel, some chapters from the decrees of the holy Fathers having been recited, the legate of the venerable bishop Bernward was placed by the oblationarius ^h at the presence of the synod. To whom the Apostolic lord said: "Say for what cause you have come to our presence, or what you have for the synod?" Soon the legate, prostrating his whole body to the ground, and raised by the hands of those who favoured him, rolled himself at the feet of the two princes; and rising he spoke thus: "My lord has magnificently thanked the authority of your Apostolate, and the imperial Majesty also, for all the things in which you have clemently laboured for his Church. And what your legate has achieved, or what occurred in his legation, he himself, since he is present, will better set forth. And after his departure, the bishops, grieving that the dispute and controversy should rage longer, appointed an assembly at Frankfurt: to which, when our venerable Prelate could not come, hindered by a grave infirmity of body, he sent me in his place.

[58] in which, the dispute being suspended, At length in common the reverend fathers decreed that neither the archbishop nor our senior should intrude himself concerning the monastery of Gandersheim until after the octave of Pentecost; and that then they should come together at Fritzlar for a Synod on this cause. And because here brought to the see of your Apostolate … by your writings it has many times been annulled, he seeks your judgment, that your authority may order in what court, or under what judges, he ought to end the cause. To the presence none the less of this most holy assembly, gathered here through you by the grace of the Holy Spirit, he has appointed my littleness, that the whole senate of the Apostolic Church may publicly know that he with most devoted affection obeys and consents to the lord Apostolic and the Roman see, and asks for things devised or decreed by your judgment, and will keep them perpetually so far as he can." To this the lord Apostolic magnificently praised the obedience of the blessed prelate, and his devotion and zeal. The venerable metropolitan of the church of Ravenna, Frederick, also proceeds, and put together what things met him at Palithi and in his whole legation. He sets forth the archbishop's disobedience, injury, and contempt also of the Roman see; and on the other hand the kindness and charity of blessed Bernward; and that he was held by him in special honour, and most opulently refreshed with an abundance of all good things.

[59] Frederick sets forth the fruit of his legation. At this the animosity of the archbishop was openly disapproved by all the Roman bishops, and the rashness of his presumption carped at. In common however all deliberate that the archbishop of Cologne and the other bishops, who were soon to come, should be awaited. Messengers also are sent, to order them to come on the Lord's Epiphany to the presence of both princes. But when they did not come, they are awaited for three delays ⁱ. And when it could in no way come about that they should assemble, Thangmar the priest pressed with every effort to be released. On the third of the Ides of January, then, the emperor dismissed from him the legate of his dear master, the often-mentioned priest, most generously rewarded. And to the bishop he sent special gifts; among other things an onyx vessel of great price, also various medicinal spices, and various pigments.

ANNOTATIONS.

Hugo of Zeitz we have treated above. Notger, a Swabian by race, added very much splendour and advantage to the Church of Liège: whence a poet, addressing Liège, rightly said: "You owe Notger to Christ, all else to Notger" Fisen. Flores, Eccl. Leod., p. 209.

* perhaps flatu

* P. omits Somerschenburg

* causa

* P. sunt

CHAPTER VI.

On the death of Otto III St. Henry succeeds in the kingdom, by whose efforts peace is restored between the Saint and Willigis.

The death of Otto III. And now there was at hand the miserable day, namely the death of the most gentle emperor; for he confessed to the aforesaid master, when he was asked by him, that he was slightly feverish. The disease therefore growing heavier daily, the bishops standing by, fortified by the sacrament of the Lord's body and blood, amid words of pure confession, on the tenth of the calends of February, the most gentle and most humble emperor, to the immense grief of all good men, breathed out his spirit ^a. Who is able to express with the pen, to discourse in speech of the irremediable grief of those flocking from every side to the funeral rites? The legion of the Germans therefore, all things needed for the journey having been prepared, carried the funeral, the body of their most gentle lord *, to Aachen; and it was received on the holy day of Palms ^b with the festal service of the whole realm, all the princes attending the funeral rites with singular affection, and he was buried in the middle of the choir.

[61] [Prince Bruno tries in vain to draw St. Bernward back from the friendship of Henry,] Meanwhile the wishes of the princes were drawn in different directions, many striving to usurp the summit of the realm without regard for the fear of God. Whence a certain prince, Bruno by name ^c, knowing that the venerable Bishop Bernward was most faithful to the lord Henry, the most reverend duke, fearing that he would oppose his undertakings, if he should begin anything, pressed on with all his strength to arm whomever he could for his destruction, or for the damage of the church of Hildesheim: and thence with preys and plunderings he raged everywhere against the places and men of the bishop. But he, after his manner, had nowhere fallen away from his faith, although often provoked by many injuries. And in the manner of a most wise architect the most prudent prelate began the foundations of the new reign with the beginnings of prayers. For all the companies of brethren and sisters who served the divine sceptres under his banners he admonished to keep watch, with intent supplication, intent on the necessity of affairs. He himself also, which however he concealed from all, entreated the Lord's clemency with strict abstinence. Whence there came about by the wonderful mercy of God a uniting on the chosen one, so that the wishes of the people anticipated the efforts of the leaders. For wherever public assemblies were gathered, there was the one voice of the common people, that the lord Henry ought to rule, that he, and not anyone else, ought to preside over affairs. All therefore agreeing with like wish on his election, Archbishop Willigis, and blessed Bernward, with the other princes of the realm, leading the lord Henry with the highest honour to Mainz, on the Sunday of the octave of Pentecost handed over to him the rule and royal power, with the Lord's lance ^d, and then, all things being duly performed, with the greatest rejoicing of all, solemnly anointed him by God's grace.

[62] Sophia is blessed by Willigis. And the new king celebrated the feast of St. Lawrence at Paderborn, and there the lady Cunegund received the royal crown and blessing from Archbishop Willigis ^e. And Sophia, elected for the monastery of Gandersheim, as after her manner at the sacred veil she repudiated her proper bishop; so now also disdaining to receive from her pastor and father the rule and consecration, she sought in the swelling and pride of vanity to be blessed by a wearer of the pallium, at the instance of the king and princes; and blessed Bernward, not being able to resist, assented.

[63] St. Henry visits the churches In the year of the Lord's incarnation one thousand and third the king, going around for the sake of prayer the bishoprics and abbeys, namely the holy places where servants of God or handmaids kept watch more religiously in the divine service, that he and the realm divinely bestowed on him might be protected by their prayers, greatly desired to go to Hildesheim. But, since none of the kings before him attempted to approach it out of reverence for the place, he met blessed Bernward; he consults in what way he might dare to visit the holy place ^f. Permission also having been received from him, before the holy day of Palms he went to the aforesaid church; and he was received with solemn honour. He himself also bestowed special money on the service of the altar and of the brethren, and promised to enrich and honour the place, and in great part accomplished it.

[64] and he makes an expedition into Gaul. In the third year after this, the western Gauls troubling the state, the same emperor set an expedition in motion against them ^g; the blessed bishop, according to the Lord's precept, faithfully rendering the things of God to God, those of Cæsar to Cæsar, served in his arms with an immense band of soldiers, with most vigilant service to win favour. The expedition being disbanded, what he had before resolved by vow, he made for St. Martin's, not however without royal permission, and the brotherly munificence of the bishops. He most diligently concealed from all his people the journey he had arranged, because he feared he might not be able to bear their tears. Commended however to the king, he undertook the journey accompanied by few. Staying some days at Paris at St. Denis, going around the holy places, with great contrition of soul he sacrificed himself wholly to the Lord. Thence making for Tours, he enjoyed on the way the great attentiveness of King Robert, and spending a week there also, before his pious patron, with daily abundant tears he bewailed his and his people's offences. Honoured finally by the king and bishops with most precious relics from the sacred body of Blessed Martin (for it was esteemed a very great thing, if a very little particle of the chasuble or of the other vesture of the holy Confessor could fall to anyone's lot), rewarded himself with a heavenly treasure, and departing thence with the blessing of very many other saints and of all, coming to Paris, intent for some days on his accustomed exercise of prayers, having none the less received from the aforesaid prince and the bishops the most holy pledges of the most precious martyr Denis and his companions, departing from them with blessing and favour, he went back with a happy course to his native country.

[65] St. Bernward is presented with relics of St. Martin. And although after the most difficult labour of so great a journey the wishes of all longed for a speedy return, yet the affection with which he always obeyed his lords conquered, and he went to the most kind king, staying at Aachen: by whom he is affectionately received, because he had long been eagerly desiring to see him. For at Bavenberch, a royal place, which belonged to him by hereditary right from his forebears, he desired newly to establish an episcopal see, whence he gathered a synod of all the bishops at Frankfurt, that they might approve by common judgment the writings and decrees of the Roman pontiff on this matter, at which assessment first the royal majesty, then the episcopal dignity asked with great prayers that the distinguished servant of God and prelate Bernward should take part ^h. Nor did he refuse; indeed he honoured the king with most ready obedience. Having returned to Hildesheim, he placed the sacred relics brought back to be kept with fitting veneration, exercised himself more carefully in his accustomed holiness, and guarded with excessive labour and solicitude the bounds of his bishopric anciently fixed.

[66] The burning of the church and monastery of Hildesheim: In those days there arose, our sins so requiring, a mourning miserable and perpetually to be wept by all the sons of holy mother Church: so that on the twelfth of the kalends of February the noble monastery of the holy church of Hildesheim, by the torches of diabolical fraud, and the flames of our crimes, was almost lost by fire. For on the same night at the time of first rest, all those dwelling within the city being sunk rather by the weight of sins than given to the quiet of other sleep, that great sorrow came upon us wretched ones. But by the intervention of the holy Mother of God, by the pious prayer of our saints, and by the most bitter weeping of our lord the venerable Bishop Bernward, all that vehement burning was extinguished by the pouring of divine dew, and that venerable church remained unharmed, preserved by God's grace, except that, what is perpetually to be mourned by us, with the most precious ornament of the missal an inexplicable quantity of books perished; and left us unarmed of our spiritual weapons. In that same year also, blessed Bernward, patron of the holy city of Hildesheim, on the day following the festivity of All Saints, with the most devout intention of mind, on the fourth of the Nones of November, restored for the better and blessed the high altar of the holy Mother of God, which, alas, our sins so deserving, had been shattered, as has been said, by the mighty flood of fire; and made it more acceptable to God and more praiseworthy to men by the brightness of gold and silver and gems ⁱ.

[67] Meanwhile the lady Rothegard, of worthy memory, abbess of the church of Hildewardeshusen, maternal aunt of the venerable Bishop Bernward, The death of the abbess Rothegard: chastened by a long-lasting infirmity of body, knew, by divine prompting, as is believed, that the day of her release, ever desired by her, was at hand ^k; whence on the most sacred night of the Lord's nativity she ordered herself to be carried into the church for the Mass "Dominus dixit"; and there she received the viaticum of the Lord's body and blood. Thence, all things being duly performed, carried back again to her bed, the sisters being called together, she thus began. "I announce to you, dearest ones, that I am today invited from this life to where God has ordered: but as this, I am not unaware, is to take place during the solemnities of the High Mass, lest any interruption of the divine service should happen, I ask that you be in no way disturbed on hearing of my death. For I trust that God's aid will be at hand for me all the more largely, if only no intermission of his service shall have been made on my account. The divine solemnities therefore having been completed according to custom, hasten as speedily as may be to come to fortify my departure; and take care by prayers to commend the soul more attentively to its Creator; and ever holding your end in suspicion, take pains, while it is lawful, to be found worthy of God through good works in that dreadful judgment." Having said these things, she permitted them to go away, greatly astounded and wondering alike. And that she had foreseen this by the prophetic spirit, the issue of the matter plainly showed. For, as she had foretold, during the High Mass, as the sequence was beginning, her holy soul was released from the prison-house of the flesh ^l. Whence it is manifestly given to be understood that this blessed woman had conceived something more of divine grace than other mortals, to whom it was granted not only so evidently to have been able to foreknow the release of her flesh; but also on that day happily to have escaped the misery of the present life, on which the Redeemer of the human race, going forth ineffably from the womb of the inviolate Virgin, is believed to have come to endure it for the salvation of the whole world.

[68] St. Henry reconciles Willigis with St. Bernward: In the year of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand and seven the venerable king Henry, most powerful of the whole Roman empire, celebrated the Lord's nativity at Palithi with the greatest glory. And wherever the most wise emperor turned the face of his most holy countenance, if he perhaps found any at variance, he either reconciled them at once: or if anything stood in the way so that he could not accomplish it, he never gave his mind holiday, until he restored the violated charity. Which also he then prudently undertook to do at that very festival of the singular Nativity. For the old hatred, which Archbishop Willigis, conceived for light causes against the bishop of Hildesheim, namely blessed Bernward, was irremediably nourishing in his mind with savage goads of wrath, wishing rather often to soothe it, conquered by his animosity he desisted. Nevertheless, before many bishops and other princes who had flocked to the palace, meeting the archbishop, with such authority he broke the pertinacity of his spirit by worthy invective, that he himself and the whole controversy * to his judgment or the wishes of the brethren obstaret. Then the most wise king, the rather often interrupted

dedication of the church of Gandersheim he appointed for the vigil of the Lord's Epiphany, which then fell on the first day of the week of the Lord's resurrection, and the veiling also of the handmaids of God on the very sacred day of the Epiphany ^m. The venerable Bishop Bernward therefore invited Archbishop Willigis and the other brethren to assist him at the consecration of the aforesaid church. Without delay the sacred solemnity was at hand: the mysteries of consecration are arranged according to the precept of blessed Bernward the bishop; all things are done with brotherly charity, so that the archbishop held the first place in the sprinkling, and with him blessed Bernward the bishop. But in the church he himself, whose parish it was, dispensed the mysteries of consecration to the brethren: for he obtained the first rank.

[69] and both consecrate the church of Gandersheim. All things having therefore by God's grace been completed with brotherly charity, the king with the archbishop and the others going forth to the people spoke thus. "The long-lasting controversy, which our sins have brought about, dearest ones, we have thought it fitting to lay down and end today. For I acknowledge and know that this church and the adjacent villages have always belonged to the bishops of Hildesheim, and have been possessed by them without contradiction." At these words of the emperor Archbishop Willigis, at length by God's mercy returning to himself, and publicly confessing whatever by his own guilt, or at the instigation of others, he had done against God and his holy Mother, namely by the unjust invasion of the parish of Gandersheim belonging to the title of the church of Hildesheim, renounced the right and claim of that same place, and in testimony of this renunciation handed the episcopal staff ⁿ to blessed Bernward, saying: "Dearest brother and fellow bishop, I renounce the right of this church, and this pastoral staff, which I bear in my hand, I hand over to you under the testimony of Christ and of our lord the king and of our brethren in witness, so that neither I, nor any successor of mine, may be able to have any claim or demand concerning this matter." And so the office of the Mass was solemnly performed by the archbishop, with the consent of blessed Bernward. And on the following day of the Lord's Epiphany the veiling of the virgins with solemn celebration, in the presence of the king and all the bishops, was done by Bernward, the venerable bishop; and so by the grace of God, affairs having been settled in peace and charity by the wisdom of the most gentle prince, they departed.

[70] And the archbishop, this dispute having been calmed, loved our prelate with all honour and charity, and, brotherhood having been honourably acquired in our monastery, he provided the highest love both for the place and the brethren. These things being so, the same archbishop, The death of Willigis; Bernward consecrates his successor. in the fifth year after this, full of days and good works, passed to the Lord on the seventh of the kalends of March: after whom Erkenbald is put in as his substitute in the rule of Mainz, formerly abbot of the monastery of Fulda; to whom nothing of the catholic faith was lacking: whom blessed Bernward the prelate consecrated on the kalends of April at Mainz ^o. By divine regard therefore there rose up as archbishop one who in the time of wrath was made a reconciliation. Who as long as he lived had no allurements of the former discord: moreover his consecrator, who was also near to him by kinship, he honoured as a father with due devotion, and treated with fatherly charity [p].

ANNOTATIONS.

devoutly went to, to fulfil according to the custom of the faithful the precepts of the Lord. When therefore a little below the same Adso teaches that the Saint died on the morning of the Lord's Resurrection, the obvious interpretation is that he died on the very Easter solemnity. Everyone will willingly confess that the words: on the morning of the Lord's Resurrection, have a double meaning, namely: in the morning on the Sunday of the Resurrection and in the morning on the day of the Resurrection of the Lord. But which interpretation is to be admitted must be drawn from the context. And in this place, where there is treatment of the fifth weekday at the Lord's Supper, of the Easter solemnity being at hand, the obvious sense is that the words of Adso are to be understood of the solemnity of Easter day. There is also another thing which has escaped the censor; the Dervan fragment, preserved for us by Mabillon Acta SS. Ord. S. Bened., Sæc. II, p. 842., and to be preferred to the text of Adso: and in it is clearly written that "in the morning on the Sunday of his very sacrosanct Resurrection from the dead, released from the flesh, St. Berchar happily sought the joys of the heavenly life with an exulting spirit." Let this much be said.

p. After these words Mabillon proceeds, saying: "In the fifth year then Erkenbald … died on the XV of the kalends of September." He rightly remarks that there is an error in the text, which the celebrated Pertz avoids, because his text has a different order in the narrative. This therefore we shall substitute for Mabillon's.

* Aachen

* P. submitteret

CHAPTER VII.

The building and endowment of the monastery of St. Michael; the Saint takes the monastic habit on himself; he dies.

St. Bernward the monastery Meanwhile ^a the venerable prelate Bernward, studying to enlarge the service of the divine servitude in the parish of his prelacy, for a future recompense chose Christ as his heir, and, what he held chief, offered himself with all things acquired or to be acquired to the Almighty Father in sacrifice, as he had long since resolved in the secret of his mind. A monastery therefore in the northern part of the city of Hildesheim, in a place formerly squalid, fit also for wild or brute animals, he established with all devotion and becoming apparatus, and endowing it with sufficient estates, he delegated it to the cenobites serving God gathered there. And in the year of the Incarnate Word MXV, in the XIV of the reign of Henry the most pious emperor, in the XXIII of the ordination of the lord Bernward, most venerable prelate, in the XIII indiction, on the third of the kalends of October, the crypt of the same monastery, finished by God's grace with great beauty, is dedicated by the aforesaid prelate Bernward and by the honourable bishop of Schleswig Ekkehard and the venerable pastor of the Church of Münster Theoderic ^b, in honour of the Saviour our Lord Jesus Christ and of his most blessed and most glorious Mother, the perpetual Virgin Mary, and of St. Michael the Archangel, of the whole heavenly host also, and at the same time of sixty-six Relics, laid up there with fitting veneration by the same venerable prelates.

[72] he dedicates in honour of St. Michael, Then in the fifth year Erkenbald, metropolitan of Mainz, full of days and merits, on the XV of the kalends of September left the peace of the Church of God, and breathed out his soul into the hands of the Angels. He was succeeded in the rule by Aribo, the royal chaplain ^c; through whom the arms of discord were restored to life, which under his predecessor had rested asleep, the grace of concord prevailing. This future bishop, when he was to consecrate him priest, Bernward, most worthy of God, bound and anathematized by the sword of the word of God, in the presence of the lord Henry, the most kind emperor, and of various bishops, with the peoples and clerics standing by, that after receiving the rule he should not inflict injury on the holy Church of Hildesheim over the parish called Gandersheim. Which same thing he repeated again and confirmed, when in his place the venerable Bishop Ekkehard consecrated him archbishop. But what he then deceitfully promised, his folly running riot, he afterwards broke. For at his very promotion he met the lord Bishop Bernward with a pretended peace through his legate, and through false salutary * tried a complaint over Gandersheim. To whom Blessed Bernward, taught by divine inspiration, not attending to his vain speech, unfolded again the anathema of his obligation, saying: That he had nothing in common with him, if he wished well, except those things which were God's: but that of his parish without doubt nothing had yielded to him. In this way the archbishop's machination is blocked; and on this matter he did not dare even to mutter during the life of Blessed Bernward the bishop.

[73] to which he gives In the second year, then, that is in the one thousand and twenty-second of the Lord's incarnation, in the twenty-first of the reign of the lord Henry the emperor, in the thirtieth of the ordination of blessed Bernward, in the fifth indiction, on the third of the kalends of October, the aforesaid monastery, built for the advantage of the monastic life, and finished with manifold adornment, as is plain today, was dedicated with all the devotion of ecclesiastical religion by the venerable provider of the same church, Bernward the bishop, and by the honourable Unewan, archbishop of the church of Hamburg, by Eggehard, bishop of Schleswig, and by Benno, most reverend bishop of the church of Oldenburg ^d, in honour of the Saviour our Lord Jesus Christ, and of his most holy Mother and ever Virgin Mary, and of the saving wood of the adorable and life-giving cross, and for the special patronage of St. Michael the Archangel, and of the whole host of heaven, and to the praise of the veneration of all the saints of God. And soon the dwelling of the same monastery was committed to be ruled, in the office of abbot, to Goderam, provost of the monastery of St. Pantaleon ^e.

[74] by a diploma drawn up for this At length the blessed man, after he had most opulently endowed the church of St. Michael with estates, in the presence of the legate of the Apostolic lord, namely one of the cardinals, with eleven bishops, and persons also of various professions, strengthened it by the authority of his ban. And how maturely he intended this work of pious devotion in his spirit, with what fervour he undertook it when he found the opportunity, with what vigilance and assiduity he pressed on, with what charity he provided it with a sufficiency of outward things, with what liberty he built it, with what authority he confirmed it, and how much he himself meanwhile advanced, touched by the divine scourge, we shall better bring forth in his own words. For he says in the privilege given to the same monastery: "Every creature, O man, has it not been made by its Creator for this, that according to the rite of nature it should rather serve its Creator than the creature? Of which condition the state, while the use of things be varied, yet ever bends back the soul possessed of reason to the path of its own making. But the more the divine draught has corrected anyone, the more divinely does each bind himself to God in all things. And this cannot come about except where the strong hand of God has drawn each to itself. Whence in the desire of grace the protection of the divine mercy images and conforms itself to one.

[75] "Taking counsel of the experience of which thing, there meets us straightway the divine response that, Adam having sinned, and thence bearing the long losses of exile, Abraham believed God, and that this was reputed to him for justice. And both by the prevenient divine clemency and by merits so requiring, we receive that Moses the lawgiver was the leader and teacher of the people of Israel. In an equal trial of holiness we wonder that Elias, the worker of miracles, has not known the term of human life, but was taken up in a fiery chariot, for the last judgment of the ages. It exceeds the mind, and will find no end, if our reason should wish to stretch itself further concerning these and those like them. It is sufficient indication how greatly David Strong-of-hand rose up in battles: and it is clearer than the sun, the tabernacle of God having been built, with how many rites of religions and mystic worships of libations holy Solomon drew near to God, like to the merits of whose penitence no one has ever been found ^f. To all of whom, according to the condition of their deeds, God revealed the secrets of merits, so that in time they should always be unlike all in merit and work, and moreover in eternity should be made equal to the angelic spirits.

[76] "Considering these things, I, Bernward, called bishop by God's choosing and not by merits, all his own inheritance, and turning over in long meditation by what architecture of merits, or by what price of goods, I could purchase heavenly things, being a learned court scribe, and teacher of the third emperor Otto of blessed memory, and at the same time first-scriniary ^g, touched by divine grace, shuddering at the excesses of my guilt, and longing for divine grace, I drew my mind in different directions, how I might satisfy the eternal mercy, and so obtain a remedy for my soul. But in the slenderness of my condition at that time, whatever I proposed in mind, I feared would be either scarcely to be begun or never to be finished. Yet my spirit laboured more and more with the ardour of the holy purpose, although at that time fortune forbade the beginning of anything; when behold the choice of God and the acclamation of the senates chose me to be enthroned on the seat of pontifical glory; and that the Lord's flock might not be troubled without a pastor, that the church our mother might not be as it were a widow, the spirit of peace caused all to have one heart and one soul in the election of a new pontiff. Enthroned in the church of Bennopolis ^h, what I had long conceived in mind I wished to fulfil in deed, namely to deliver the title of my name to blessed memory, to have built churches, and to have ordered in them the offices of those serving God, and to have gained all my little resources for the Lord, who should be my portion and inheritance.

[77] and he establishes monks in it. "And since the judgments of God are hidden, yet ever just, with the consent and exhortation of the faithful of Christ, I began to found a new church of God, in which to the praise and glory of the Lord's name I fulfilled the purpose of my vow, and provided for holy Christianity by bringing in brethren beloved of God. For the new work having been founded, and the qualities of the locations of the place having been marked out, lest the occasion of earthly wandering should be a delay of the work begun, glory to you, O Christ, touched by the distress of a fever, I began to be ill for five years: and since nothing comes about on earth without a cause, chastening the Lord has chastened me and has not delivered me to death, as I believe and trust in the Lord, lest the absence of my presence should become some intermission of my hope. In this place, titled to God, to the holy cross, to the perpetual Virgin Mary, and to St. Michael the Archangel, I placed persons of the monastic order, whom I gathered on this condition, that as according to the monastic norm they are strangers to the affairs of the world, so they should be free from every hindrance of secular service.

[78] "By the counsel therefore of my senior the emperor Henry, and of my master Archbishop Erkenbald, whom I in the assembly of my brethren consecrated archbishop, whatever of earthly resources, in courts, farmsteads, lands, pastures, waters, forests, meadows, churches, pledges of the saints, books, silver and gold, and whatever, that is, I possessed by hereditary right, or could acquire by secular purchase, excepting very many things which I bestowed on the altar of St. Mary in the principal church in golden crowns, chalices, candlesticks, hangings, and other ornaments of ecclesiastical order, the whole I delivered for the uses of the brethren, through the hand of my advocate, to God and his saints, for the souls of my aforesaid seniors the emperors, and for mine, and those of all my successors, and of those whose patrimonies I have acquired, so that the servants of Christ, free from all earthly service, protected under the defence and patronage of my successors the bishops, may lead quiet times in peace and mercy.

But if anyone, a successor of my order, or any secular person, should wish to break this, and presume tyrannically to usurp these things for himself, by the sword of the word of God I remove him from God and his saints, that, every malediction weighing on him, he may lack blessing, and so, cast out from earth and heaven, may have his part with Judas, and with those who by inheritance possess the sanctuary of God. Moreover let the heirs, by the licence of God and ours, study to claim back their own for their uses, when they see a strange invader raging in their patrimonies."

[79] whose habit he himself To one considering these sayings of the blessed man it will easily be plain how far he himself advanced in devotion toward God, or how great a condescension of supernal regard took him up. For he who, applying himself to the work, deserved to be refined by the heavenly scourge is proved by manifest indications to be loved by the Lord. Having therefore lived in these pursuits of pious devotion worthily to God and laudably to men in the whole time of his life, in the thirty-first year of his ordination, when he already foresaw that the day of his passing, which he had always desired, was at hand, he caused the chapel built between the chapel of the holy cross and his monastery to be dedicated in honour of the blessed confessor of Christ Martin by the venerable man Eggehard, bishop of Schleswig: and there, for the increase of religion, changing his former habit on that very day, he took up the yoke of the monastic profession. Then touched by his last infirmity, when he perceived that the hour of his departure was at hand, he ordered himself to be carried into the same chapel, asserting that it was just to meet the end of life in that place where he had happened to be distinguished by the habit of worldly renunciation. Thus therefore the blessed man, worn by a long-lasting infirmity of bodily distress, fighting the good fight, finishing the course, keeping the faith, having entered the way of all flesh, as we believe and hold for certain, mingled with divine spirits, under the leadership of Michael the archangel, was presented to blessed immortality.

[80] being infirm he receives, He, as long as he lived, sacrificed himself to the Lord a sacrifice of justice; and so, made wonderful by very many signs, he rests in heavenly peace. He died on the twelfth of the kalends of December; and he sat in the chair for thirty years ⁱ, whose departure to God has made us orphans without a father, and our mother the holy church of Hildesheim as it were a widow. For soon at the departure of so great a father the whole city, moved, groaned together, and every company of clergy as well as of people grieved. Everywhere a mournful outcry arises, inconsolable sorrow is heard of every profession; and him whom while he remained with them they always embraced with common affection, not undeservedly at his departure they follow with common lamentation. Here the crowd of the poor, there of widows and orphans, with miserable wailing proclaims that it has lost a father: here the dignity of the nobles as well as the humility of the common people deplores with concordant grief that the defender of the country, the lover of peace and the most sagacious provider of the whole state has been taken away. For in a wonderful manner this man, made all things to all, walked as a mediator between rich and poor, between the proud and the humble, with a certain authoritative modesty; and, justly provident on both sides, he appeared neither intractable to the gentle, nor contemptible to the insolent. By common complaint therefore, as has been said, he was bewailed when dead, who was honoured by the common honour of love. But lest we be irrationally saddened, in the manner of those who have no hope, if we grieve that we have lost a consoler on earth, let us rejoice to have a patron in heaven; and let us so pay to the body the offices of compassion, that we may also pay the dues of congratulation to the spirit happily reigning with God.

[81] and dying he wished to be laid up in haircloth, And he had commanded while still living that the bier, on which his body was carried out for burial, should be covered not with a pall, as is the custom in the funeral service of such a person, but with haircloth, which we have thought should be inserted here for this reason, that it may be plain to all who read how much this man, exalted by the Lord even with temporal honour, abased himself in humility, the devotion of whose living spirit provided so humble a service also for his dead flesh. The funeral rites having therefore been duly celebrated in the ecclesiastical manner, the body of the prelate beloved of God is buried in the crypt of the monastery which he himself had founded, before the altar of St. Mary, with the greatest devotion of the faithful of Christ. And the tomb he had prepared for himself with holy devotion, and had written over it such an epitaph of humility alone.

I, Bernward, was part of a man, now I am shut in this

Dread sarcophagus, vile, and behold, ash.

Alas! because I did not bear well the summit of my office,

Let there be holy peace for the soul, and do you sing Amen.

[82] under the title of the Resurrection of the flesh. What is sweeter than the gentleness of the blessed man in this matter, what more praiseworthy than his abasement? For the more cheaply he presses himself down under the bushel of humility, the more brightly he appears on the candlestick of the Church; and the more unworthy of the priestly honour he is held by his own judgment, the more worthy in all things he is approved by the testimony of a praiseworthy life. To one finally who piously considers the manner of his conversation, and his holy training from a boy, it will appear clearer than light that he was of great merit, although he esteemed himself far otherwise. For the valleys according to the Psalmist abound with corn Ps. LXIV, 14., that is, the humble in spirit overflow with the greater gifts of the divine largess. But the pious father, plainly most worthy of God and of the Church, and among the other virtues with which he was adorned a singular cultivator of humility, what of consolation, what of faith and hope he conceived for that very humility of heart, he makes manifest in the title which he inscribed in these words on the chamber of the inner sarcophagus. "I know that my Redeemer lives, and on the last day I shall rise from the earth, and shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see God my Saviour: whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. This my hope is laid up in my bosom Job. XIX, 13.". Which sayings indeed are believed to have been repeated by him with that spirit with which it is established that they were first uttered: as if he were saying more openly in other words: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith, for the rest there is laid up for me a crown of justice II Tim. IV, 8.".

ANNOTATIONS.

* salutatoria

MIRACLES OF ST. BERNWARD, BISHOP OF HILDESHEIM.

Bernward, confessor and bishop, at Hildesheim. (S.)

BHL Number: 1258

BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.

CHAPTER I.

The Saint uses the gift of prophecy; a vision of his holiness; various miracles.

He foresaw future things: The passing of the man of God, our most holy prelate Bernward, was shown by divine means to several, but in pursuing these things it is a pleasure to attend a little to the earlier things. There was sitting once the man of God Bernward, while still alive, with his guests in his hall. And a certain poor scholar before the doors, begging alms, called on the pious prelate to have pity on him. Hearing which, the prophetic man, full of the Spirit of God, ordered that the bishop of Cologne, standing outside, should at once be brought in. The servants therefore running reported that there was no one outside except that poor scholar; but St. Bernward, affirming that he was the bishop of Cologne, ordered him to be brought in in haste; and having kindly received him when brought in, he placed the poor man, resisting, at the head of the table. To whom after the meal, suffused with a blush and bashful on account of the reverence shown him by so great a prelate, the blessed man foretold that he himself would be bishop of Cologne; humbly entreating that the first Mass which he should celebrate at Cologne he would sing for poor Bernward. And he, assenting to his prayers with the highest devotion, a blessing having been asked,

and having received it, withdrew from him. Made archbishop therefore, according to the prophecy of the holy man, in the reign of the lord Henry of Bamberg, in the year of the Lord one thousand and twenty-three, on the twelfth of the kalends of December, approaching the altar to celebrate Mass, the bishop of Cologne himself, going before the singers, began a Mass for the dead, all who were present being astonished; and not unmindful of his prophet, namely blessed Bernward, when he had come to the canon, most devoutly, as he had promised, he made memory of him among the living. But during the consecration of the saving victim, the passing of the man of God was divinely revealed to him; whence soon also in the memory of the dead he made mention of his name; and all that had happened he made public to the faithful when Mass was finished. They, desiring to investigate the heavenly miracle more curiously, having sent investigators to Hildesheim, learned most certainly that at the same hour, when the archbishop immolated the host of our salvation, the most holy soul of the faithful and prudent servant of our Lord Jesus Christ entered heavenly joy ^b.

[2] Anselm the hermit sees his glory: There was none the less in remote parts, twelve miles from the city of Lund ^c, for twenty-six years, a certain recluse in a certain forest, a devout hermit, Anselm by name, who, pouring out his accustomed prayers to God, was at once in the spirit: and he saw on the very day on which the soul of the man of God sought the heavenly cloisters the heavens open with an immense light, and heard amid the sweet melody of blessed spirits this song repeated by Angels: "O happy soul of Bernward, whose merits are as yet unknown to men, but very well known to God and to us." These things he saw and heard three times in succession on the day of the deposition. While the man of God often turned over the aforesaid revelation with devotion, yet did not know where a man so blessed of that name had dwelt; behold there stood by him a venerable person of tall stature, with a comely face, sprinkled with white hairs, and clothed in pontifical coverings, saying to him: "I am Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim, whom in a threefold vision you have heard praised in the choir of Angels. I built a church at Hildesheim to the Angels, and made the Son of the Virgin the successor of my patrimony, and I renounced all the pleasures of the world, took up the angelic habit: and now I have received all things a hundredfold; and in such jubilee, as you have seen, I possess eternal life." These things having been revealed to him with certain others, he disappeared with an immense light, and the solitary, for the glory of the holy man, revealed to the faithful what he had heard and seen.

[3] His burial. The holy prelate therefore died in the year of the Lord one thousand and twenty-three ^d, as has been said, and was buried in the crypt of his church, which he had built. And he lay hidden under the earth for one hundred and seventy-two years. There is seen none the less on the right side of the tomb over the columns such an inscription.

In this pit of the tomb are shut the bones of the prelate

Bernward, a wonderful and magnificent man.

Who, the garland of his country, shining like a clear gem,

Acceptable to the people, was pleasing to the Lord.

For he was a worthy bishop of the church,

Whom may God Emmanuel love and Michael.

At length on the twice six kalends of the eleventh month

Happy he exchanges this life for the angelic.

[4] He shines by miracles after his death. A crippled girl is raised up. With how many signal miracles after this the Lord glorified his confessor it is not for our littleness to explain. But that we may not seem to have passed over all things, we set forth a few out of many. A certain girl, a native of Erpesford ^e, Hildegardt by name, came to Hildesheim with a great crowd of the sick, afflicted with various illnesses, crippled in a miserable manner, so that, her knees sticking to her breast, her right hand bent to the measure of a cubit, scarcely raised from the ground, she dragged herself by crawling. She for six months and more, creeping about the places of the saints, begging health from God, and alms from the people, admonished, as she herself related, through a dream, came creeping to the tomb of blessed Bernward; and a waxen image having been placed under that same tomb, at once before the people, a multitude of whom had by chance come together at the same time, she began to be more harshly racked by a stretching of the sinews. What more? Within two days she was raised up, and restored to health. Our city is a witness, to which, her misery betraying her, she was very well known.

[5] Healings, above all of the eyes. There was dwelling in our city a certain knight, a ministerial, whose daughter being pressed by illness, and despaired of, the anxious father, lest she should depart without the sacrament of baptism, for she was a little infant, vowed himself to the blessed man; that if by his merits the sick child should obtain space to receive the sacrament of our salvation, he himself would visit his memorial with oblations. Without delay he went according to his vow to the tomb of the blessed prelate, and returning from there he found the sick child fully recovered. Another girl from * Hannover ^f was tormented with so great a pain of the eyes, that the eyes themselves were thought to be utterly drawn out of their sockets by the force of the pain. An oblation therefore having been promised at the tomb of the holy prelate, at once, health returning, the force of the pain subsided. A certain man at Runebech ^g, troubled by a like suffering, when he already utterly despaired of the health of his eyes, having called on the aid of the holy prelate, was dissolved in sleep. And when dawn came, all pain being utterly put to flight, he rose; and on the same day with witnesses of his health he came to the tomb of the blessed man to give thanks.

[6] A smith's use of his limbs is restored; a woman is freed from a demon; A certain smith of Bokenen ^h, Bodo by name, was touched by a grave infirmity for three weeks, so that he thought that his hands and feet, already half-dead, were about to fall from their frame. A priest therefore having been called, when he was already despaired of, came; and by his counsel and that of his other kin, he vowed that if within three days he should begin to improve, he would visit the tomb of the blessed prelate to give thanks. When these things were being done, on the fourth weekday before Rogation Sunday, on the following day and night he so recovered, that on the next sixth weekday he came barefoot to Hildesheim, yet so pale in face, that the very sight of the man's countenance created faith in the miracle among those hearing. A certain woman of Goslar, Elmot by name, possessed by a demon, when she had come to the memorial of blessed Bernward, having been troubled there for some days in a horrible manner, was cured by the prayers of the holy prelate; she stayed with us afterwards seven or more days, and visited the pontifical tomb daily with devout thanksgiving. She frequently communicated there in the body and blood of the Lord ⁱ. Going thence, she returned after six weeks, and placing under the tomb a waxen image bought for two pence, she returned thanks for the perseverance of her health. All Goslar is a witness, where she is proved to have been very well known on account of the business of her trade.

[7] likewise a certain young man. A certain young man in Bohemia, on the most sacred night of the Lord's Nativity, staying up at certain games with his two brothers and others of his age, was delivered to a most dire demon to be troubled; both brothers being suffocated by a sudden death, and all the others who took part in those same ill-omened games being either withdrawn by death or delivered over to the troubling of demons. After three years, then, the unhappy suffering lasting on, the same young man, running about hither and thither unknown to his parents, at length came to Hildesheim. There, while Compline was being sung, entering the monastery of St. Michael, he was so direly troubled before the altar of the Holy Cross, that all who were present were rendered stupefied with excessive horror, and pricked with pity. He is brought therefore by the force of those impelling him, himself greatly resisting, into the crypt to the tomb of blessed Bernward. Where, after being whirled for a rather long time in fury, and babbling blasphemous words, as certain persons understanding his language, who were then by chance present, reported fearfully with astonishment, he at length fell down, and with mouth wide open, belching forth a most filthy liquid with an excessive stench, he rose unharmed. On the following day he was presented sound to the people: and thereafter for about fifteen days frequenting the tomb, and assiduously kissing the pavement round about with licking, he most devoutly gave thanks with tears to his liberator.

[8] Merchants freed from a storm. Certain merchants of Bremen, when they were sailing on the sea toward England, were overtaken by a most grievous storm, so that, the anchor rope being broken, and the whole ship shaken, the sea now threatened near destruction to all. And when the common supplication and tearful cry resounded to the patronage of the saints, suddenly someone added that a certain holy bishop, Bernward by name, shone with miracles at Hildesheim. Asking therefore his suffrage by a common vow, at once amid the middle of the whirlpools of the waves, without labour, in unwonted tranquillity they made for port; and returning in a smaller boat, they brought back their anchor which had slipped away in the sea. Thereupon having returned home they sent two of their companions with a waxen boat to the tomb of the blessed man on the third weekday after Sunday Lætare, Jerusalem ^k, for thanksgiving. The same also afterwards, freed by him from a like danger, offered in person a silver anchor.

ANNOTATIONS.

* P. adds vico

CHAPTER II.

The account of the miracles is continued.

Lost incense is recovered. The wife of a certain merchant dwelling at Hildesheim, when on the day of Parasceve she was going around the places of the saints barefoot, according to the custom accustomed by very many each year, bought a portion of incense, which she destined to carry to the tomb of blessed Bernward. On the way therefore which leads to the monastery of St. Michael she washed her feet in the muddy water which runs through the city toward the wall of the town, and thence made for the monastery. And when she had climbed to the cemetery of the same church, she perceived that the incense which she had bought had slipped away. Whence, gravely dismayed in spirit, having shaken out her garments in case it had stuck anywhere, going back seeking by the same way by which she had come as far as the water in which she had before washed her feet, she found nothing; and very sorrowful she returned to the monastery. Thence entering the crypt, she fell down before the tomb of the bishop in prayer with abundant weeping, reckoning with herself that the offering had slipped from her for this reason, that she was as it were unworthy to bring it to the memorial of the holy man. The humble and tearful prayer being finished, she rose, and found the lost incense in her left hand; which placing on the tomb, she went away with immense dread, and hid in silence what had been done, until on the fifth or sixth day it became known, betrayed by her intimates. Who afterwards, when she was asked by one of our brethren to bring forth the truth of the matter, could not narrate it without tears.

[10] A boy cured of the disease of a fistula; A certain knight, Thietmar by name, a ministerial of the king, dwelt in the village of Hoya * ^a beside the river Weser. His son, about eight years old, when for five years he was troubled by the distress of a fistula in the left jaw, and all the working of the physicians was frustrated in him, at length he vowed to carry his offering, namely a waxen head, to the tomb of the holy prelate, if within nine days health should be restored to him by the merits of the blessed man. Accordingly within three days before the time wished for the boy received the remedy; and on the third weekday within the week of Pentecost, with his father, mother and grandmother in testimony of the health received, with the promised vows, he came sound to the memorial of the blessed man.

[11] an abbot of St. Michael's of a broken shin. The abbot too of the monastery of St. Michael, Conrad by name ^b, while on a certain day he was making a journey for the advantage of the monastery, it happened by chance that, the horse on which he sat slipping, his shin was crushed, and that altogether disabled, and in torment, he was carried back in a carrying-chair. He ordered himself therefore to be carried to the tomb of the blessed bishop; where, prostrate in prayer, when he had vowed that as long as he lived he would provide a candle there by night and by day, at once he rose unharmed: and he who was carried in by the hands of others went out on his own feet. Nor does this seem one to be passed over in silence, because many devoted to God, both men and women, testified that at the time of nightly rest they had heard the chant of psalmody at the tomb of the blessed prelate, and seen lamps divinely lit, and perceived the fragrance of a wonderful odour ^c.

[12] Likewise a crippled woman, A certain woman of the province of Marahen *, of the city of Olomusz ^d, sprung from no lowly parents, had withered, disabled for seven years, the fingers of her left hand being contracted into the palm, and the arm of the same limb having grown fast and almost clinging to her breast; who had been accustomed to frequent many places of the saints for the sake of health. She came therefore, wearied by much labour of the journey, on the morning of the seventh of the kalends of June, to the tomb of blessed Bernward, where, placed there during the first Mass, the people looking on, she received her former health. Of which thing very many suitable witnesses were then present, who testified that they had known her before when disabled. Soon therefore all who were present at this miracle, and many running from the city, blessed God, who glorifies his servant with such great things, in hymns and praises.

[13] and a certain man having a withered hand. A certain man in Thuringia having a withered hand, deprived of every function of work, when he had vowed that he would go to the memorial of the blessed man with oblations, if by his merits he should obtain health, with unlooked-for speed attained what he had wished. But he, making little of so great a favour, and neglecting to fulfil his vow, was punished by the disabling of the same hand, and likewise of the arm at once. He, excessive pain compelling him, though late returning to himself, and not ignorant why he suffered this, began to go with the promised oblations to call on the aid of the holy prelate, and his journey not yet being finished, he received perfect health. When therefore he came to the place where the body of the holy prelate rested, he paid fitting thanksgiving to his healer; and he narrated to us, with many witnesses of his health, how this was done.

[14] Likewise another. Another man, Volcquard by name, very well known to all our city, troubled by a like suffering, at a certain time, when he had been brought into the church of Blessed Michael, and had asked that bodily medicines be applied to him, a certain priest admonished him that health should rather be asked of God, and persuaded him to go to the memorial of blessed Bernward in hope of health. Which being done, scarcely half an hour having passed, he came out of the crypt joyful, and evidently showed to all standing in the church that he had been healed. He, called back after seven days, and asked about the perseverance of his health, when he had professed that he had no pain, was presented to the people, a multitude of whom was present; and God was glorified by all with great praises.

[15] Various persons cured: A certain rustic dwelling at Lunigna ^e, going to Rome to St. Peter's for the sake of prayer, on that same journey began to be held by a grave infirmity. He, when he had vowed to abstain altogether from eating meat until he should come to the tomb of blessed Bernward to give thanks, if it should happen that through him he was freed from the danger of death, was at once restored to his former health. A certain little girl, Mathilda by name, born in Bavaria, but having lived among us from almost her first years at the village of Fossem ^f, supported by the alms of a certain religious man by the name of Ecbert, having a contracted hand, came to the tomb of blessed Bernward, and as soon as she touched it, she found the remedy of the wished-for health. There was also at Bremen a woman, of no unknown reputation among her people, whose face, the disease growing heavier, had so swollen as almost utterly to have taken away the distinction of nose and eyes. And when her acquaintances had implored the compassion of blessed Bernward, over her excessive affliction, vowing that she would visit his tomb, the pain at once ceased, and with unlooked-for speed her former health returned.

[16] a paralysed woman, There was at * Ritelogon ^g, which is a village two Col. 01022F miles distant from the city of Hildesheim, a certain girl, so affected for five years by various sufferings and distresses of body, that lately, contracted in the sinews and almost all her limbs, she was both useless to herself and was made burdensome to her people. She therefore on the sixth of the Nones of May, brought by a vehicle, with most difficult labour, leaning on two staffs, crept into the crypt of our basilica, and bowed herself over the tomb of the blessed man; and there from every distress by which she laboured she recovered with wonderful speed. On the following day there came together an incredible multitude of the people of our city, and no small crowd of pilgrims also and others, who had flocked from various places to the solemnity of the Holy Cross on that day; and having received testimony from the parents and citizens of the girl of what had happened, they most devoutly glorified God with public praises in his saint. And the girl on the same day returned unharmed to her home ^h.

[17] and a paralysed man and a boy crushed by a mass; A certain man of the city of Lübeck, Adelward by name, lay so dissolved for a long time by the disease of paralysis, that he could neither raise himself in bed, nor bring his own hand to his mouth. To his wife the blessed bishop Bernward appeared in a vision, and taught her that for the health of her husband she ought to vow to God a candle made according to the length and breadth of his tomb. And she, awaking from sleep, and turning over the vision, at once rose, and taking two women she prostrated herself on the ground in the vestibule of her house, and after prayer and the promised vow, she returned to her husband, and found him giving thanks to God for health already recovered. He from that hour so fully recovered, that not long after, to pay his vow, he visited with his wife the tomb of the holy man, and stood forth as a most certain reporter of the miracle wrought on him. At another time also, the son of the aforesaid father of the family, still a little infant, overwhelmed by the fall of a certain mass coming from above, and crushed, when he already seemed almost lifeless, his wailing mother fled to the patronage of St. Bernward; nor was she frustrated of her hope. For at once after her prayers and tears poured out to God, under the invocation of the holy prelate the boy, as if snatched from the very jaws of death, was restored to life.

[18] a knight cured; unfaithful, tormented again, he is healed. A certain knight, Herebord of the estate of * Hornsen ⁱ, consumed by a long-lasting infirmity, had come to extremity. And to his kin and friends, greatly grieving for the loss of their dear one, the priest of the same place suggested that they should implore the patronage of blessed Bernward for him, making a vow that if he could be restored to life and obtain health, clad in wool, and barefoot, beginning from his house, he would be bound to come to the tomb of the saint. All therefore faithfully vowing this, the sick man began to be better; and with the increases of his improvement advancing, in a short time he fully recovered. He afterwards, staying in the city of Brunswick on the occasion of another cause, took to the road from that place to pay his vow, because, using the shortcut of a shorter way, he would labour less in walking. Coming therefore to the city of Hildesheim he began to be gravely ill. But yet, desiring to fulfil what he had begun, he made for the church of St. Michael, in which the holy prelate rests; but before the forecourt of the church he collapsed as if thrust by someone. And those who accompanied him seizing him and leading him; when they came to the door of the basilica, struck by excessive horror, he collapsed in dread between their hands, and in no way could he rise, or have the strength to enter the church, until by public confession he laid open to all who were present for what guilt he was punished by this penalty. His strength therefore having been recovered, returning home, and proceeding from there, he fulfilled the order of his vow, so much the more devoted as the more instructed by the divine scourge.

[19] A dying woman; A certain matron of Bremen, placed in infirmity, saw standing by her one of reverend countenance in priestly habit, asking her whether she recognized him at whom she was looking. She, answering as she could, for scarcely in her breast alone did the vital breath pant,

said that he was altogether unknown to her. But he with most kind address indicated that he himself was Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim; and asserted that he had come for the sake of her health. He admonished her also that, her health having been recovered, she should offer at his tomb a pennyworth of wine ^k for the celebration of Masses: and having said this he disappeared. And the woman, who was thought close to death, for she had been lying prostrate on the ground, in the manner of the faithful passing from this life ^l, raising herself a little, narrated the vision to all who had come together in expectation of her departure; and from that same hour she was made well. Afterwards visiting the tomb of the Saint, she faithfully offered the prescribed oblation, and was an example to other faithful for following a devotion of this kind. For many afterwards imitating so pious a deed, the merits of blessed Bernward supporting them, were freed from various illnesses and calamities.

[20] a rustic and a knight with fever. A certain knight of the duchy of Mekelenborch, sharply seized by fever, admonished at the exhortation of some that he should make a vow to St. Bernward, patron of the people of Hildesheim, and without doubt not doubt to receive relief and health, readily acquiesced; and the vow being made, as soon as the words went from his mouth, he was healed; in evident testimony of which the same knight sent a gold florin through two priests to the tomb of the holy prelate, who faithfully testified that the aforesaid things so happened. A certain rustic also of the diocese of Hildesheim, when he had long been feverish, asked that water from the tomb of the holy prelate be brought to him, and as soon as he began to drink it, the fever departed; and after that day it did not appear, and, as he himself said, he persevered in health.

ANNOTATIONS.

* P. Hogen

* P. Marchern

* P. Liuline

* P. Tosseim

* P. Nitelogon

* P. Horhusen

HISTORY OF THE CANONIZATION AND TRANSLATION OF ST. BERNWARD, BISHOP

Bernward, confessor and bishop, at Hildesheim. (S.)

BHL Number: 1259

PREFACE.

CHAPTER I.

Cardinal Cincius takes up the cause of the Canonization of St. Bernward; with him Theoderic II, abbot of St. Michael's at Hildesheim, sets out; the various perils of the journey.

Preamble. Since to the praise and glory of the Creator and Restorer of all things, and for the advancement of our neighbours, each is commanded to offer what he can in the house of the Lord; care must be taken that no one within the holy Church of the faithful should appear empty in the sight of his God, but that each, according to the grace bestowed on him by God, should faithfully bring forth from the treasure of a good will as much as he can, and in the treasury of our Saviour should at least with the poor widow voluntarily lay up two mites. But we, small and unskilled in speech, not having what we can worthily display for the beauty of the house of God, greatly fear lest we should be numbered among the slothful and useless servants. Considering however that before the eyes of God the hand is never empty of a gift, if the coffer of the heart is filled with good will; since we cannot benefit many, wishing at least to benefit a few, for the advantage of those who are accustomed to occupy themselves with sacred readings, and whose meditation consists in the law of the Lord day and night, we propose to explain the glorious translation of the sacred body of the prelate beloved of God, Bernward, which we rejoice was celebrated in our days with the solemn devotion of the faithful, presuming indeed on him who opened the mouth of the dumb, and made the tongues of infants eloquent. But since concerning the holiness of his conversation, the magnificence of his deeds, and his praiseworthy passing, Thangmar the priest of good memory, in eloquent enough speech, has narrated most fully ^b; we, passing this over, turn our pen only to those things which either we ourselves have seen of his miracles, or have learned by the credible report of those in whom they were wrought, or which we have learned as public fame still celebrates them.

[2] An encomium of Pope Celestine III. In the year therefore from the Incarnation of the Word of God one thousand one hundred and ninety-three, Pope Celestine the Third presided over the holy Roman church, a man learned in the teachings of sacred letters, having indeed whence to bring forth things new and old, venerable in age, winning in the sweetness of his conversation, and, to say it in a few words, maturity of conduct adorned him along with mature age ^c. He, having shared the counsel of discreet men, thought fit to send the venerable man Cincius, cardinal priest, to the parts of Dacia ^d, that he might visit again, in the place of the vicar of the prince of the Apostles, a land subjected by special privilege to the prince of the Apostles, and might call back the princes of that province, divided from one another by grave discord, to a state of tranquillity and the unity of peace. Which mandate of Apostolic legation having been prudently carried out with ready spirit, God favouring. When he was on his return, he turned aside to the city of Hildesheim, which offered itself to his journey, and in the monastery of Blessed Michael he was kindly received in hospitality by the lord Theoderic, who at that time had the care of the same monastery ^e, and likewise by the brethren.

[3] Jerusalem captured by the Saracens. In those days the holy city of Jerusalem, of which it is said by the Lord through the Prophet: "From Jerusalem the city which I have chosen, help will come to you"; the city dedicated by the presence of our Redeemer and at the same time by the triumph of his sacred passion and resurrection, by an inscrutable judgment of divine permission was held captive by the violent hand of the Saracens; and subjugated in miserable servitude to a certain Saladin, prince of that nefarious people; that life-giving wood of the Holy Cross also, on which the Saviour hung, and which he consecrated by the shedding of his blood, was taken by the hands of the wicked from the sanctuary of the holy temple, and carried away into the land of foreigners ^f. The Sepulchre none the less, in which the Redeemer rested, and in which to the women the glory of an angelic vision was shown, was so alienated from the power of Christians that, the very guards who had been appointed to watch it having been shut out, no access at all to visit it lay open to any of the faithful who refused to pay tribute to Saladin. But who would suffice to enumerate one by one the misery of this calamity? that whole land, which the Lord blessed, and in which the Son of God deigned to be born, to live among men, to suffer, to die, to rise, to go to the heavens, and to send on the disciples the grace of the Paraclete, and visibly to work many miracles; the land, where the sacred proclamations of the Prophets and Apostles flourished, was labouring under slaughters, plunderings and various oppressions which were exercised by the aforesaid tyrant, the city of Tyre alone surviving, which on account of its strength and on account of the spacious breadth of the adjacent sea could not be taken by storm. Nevertheless the compassionate and merciful Lord, not holding back his mercy in his wrath, who never forgets to show mercy with his people, whom he loves, rebukes and chastens, in this severity acted piously and mercifully; clemently inviting many thousands of the faithful, innumerable companies of great princes and nobles, by occasion of the loss of that land to do penance for their offences, and many of them to conclude the present life with a praiseworthy end. In this deed indeed, after the pattern of that evangelical Samaritan, the Christian people on account of the various wounds of crimes having been left as it were half-dead in those parts of Jerusalem, the heavenly physician renewed a fitting antidote, applying the wine of severity at the same time and the oil of goodness; that he who had commanded a rod and manna to be placed in the ark of the tabernacle, whence he might strike with the rod a people marked with his character in the loss of the holy land, thence in the acknowledgment of its frailty and the knowledge of its proper Creator he might sustain it as with a staff.

[4] The wretched state of Saxony. We have believed that these things should be inserted in this little work for this reason, that it may more easily become clear by how great disturbances of evils almost the whole world was everywhere shaken at that time, when neither any region or province, nor even a city existed, which was not labouring under wars or seditions at hand, or dreading those to come. For as all the members of the body are ruled by the head alone, and the head being infirm the other members must feel the distresses of sickness: so after the city of Jerusalem, where the first-fruits of the Christian religion arose, lay subject to the tyranny of a profane prince, throughout almost all the regions in which the worship of the one God is frequented, and above all in the province of Saxony, the impiety of plunderings, burnings and other enormities was exercised ^g, so that with their head burdened with hard sufferings, the other members of holy Church not undeservedly seemed to suffer with it. Then therefore liberty was given, and wrath, loosed from the bridles of the laws, rushed on, so that if that most eloquent man should emerge from the underworld, he would more fittingly in this age than in his own days cry out: O manners, O times! By this pressure of inexplicable adversity, then, almost the whole bishopric of Hildesheim lay forsaken.

[5] The most upright life of the Roman legate: But the above-mentioned legate of the Roman see, compelled by the violence of so dire a disaster, stayed for some days in the aforesaid monastery. For certain persons, using sounder counsel, affectionately forewarned him not to proceed without the conduct of a powerful person, lest perhaps through certain ministers of malice the darts of ambushes and

hidden snares which might be set for him he should run upon them. Acquiescing therefore in their admonitions and counsels, he sent legates to the emperor to obtain letters of safe conduct from him; because the bishop of Hildesheim was detained in many imperial services, and could therefore not be of aid to him in such matters. These having set out to the imperial majesty, the honourable man, remaining in the place already often named, completed more than the space of three weeks, keeping watch over no other pursuits but those of sacred reading, so that he seemed an imitator of the spiritual exercise of that orthodox man of ours, namely Jerome, a man of great sanctity, always either reading or writing something. As often as those who were entangled in public crimes came to him asking that he would by the authority granted him relax something of the penance enjoined on them, in these matters he bore himself discreetly and prudently: and first diligently inquiring the cause and manner of the offence, he tempered the favour of pardon according to the quantity of the faults. Rather often also going to the assembly of the brethren, he humbly greeted them, as he was a most gentle man: and entering the monastery with them, walking hither and thither, he admired its site and its honest disposition in all things.

[6] [he inquires into the memory of St. Bernward, and urges that the Roman Pontiff be approached on this matter.] It happened therefore that one day, entering the oratory as usual, he asked of the brethren who were present who had been the founder of so magnificent a work, and it was answered him by the brethren that by a certain bishop, outstanding in the greatness of his virtues, who before the times of Godehard of holy memory, bishop of Hildesheim, held the rule of the church, that same place had been built, consecrated and endowed from the possessions which had fallen to him by hereditary right. Moreover that in the crypt of the same monastery the sacred relics of his body were laid up: adding that certain volumes, which had been written concerning his approved conversation, were held among them ^h. When he inquired more studiously concerning the name of so great a man, he heard that his name was Bernward, and that he was sprung from the illustrious blood of the Saxons. Having heard these things, blessing God, who glorifies his saints; he ordered certain of his greater miracles to be recited in his presence, diligently inquiring whether there were brethren in the same congregation who had seen any of his celebrated miracles. To him many of the brethren answered that they had frequently seen many of these things. To them the legate of the apostolic see said: "If these signal powers which you have told were heard in the presence of the supreme pontiff, there is no doubt that the wished-for effect would follow on a reasonable and honourable petition, if you should ask of him the translation of the blessed man ⁱ." Some days having passed after this, when he had entered the chapter with the brethren, after the sweet words of his exhortation, all, falling at his knees, supplicated more attentively that, since induced by his persuasion they proposed to send legates to the Roman Church for promoting the translation of the blessed Confessor, he would stand as a pious fellow-worker for them with the supreme pontiff. Their prayers being admitted, he advised that those who had seen something more certain of the miracles of the holy man, or had learned true things, should confirm it by oath by a report in his presence and that of the lord Berno, who at that time bore the summit of the pontificate ^k: saying that it was impossible that the Roman Church should give easy assent in affairs of this kind, unless it had first been more fully instructed of the truth of the matter. When he had proposed this in the hearing of all, finding them ready and unanimous, he went together with them to the bishop: where before them and the whole church, the brethren whatever they had seen concerning the powers and signs of the blessed man, or had learned through suitable witnesses, attested to be true, an oath having been sworn on the sacrosanct Gospels. Which attestation the aforesaid Cardinal ordered to be reduced to writing, and diligently sealed both with his own and the episcopal seal.

[7] For this Abbot Theoderic is sent to Rome. These things having been thus reasonably ordered by counsel, the lord cardinal, bidding farewell to the brethren, and most greatly thanking them for the service of pure love shown him by them, set out, the lord bishop conducting him with due reverence, and receiving him in hospitality in his fort of Wincenburch ^l. With whom the father of the monastery proceeded as far as the same fort; and on the following day, when, a blessing having been asked of him, he was preparing to return to the monastery, he faithfully advised that, the goods and expenses having been prepared, if perhaps he wished to visit the Roman church for the often-mentioned business, he should not delay to follow him as soon as he could. He returning to the convent set forth in common the whole form of counsel which he had heard from the mouth of the venerable man. Deliberation having then been held as to who should be sent to carry out this business, it seemed good to all that he who was father of the congregation should discharge the legation, saying that it was fitting that for the promotion of so celebrated a business a celebrated and suitable person should be sent: he, at first objecting the consideration of his infirmity and the difficulty of the journey, and judging himself unequal in all respects to this labour, humbly refused what was asked. At length, at their exhortation and the insistence of their prayers, overcome by their concordant and pious petition, he did not hesitate to take up what he knew exceeded the strength of his powers.

[8] St. Bernward seems to come forth from the tomb. And lest anyone should presume to affirm that the things which were then treated concerning the elevation of the sacred body were done by chance, and not rather by God's preordination; that they proceeded not by chance, but from the nod of the divine disposition, and from the will of the blessed man, a revelation declares, shown to a certain matron of religious conversation, who by the merit of her life was of good reputation with all, and breathed with the good odour of the virtues. She, taught by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, although covered with a secular habit, yet in no way bore a secular spirit, but rather gave herself to fasts, vigils, alms and other works acceptable to God. She frequented the memorial of the blessed man with continual prayers. It happened therefore that on the night of the most holy Resurrection of the Lord, while, intent on prayers as usual, she was passing a watchful night, at length wearied, as she was lying prostrate on her face, she fell gently asleep beside the pontifical tomb: she saw then, as it were the roof of the sanctuary opened, and the obstruction of the stones put aside, a most abundant liquid of oil coming down from heaven over the place of the tomb, so overflowing that it seemed to pour with its dripping over a great space of the crypt. Wondering at the novelty of the thing, she suddenly beheld what was more wonderful, namely a person of reverend countenance, adorned with pontifical vestments, coming forth from the same tomb, and addressing her in such words: "The time is at hand when my limbs shall be raised from the earth." These things having been said, she awoke, and what she had seen and heard she related not to all everywhere, but to a few God-fearing brethren of that monastery. Which vision, supported by all truth, a following vision proved.

[9] Another vision. In the same year in which the often-mentioned translation of the holy prelate was celebrated, a certain man of that monastery or college, of praiseworthy life, saw in a vision as if he were entering the crypt of the same monastery to adore: to whom it appeared how from the place in which the relics of the sacred body were preserved a most pure fountain sprang up, which had already so grown that it had proceeded in its course to the door of the crypt. Wondering therefore, and drawing from it with his hands, and tasting with his mouth, he perceived the sweetness of honey. And running to announce to the abbot and the brethren what he had seen, he found the father of the monastery himself standing in the assembly of the brethren. As he was telling him of the outbreak of the new fountain, his speech being not yet finished, the fountain itself, as it seemed to him, appeared before their faces with the abundance of its outflow, and seeing it he who had come to report to the abbot said: "Behold, lord, that fountain of which I told you." And both, weeping for joy, with bent knees, blessed God, from whom comes whatever of power is given to the saints, and proceeds as from a most lucid fountain. Then after long thanksgivings, the abbot burst forth in such a voice: "Deservedly, brother, we bless God for all his gifts, because I know without doubt that from the grace of the largess of him who is rich toward all, the merits of our beloved patron supporting us, nothing for the rest, if we fear God, can be lacking to us." Awaking, what he had seen, as a man altogether declining the favour of human praise, he related to a few of the brethren, asking that they should cover in silence what they had heard, until they should know more certainly what it should please the divine ordering to do concerning the mystery of his vision. But we, who know the man, and have heard these things from him relating them of himself, confidently commit to writing whatever he saw, and with him as with a man in whom there was no guile we attest the truth of the matter. These twin visions, as they came forth in almost one and the same order, so can they be understood under one tenor of interpretation, because one and an undiffering effect proceeded from them. For whether the abundance of the oil, or the richness of the fountain, signified the abundance of miracles, which we see so to have overflowed by the Saviour's grace and the merit of his chosen one; that now not only in the province of Saxony alone, but also in many parts of the world his celebrated memory is frequented, of which, since we are hastening to the order of discourse we began, we shall speak more fully in what follows.

[10] A prisoner is freed by the merits of St. Bernward. When therefore, as we have related above, the brethren were frequently conferring on the elevation of the sacred body, a few days having passed after the departure of the cardinal, by the merits of the blessed prelate there happened a wonderful thing, by the dignity of its greatness in no way to be hidden in silence. A certain young man, not ignobly born, was very well known in the bishopric of Hildesheim. He, in that pressure of wars which we have set forth, was captured by enemies, and brought to the city of Brunswick. When they wished to extort from him money which he did not have, loading his feet with shackles, they bound his hands with iron chains, not indeed tightening them, but stretching them far from one another as if in the suspension of the rack, and fixing them firmly with certain solid nails to the wall of the house, and they compelled him so to stand for three days without the offering of food, diligently appointing guards lest he should slip away in flight. Anxious therefore what to do, when, forsaken by human aid, he awaited none but divine help, God, of whose mercy there is no number, who raises up the crushed, and looses the shackled, inspired this in his acquaintances and friends, that with him who was held in chains they should vow that, if he should deserve to be released from the pressure of the present danger, he would visit the memorial of the blessed confessor in penitential habit; and would bestow on the want of the poor as much alms as would equal the weight of his own body, weighed in the balance. The vow having been made, and the aid of the holy father having been implored, with great speed, the chains being broken, and the shackles loosed, in a wonderful manner the guards being struck with blindness, as once the enemies of Elisha, trusting in the patronage of the blessed man and the protection of flight, at midday he went away unharmed. Then not unmindful of the favour shown to him in the crisis of so great a necessity, he faithfully discharged his vows; and that the matter had been so done concerning him, as we have said, he attested by oath on the sacred relics before the brethren and the other faithful who were present, and, presented to the clergy and people, by one and the same course of narrative

the work of divine power, having been asked more diligently and more often concerning the pure truth, he narrated openly to all. All therefore in common, praising the grace of the Saviour, who had deigned to illumine their city with such a patron, cried out that this longed-for translation of the holy man ought not to be deferred further, especially since the showing of so evident a miracle declared that this was most pleasing to God, who is honoured in his saints, and to his chosen one. At the working of this miracle the brethren, vehemently rejoicing in the Lord, decreed that this celebrated deed should be committed to writing, and, sealed with their seal, presented to the legate of the apostolic see, that he might press on with their business so much the more fervently, the less he doubted by the novelty of the miracle that it would be most pleasing to the saint of God.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

After various mischances the canonization is decreed at Rome and celebrated at Hildesheim.

The abbot makes for Rome, and on the way is plundered with the legate; These things done, the lord abbot, the goods and expenses that were necessary for the aforesaid legation having been prepared, commending himself attentively to the prayer of the brethren, having taken up his pilgrimage, followed after the Cardinal who had gone before; and he found him already on the borders of the Alps at the monastery of Schaphus, which in Latin is called Luxovium; where the venerable father Columban ^a, as is gathered from his deeds, led a life worthy of God and imitable by few, and learning of his arrival he rejoiced greatly, went forth to meet him, and lingering long in his embrace, protested that he had a most pleasing companion of the way. Departing thence together, they directed their journey toward Mount Septimer, and as they were about to cross it, a certain Andrew, a dweller in the fort of Marmorera ^b, which was near this mountain, meeting them with an armed band, occupied the public way of the road, and attacked them and their goods in hostile fashion; pretending that he had received a command from the emperor not to suffer in any way an ecclesiastical person to go to the Roman pontiff, who was carrying letters there. He then threatened all, with the interposition of a heavy oath, that unless they displayed without delay to his presence the writings which they had with them, he would not fear to mutilate them. The letters having therefore been brought forth in common, he heaped fury on fury; and, what is impious to tell, he did not fear to capture the Vicar of him to whom the power of binding and loosing has been granted: and he having been insultingly led away to the fort of Marmorera, and his goods scattered by the hostile hand, those who were in his company, leaving him, crossed Mount Septimer on foot. But the said abbot, climbing with difficulty the mountain on which that fort is situated, and humbly explaining to the said malefactor the cause of his legation, scarcely obtained that he might receive back a part of his goods; a pledge being given that he would not go to the parts of Italy, but would return to his native soil without going back on it.

[12] [but Prince Rotholf orders what was taken from the legate and the abbot to be restored:] Placed therefore in the crisis of so great evils, while he altogether did not know what needed to be done, at length it seemed good to those who were with him that they should go to the bishop of Chur ^c, in whose diocese the minister of the aforesaid cruelty lived, if perhaps by his authority he could be inclined to satisfaction and the restitution of their goods. Departing not far from the fort, they met certain chief brethren of that same church, and ministerials, who, report spreading it, had heard that they had been troubled by the mischance; and, that they might know by eyewitness what they had learned by report, were hastening to the place of the crime committed. These, moved with compassion over them, going with them to the execrable man, found the legate of the Roman see already cast out of custody, whom the wicked robbers were urgently pressing to depart more quickly, a few horses and goods in small quantity having been restored to him. Vehemently kindled therefore with zeal for God they set themselves as a firm wall for the house of Israel against the adversaries, and gravely threatened the nefarious invaders that unless they should appease by suitable satisfaction the men whom they had troubled to the peril of their soul, they would not delay to promulgate against them a sentence of excommunication. But when neither the mildness of admonition nor the harshness of rebuke moved his obstinate and in all things as it were bestial mind, a certain very powerful man, Rotholf by name, from the same province, hearing what had been done, greatly moved, sent word to the aforesaid robber: that unless, their goods having been restored, he should suffer them to go in peace where they wished, he himself would not suffer so enormous a crime to go unavenged; adding that, if he did not obey his orders, he would rescind the pact long held with him, and would overturn from its foundations the fort in whose fortification he trusted, and level it with the ground. He, having received a message contrary to him, foreseeing that it would be unbearable if he should forfeit the favour of his lord, prudently deliberating with himself, restoring in great part what he had violently taken away, did not presume to trouble them further by detaining them.

[13] They come to Milan. Having received back their goods therefore, after a few days coming to Milan, they had lodging at the church of Blessed Ambrose: where it became known to them more certainly that a grave discord was turning between the pontiff of the Roman see and the emperor; that also throughout all Italy an edict of the emperor was hanging, that whoever should be found who on the pretext of any cause should presume to go to the Roman church, must, after being treated with insults and stripped of their goods, either be bound in chains, or be compelled to return to their homes ^d. Which storm of persecution so boiled up that the bishop of Ostia, returning from France, was held in custody at the town of Siena by the satellites of the emperor, all his goods having first been scattered ^e. Greatly terrified by this news, they thought it settled that, divided from one another, one should have passage by Pavia, and the other by Piacenza, judging it more cautious by this separation, if it could be done, to avoid the hostile hand, than joined together to experience again hostile assaults. When they had been separated with the bitterness of tears and sobs, after a few days, when the said senior had come to Lucca, and no faculty of proceeding further was given him by anyone, turning aside from the public road of pilgrims, he went to the most opulent city of Pisa; where having spoken with the nobler persons of the city about conduct, by

them, money having been received from him and other clerics of various provinces, they faithfully promised that they would furnish them a safe conduct, to be broken by the authority of no one. These they followed together along the maritime places for four days. But when not even through those places was there any security at all of going, because by the guile and treason of one of their guides ambushes were being set for them by the lord of the province, counsel having been held, it seemed more advisable to see again the hearth of their own dwelling than to run peril from the fierceness of that people and the loss of their goods. And what of opposition and distress they endured in returning, with what difficulty they escaped the multitude of soldiers which they saw threatening at their back, sparing the reader's weariness, we have thought should be passed over in silence.

[14] At length they come to Rome: After various mischances of untoward events at length, after raising the siege of a certain fort, in which they had taken refuge to avoid hostile onsets, returning to Pisa, many of them, renouncing their causes, for which they had already spent very much labour and goods, went back to their homes with their business undone. But the often-mentioned senior, according to that eloquent saying of the Wise man: "Cast your thought on the Lord, and he will nourish you" Ps. LIV, 23., fixing all hope and trust in God, and believing himself to the protection of the sacred Prelate, for the enlarging of whose honour on earth he was wandering an exile in unknown parts of the world, while with anxious heart he was turning over what remained for him to do, by God's nod he heard that certain merchants of the same city, for the sake of their trade, were soon to sail toward Naples, a city of Apulia ^f. Going to them, and laying open the cause of his pilgrimage, they affirmed that it was most safe for him that, taking on the labour of the voyage, he should join himself to their company, because they were to put in near the neighbourhood of the city of Rome, almost at the very mouth of the Tiber. He rejoiced, and paying most abundant thanks to God, who does not forsake those who hope in him, acquiescing in their counsel, first indeed in perils of robbers, perils of rivers, perils among false guides, and last in perils on the sea worn down almost to the failing of his body, at length, God leading him, he entered the city of Rome. But since the Legate of the apostolic see, of whom we have told above, had not yet returned, he displayed his letters, which he had given to the Cardinals who were joined to him by the bond of special friendship, and when from their tenor they understood how much love and reverence the aforesaid Abbot had paid him, thanking him most greatly, they promised that they would advance with all the earnestness they could the cause for which he had visited the Roman church. Then after the course of a few days, the same Legate, God's grace co-operating, received by the coming forth of almost the whole city of Rome, when he had diligently set forth in the hearing of the supreme Pontiff with how great a fervour of love he had been held in the monastery of that Abbot by the brethren, obtaining very great favour from this, attained, as afterwards was plain, no small honour from the lord Pope. A day having afterwards been appointed, the supreme Pontiff, setting forth among the Cardinals the book concerning the cause of his coming, which was written of the life and miracles of the blessed man, ordered it to be recited in their hearing. They, when they learned his holy conversation and signal powers, blessing God, who is wonderful and glorious in his saints, gave easy assent to a petition so reasonable and acceptable to God.

[15] [Where, the Acts having been examined, he is inscribed in the Catalogue of saints.] At this the lord Apostolic thus addresses the aforesaid Senior: "Since we hear, honourable brother, that you and those subject to you are praiseworthily advancing in the fervour of religion and the observance of the monastic order; and since we know without doubt, the text of his life having been inspected, that the venerable man Bernward, formerly bishop of Hildesheim, founder of your monastery, led a glorious life on earth most worthy of memory, and shone with many miracles, by the authority of God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, by the intervening mediation also of our beloved son Cincius the cardinal, who at the time of his legation experienced, as he asserts, many proofs of kindness from you, we have decreed that the aforesaid most reverend man be henceforth numbered in the catalogue of the Saints, and that his most sacred body be raised from the bosom of the earth, and placed among the memorials of the saints with fitting veneration." At this the Senior, weeping for joy, prostrates himself at his feet to give thanks; but raised by the hands of those standing by, he is led into the oratory of Blessed Mary ever virgin, and there, praises having been shown forth to God, both by the supreme Pontiff and by the Cardinals, and a very great throng of Clergy and people, the blessed confessor on the Saturday before the Lord's nativity is solemnly canonized ^g.

[16] The abbot joyfully returns to the monastery: various miracles Letters of testimony having then been obtained concerning these things, and his other business having been dispatched, leave and blessing having been received from the supreme Pontiff, the said Abbot hastened to return to the place of his own dwelling. At whose arrival the whole city, gladdened with spiritual joy, received the executor of a most joyful business with a joyful enough coming forth, congratulating with much favour the safety of the beloved person, and the prosperous success according to its wishes. But since that disturbance of the whole province, of which we have told above, had not yet been put to sleep, on account of the great penury of goods, and the straitness of the time, it was decided that the business should be suspended until the following year. During this delay, by the merits of the blessed Prelate, there happened a miracle not differing from the miracles of the ancient fathers, furnishing a sufficiently manifest proof of his exceptional sanctity and immense goodness. In the very city of Hildesheim a boy, sprung from not unknown parents, overtaken by a sudden sickness, died by an untimely death; as is the custom in such things, the funeral rites were prepared for the burial. The parents, bereft of their dearest offspring, after the groans and tears that betray inward grief, at the prompting of the neighbours who were present vowed that if, by the suffrage of the Prelate soon to be translated, the dead child should receive life, they themselves with oblations would visit his honourable tomb, together with the one raised, to give thanks. What more? The parents obeyed the counsel: the lifeless child is restored to life, the vows are paid, and the blessed Confessor is extolled with due praises by both sexes. Whoever hesitates concerning the fact, let him receive the testimony of the multitude that was present.

[17] [the harvest being gathered earlier than in other years, all things are arranged for the Translation.] Nor shall we pass over in silence this, that in the same year the ripening of crops and other seeds came so early that they seemed to have far anticipated the accustomed times of reaping, to such a degree that hundred-year-old men confessed that the crops had never been gathered so seasonably in their time: God, by whose nod all things are ruled, doubtless bringing this about, that for the imminent festivity of the blessed Prelate, relieved of necessary tasks, the people from far and wide might come forth more freely and keep holiday more readily. Frequent prayers also throughout the whole year were held out to God by the brethren and other faithful, that he would follow with kind effect those things which were to be done for the glorification of his chosen one, to the honour and praise of his name. And now the Assumption of the most sacred Virgin was at hand, when not only on account of the special festivity of Hildesheim ^h, but also for the raising of the holy relics, which was to be celebrated on the next day, with the prelates of various churches an inestimable multitude, not only from near and known places, but also from remote provinces of the earth, had eagerly flowed together. Which day having been duly performed in the praises of God for the veneration of his pious Mother, the lord Bishop Berno, by whose authority and ministry the matter was to be advanced, at the twilight of that very night, more secretly came to the monastery, where the sacred pledges were preserved; to deliberate with the brethren and other grave persons in what order they should proceed in the divine business. But since, on account of the excessive throng of the people, who were diligently watching for the hour of the sacred translation so longed for, no access at all lay open to the very place of the tomb, it was decided that, all having been removed, the father of the monastery himself, with some brethren and other religious men taken along, should cause the stone which was placed on the same tomb to be removed, lest afterwards at the elevation of the sacred body that very great concourse should be held back by an unwelcome delay. Which being done, the doors of the church being most firmly barred, and the stone being lifted, they saw a sarcophagus quite suitably carved; and, prayers having gone before, this being opened, that heavenly treasure, to be preferred incomparably to royal riches, appeared, breathing forth a spiritual and previously unknown odour.

[18] The sacred body is raised and translated. Nor was he absent who is never accustomed to be absent to those gathered in his name, our Jesus, the good Jesus, by the visiting of whose grace the gloom of human blindness is wiped away; by whose illumination the hardness of the impenitent heart, by which one sins against his spirit, is softened. For you would have seen some of those who were present, while they examined their consciences, dissolved in tears; and while they acknowledged that they were far distant from the proclamations of his merits, scarcely daring to touch the limbs once exercised under the yoke of heavenly precepts. For they knew that the man had trodden down nobility of the flesh, which is the kindling of pride, by regard for his Maker and the humility of his own condition. It came to memory that the man, Angelic in chastity, for chastity with humility is a sharer in Angelic purity, had so preserved the modesty of the flesh inviolate within the lodgings of the heart, that from his tender years to the setting of this passing life, without experience of the fall of snowy modesty, he deservedly with those who have not been defiled with women follows the spotless lamb wherever he goes Apoc. XIV.. They had read none the less that the most pious pastor, poor indeed in spirit, for love of eternity had stretched out most generous hands to the poor. They noted that the vigour of the twin charity, on which the law and the prophets depend, had so grown strong in his breast, that not the most tender affection of brethren, nor the most illustrious line of kindred, nor the nobility of relations or friends, but the Lord of heaven he established as his heir. And now rightly with those whose portion of inheritance is the Lord and whose lines have fallen in goodly places Ps. XV., receiving a hundredfold, he is clothed with the dowry of immortality. But why do we linger in many words? What God had preordained to be done was to be fulfilled by the devotion of man. At length the limbs are taken from the tomb to be placed in a more celebrated place, and after the likeness of the Lord's body, the body of his servant, wrapped in a clean linen, on the following morning, the church and a throng of prelates being present, is reverently raised from the dust of the earth, and at that hour at which the Spirit of truth is affirmed to have visited the disciples in tongues of fire ⁱ, it is carried through the midst of the church, and the whole body of clergy as well as people is kindled to his praise: the silk chasuble also of the blessed prelate, in which for so many years, namely one hundred and seventy-two, he had been buried, appeared still fresh and incorrupt, by the touch of which also many sick persons were cured.

[19] He is carried to the cathedral, and thence to the monastery. There was at once at hand a certain abundant working of healings for the sick, prefigured, as we have set forth, by the dripping of oil. For a certain woman troubled by a most dire demon, while she was with difficulty pressed down at the tomb of the Prelate worthy of God by eight men, the evil spirit resisting, by the mediation of his suffrage, many being present and awaiting the outcome of the matter, the enemy being put to flight, the woman is cleansed, so that it might be clearly plain that he who was ever strong in a clean spirit, by which God is seen, powerfully commanded unclean spirits. The sacred body having then been carried with praises and spiritual canticles to the principal church, and the solemnities of Masses having there been festally celebrated for the presence of so great a father, thronged by an incredible crowd of both sexes,

it is brought back again to the monastery.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

Various miracles are narrated.

Blind persons given light; Meanwhile the benefits of divine gifts toward the sick were multiplied. Namely a certain old woman, deprived of sight for a long time, in hope of recovering her light called more attentively on the proclaimed merit of the blessed man, and at once, matter breaking forth abundantly from the place of the eyes, many looking on, and bearing testimony to her long-lasting blindness, she received her sight. A certain knight, Udalric of the estate of Blithenem, a ministerial of the principal church ^a, when, one eye swelling from sacred fire, he saw nothing with it and was most gravely tormented, on the very day of the translation most devoutly asked that water blessed and tinged by the arm of the blessed bishop be brought to him, and anointing the swelling of the eye with it, with wonderful speed, his sight having been received, and the swelling relaxed, he calmed the pain. Afterwards, asked concerning the truth of the matter, he protested, tears abundantly flowing for joy, that he had obtained the remedy in the order that we have said. Likewise another ministerial of the greater church, Gerung by name, had come to the same solemn joy of the festivity, namely of the translation, with his wife and children. He, when after the offices of divine service he was preparing to return home, in a certain forest fell rather incautiously upon the fierceness of enemies, of whom he had many, by whom he was captured and led into the interior of the forest, and bound with a sufficiently heavy iron to a tree of exceptional size. When therefore, concerning the most tightly bound man, they were secure that he could in no way escape, and they themselves were wandering more freely here and there through the grove, that captive, when he was earnestly imploring the patronage of the blessed father, to whom he had attentively commended himself that day, suddenly, the iron by which he had been bound being divinely broken, and the bonds by which his hands had been tied behind his back being burst, going away unharmed, on returning home he consoled by his rescue his wife, who had been consumed with excessive bitterness on account of his absence.

[21] An incredulous priest is punished. On the same day at the hour of evening, a boy of seven, blind from birth, received light at the tomb of the often-mentioned prelate. But since the fact was not established for the brethren and many prelates of churches who were present, the parents of the boy, and those who knew the matter, having been brought into the midst, they were more fully assured by their testimony. A certain priest, Gerlach by name, a canon of St. Maurice's ^b, since he was excessively incredulous of the things which resounded of the sanctity and powers of St. Bernward, by divine dispensation fell into an illness. At length when most skilled physicians had investigated the circumstances of the disease, they urged him to take care rather of the health of his soul than of his body, asserting that this kind of disease could either scarcely or in no way be overcome. The aforesaid priest therefore, hearing that death was at hand before his eyes, began to call on blessed Bernward, that he might obtain for him from God a space of living. And when, wearied by this earnestness of prayers, he had fallen asleep, behold after he awoke, he found himself freed from all infirmity.

[22] A captive knight is freed; A certain devout knight of Padelburne, Odalric by name, captured by his enemies, and brought to a certain very lofty fort, which is called Ravensberch ^c, was consigned to custody and chains. He, seeing himself placed in great crisis of life, and that no escape lay open, fled with his whole heart to the divine help, calling specially on St. Bernward, and besought him with tears and sighs to free him from the present strait, so that through this his benefits might become more known to the world. On a certain night therefore, when he noticed that the guards had fallen asleep, he tried the shackle with his hand, wishing to test whether by any art or industry he could be freed from it; and he found the hardness of the iron, like a sheet of lead, softened beyond hope. Then, no one knowing, and without difficulty undoing all the fastenings of the chains, he began to seek whence he might more easily escape, and recognizing that all exits were diligently barred, committing himself to Almighty God, with the patronage of blessed Bernward he climbed the wall, and leapt down from on high, but neither the depth of the valley, nor the roughness of the rocks lying beneath, in any way at all hurt him. Seeking therefore his liberator eagerly and without delay, he came to Hildesheim, narrated openly to all the miracle wrought concerning him, and in testimony of the power exercised he hung on the tomb of the blessed bishop the shackle brought with him.

[23] the lame and crippled healed, A certain boy born at Hildesheim, son of Ezic, having a distorted foot, so that the longer shin, bent, seemed contiguous to the sole, for whom when his parents had made a vow to blessed Bernward, the boy, having received the function of his feet, followed his father to the tomb of the most holy Prelate. It happened once that relics of blessed Bernward were being carried to the village of Brandesleve ^d, in which there was a certain virgin, who from the rising of her birth was deprived of the function of one leg. She, when she prostrated herself before the relics in hope of health, the sinews of the contracted leg began to be stretched with such force that the sound was heard by many. And she was tormented by excessive pains, but after the space of one hour she received entire health. There was a certain knight in the same village, who had a son, who on account of the shortness of one leg was unable to go without support. He, brought to the tomb of the blessed man, the weak leg being made equal to the other, received health.

[24] a demoniac A certain woman, beset for a long time by a demon, from Utrecht ^e, was being led to blessed Bernward, and the devil, when she was drawing near to Hildesheim, cried out that he would not enter the house of Bernward, because he was a most sharp enemy of his master. And the faithful, when they had heard these things, by dragging and impelling could accomplish nothing at all, until she, shaking herself from the hands of those dragging her, leapt down into a pool filled with mud, that the demon might suffocate the woman there. Having drawn her out to cleanse her outwardly, they understood that she was cleansed inwardly, and with immense joy she came with her companions to the tomb of the blessed Prelate. This miracle is made known to very many by the following.

[25] cleansed; At Lübeck a certain man, Henry by name, was sitting at table with his wife Mecthild; she, soon turned to fury, was bound with many ropes, and priests and clerics bringing relics read exorcisms and conjurations. Then the demon, breaking out in voice, cried: "Cleric, why do you weary yourself? on your account I will not depart from here; because in his fury her husband handed her over to me to inhabit. For I also for eighteen years had a dwelling in another woman, but certain persons wished to drag me to a certain Bernward, whence I had to leave her." Having heard these things, they prepared the necessaries for the journey to blessed Bernward. All things being therefore prepared, the demon began to cry: "I do not dare to hear or see Bernward, whence I must flee," and having said this he went away, and at once the woman received her sense, and gave thanks to her liberator. There was in Thuringia at Denstede ^f a certain widow, Adeldrud by name, worn for twenty years by a demon; who, fleeing to the patronage of the blessed Prelate, was freed.

[26] a sick woman and a priest cured; There was a certain matron at Magdeburch, whose daughter, when she was in her last breath of life agonizing, by divine prompting a certain devout recluse persuaded her to have a Mass sung in the memory of blessed Bernward for her daughter's health. And when the Mass was being sung, she within the Mass diligently implored the aid of the blessed Prelate, and on her return from church her daughter met her, joyful and unharmed; and at once, proceeding with her mother to the tomb of blessed Bernward, she made plain how swiftly she had been freed. There was a certain venerable priest at Solschen ^g, Reiner by name, who, when on a certain day he was driving cattle from his house, a particle of a rod being fixed in his eye affected him with such great pain that he by no means believed he could keep the eye; who going off to another village to a certain servant of God, that she might pray for him, and make a vow to blessed Bernward. The vow therefore being completed, when he was returning to his village, he attained his former health on the way.

[27] a poor man of a flow of blood, another of drowning, There was in the city of Minden a certain poor man, Henry by name, who, gravely touched by a certain infirmity, namely a flow of blood, so that from it he feared that death was now near at hand, at length by the merits of the blessed prelate Bernward, who in his life was called by the common name pastor and father of the poor, to whom this poor man had commended himself with devotion and the offering of a candle, was graciously healed. He, not ungrateful for the benefit received, faithfully paid what he had vowed at the altar of the holy man, namely of Bernward, a particle of whom is preserved in a silver arm ^h, with due reverence, a candle being lit, many seeing and praising God. A certain citizen of Minden, on the vigil of St. John the Baptist, going to lay waste the men of the fort of Vorenholte in the dominion of Lippe, crossing the river Weser by a ford with a great multitude of people, was snatched by the waters, and almost like seven others of his people suffocated by the water was submerged. And he, feeling that death threatened him, blessed Bernward, whose

relics are preserved at St. Paul's at Minden, calling on him, and humbly imploring his aid; and behold suddenly a wheel sprang from a wagon, by whose assistance and the merits of the blessed man the aforesaid man escaped the horror and peril of death. Having returned home therefore, he devoutly and humbly carried a statue or waxen image, holding a wheel in its hands, to the aforesaid altar, as he had vowed.

[28] A certain man of Oldendorp ⁱ, returning from this happy festivity, others of a broken leg, of captivity, of sacred fire, fell into a deep pit of a stony mountain, and when he had been drawn out, and carried to the court, his leg appeared broken in pieces, and he, excessive pain compelling him, betook himself to the patronage of the blessed prelate; and behold soon he feels a divine remedy. And on the fourth day returning to the tomb, he gave thanks and praises to God and blessed Bernward. A certain man was held at Hildesheim in a cellar bound with iron, who under the invocation of the name of St. Bernward broke the iron, and rising saw the door by which he had been shut in opened; and with no one preventing him, or seeing or detaining him, freed on the aforesaid day, he proceeded with praise to the tomb of the holy Prelate. A certain woman, wearied by a strong infirmity for two years, and so infested by sacred fire ^k in three places that she was already altogether deprived of hearing: who, a vow having been made to the blessed bishop Bernward, received hearing on one side. But when she had begun to pay the vow, she was preserved on the other side also.

[29] of dysury, The wife of a certain poor man at St. Michael's at Hildesheim had lost for a week eighteen-day-old piglets under a pile of wood without their mother, who, a vow having been made to blessed Bernward, received back into her house sound and unharmed the piglets who had remained for so many days without nourishment. A certain knight dwelt at Elze ^l, who for some years laboured under a distress of the urine, nor could he be helped by the remedies of physicians. His wife, full of faith and hope, is sent by him to the new Translation in hope of health, and entering the church of St. Michael, she betook herself to the patronage of blessed Bernward; and after devout prayers returning home, she found her husband altogether freed from all his former distress. Two women on the very day of the translation were brought in the hope of recovering their sight; but one, having as it were more harshly inveighed against the holy prelate, because she had little hope as she cried out for long, and for that reason, matter breaking out in one eye, as if a vein had burst, received her sight: and the other, many seeing and praying, was given light in both eyes.

[30] freed from prison; A certain man, quite famous and aged, Henry by name, of Hesse, a citizen of Kassel, going out from the city for his business, on horseback to visit a certain estate which was his at the time of harvest. He unexpectedly rushed upon the enemies of the said city; and is captured by them, and led captive to a fort to be imprisoned. He sat therefore mourning in prison, shut in the stocks, and very hungry, because for five days they supplied him with nothing of drink or food; for he was to die of hunger. Thus anxious he had no consoler; but anxious he also expected death. And it came to his mind how St. Bernward, then newly canonized, had consoled very many in tribulation who called on him. Therefore he also with what devotion he could, a vow having first been made, that with a notable oblation he would visit his tomb barefoot, if he should deign to free him from prison, and he resolved not to eat meat until the vow had been fulfilled. This vow having therefore been made, he began to sleep in his sorrow, and so he rested that night. Finally awaking, he found himself in a field very well known to him not far from Kassel, his city, of which he was a citizen, and the shackles of his feet near him. Whence he rose joyful, and rejoicing entered the city, and narrated to all how by the merits of St. Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim, he had been wonderfully and miraculously freed from prison: and all who heard, with him blessed God and St. Bernward, by whose merits he had been restored to his former liberty.

[31] a dead person raised. An epileptic healed. At Drispenstede ^m a certain boy, the only son of his parents, fell into a deep pit, and, crushed in his whole body, is drawn out dead, whence his parents greatly grieved. And his mother with the greatest haste and devotion made for the tomb of St. Bernward, and prostrating herself there, humbly supplicated St. Bernward that he would deign to raise her dead son by his prayers and merits: and an offering having been made she returned home; and the son, whom she had bewailed as dead, she found alive and sound. Then the parents together with the boy raised came to the tomb, and plainly narrated to the lords of St. Michael's, and also to other persons of both sexes, what had been done in the boy, and praised God in his saint. A certain man, a citizen of Brunswick, called Henry of Bulzem, at the time at which relics of St. Bernward were brought to the church of the Friars Preachers there, had a son greatly disturbed by the falling sickness. He, hearing of the prodigies and signs which God deigned to work by the merits of St. Bernward among the dead and the sick, came with his sick son to the aforesaid church; and prostrate in prayer before the relics of St. Bernward, asked of him with tears the health of his son. Finally rising from prayer, he offered on the altar no small portion of silver; and so, returning home with his son, he never afterwards suffered the falling sickness. Wherefore his parents returned the greatest thanks to God and St. Bernward.

[32] A blind man is given light; At the same time also, namely in the year of the Lord one thousand three hundred and fifteen, there was a very rich man at Brunswich, by name John Grube: he was so troubled by pain of the eyes that he incurred blindness, and in four years could not at all see his hands. He, when he perceived that relics from the body of St. Bernward had been brought to the Friars Preachers, having called the prior to him, asked to be informed with what reverence or honour he might approach St. Bernward, that he might deserve to receive the light of his eyes, and being informed by the prior, on the following day with his wife and sons there before the relics of the holy prelate he humbly begged his aid. A wonderful and astonishing thing! For when the aforesaid blind man had not seen his hands for four years, now rising from prayer he saw all things clearly, and more clearly than ever he had seen before his blindness; and visiting the brethren present there without a staff, without a guide, he both spoke to each, and greeted every one and called him by his proper name. Whence all wondered, praising the clemency of God, who by the merits of St. Bernward had done so evident and wonderful a sign. He also who had been blind held St. Bernward in reverence and honour all the days of his life: and whatever he could spend in the largess of alms and other pious works for the honour of St. Bernward, he never suffered to be neglected.

[33] a harlot is brought to penance: A certain fornicatress had been for some years at Hildesheim in a brothel, to whom, God inspiring, on the feast of the translation of St. Bernward it came to mind, after dinner, to visit the church, and hear the word of God: which also she did. And pricked at heart in that sermon, she began most bitterly to weep for her sins. And the sermon having been finished, she rose, and weeping hastened to the tomb of the holy prelate, and prostrate there she wept more abundantly, asking St. Bernward to deign to snatch her and turn her from that shameful life, and that she might change herself for the better with amendment. And her prayer being completed she rose, and entered the brothel in the accustomed manner, and a little time having passed, on a certain night, as she slept, there seemed to stand by her one in pontifical habit, of comely countenance, brighter than the sun; who said to her: "Rise, daughter, and go out from this city to the place to which God shall direct you." She, rising in the morning, went out by the gate of the Hedge, hastened toward Hannover, and going on beyond through the cities lying between she came to the royal city of Lübeck, and thence directing her way she turned toward Jutland ⁿ; for she had a brother in one of the cities of Jutland, which is called Hadersleve, whom she proposed to visit, that by his counsel she might dispose herself for a better life. And she came at length to a certain village not far distant from Ulenseborch, and spending the night there, she stayed with a certain rich villager. He, seeing that she was obliging, prepared supper for her, and when morning came he spoke to her, and retained her in his service for a sufficiently suitable price. Now this villager was bereft of a wife, and he had no small substance. He, seeing that she was vigorous and faithful, took her as wife, and loving her gave her all that he had, and so with a good end, worn out by old age, he rested. And she, after the anniversary of her husband, took a wealthy young man as husband, with whom she had all charity. And she knew that this had been done in her by the merits of St. Bernward, who also altogether preserved her from the infamy of the fornicating life which she had before had. And the aforesaid woman related this of herself to a certain priest in confession in the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and thirty-one, on the day following St. Michael, to which feast she had come for the sake of devotion, as she was accustomed to do every year, that she might pay due thanksgiving to God and her consoler St. Bernward.

[34] A boy almost suffocated is freed. When a certain boy had a penny in his mouth, and in boyish manner, playing or rolling it in his mouth, swallowed it, suddenly, for excessive pain and the lessening of his breath in the throat as if suffocated, he began to approach death. And when a candle was being lit for his departure, and they were expecting death forthwith, at once a certain woman added, saying: "Call on St. Bernward, and promise him an offering, and without doubt he will receive relief." What more? The boy's mother acquiesced in such an admonition. St. Bernward is called on, and at once the boy, freed from the disaster of death, cast out the penny.

Very many miracles followed in the codex, but Brower neglected to copy them, thinking that those were enough which were done of old.

ANNOTATIONS.