Ida

ON ST. IDA, WIDOW,

AT HERZFELD IN THE BISHOPRIC OF MÜNSTER

More probably about the year DCCCXIII.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Ida, widow, at the Lippe in Westphalia. (S.)

BY C. S.

§ I. Her cult, the writer of her Life, the time of her death.

[ ] Among the widows who have merited a sacred cult in the Church of God, on this day St. Ida comes to be remembered, a matron of remarkable sanctity. The place of her cult, from the martyrologists She dwelt with her husband Ecbert at Hovestadt (by the inhabitants Hovestad) in the bishopric of Münster, on the river Lippe, between the towns of Lippstadt and Mark. And not far from Hovestadt is seen Herzfeld, where the Saint, after her husband's death, spent the remainder of her age beside the church which Ecbert had built, and, being buried in it, shone with miracles. The Roman Martyrology indeed, with the older ones, is silent about her; but the later ones, together with Uffing the writer of her Life, leave no doubt about this holy Widow's lawful and ancient cult. Grevenus in the additions to Usuard, in our Sollier at the IV day of September, announces her with this elogium: Likewise of St. Ida, a noble widow, who in the time of Charlemagne in Westphalia beside the Lippe, having run through her married state, setting up for herself a recluse's cell in the porch of the church which her husband had built at his own expense, living in great sanctity and showing herself truly a widow, rested in peace. Likewise Molanus: In the territory of Münster above the river Lippe, the deposition of blessed Ida, a widow of great sanctity. Our Manuscript Florarium also mentions her at the aforesaid day, omitting the place of her cult: The memory of Ida, widow; who flourished in the time of Charlemagne. I pass over Ferrarius in the general Catalogue, Canisius in the German Martyrology, and others in whom the memory of the same Saint is announced.

[2] I add one thing: Uffing, an author of the tenth century, as we shall show, and from Uffing the Saint's biographer. who in her Life clearly shows her sanctity proved by miracles, and her cult established and confirmed by the solemn elevation of her body by the bishop of Mimigardeford, and by the dedication of a part of the church under her name, and by the yearly festival appointed at the same time. And since these things will be manifest from the Life to be given below, I only touch on a few here. Having related the elevation of the sacred body, Uffing thus goes on: These things being done, the venerable prelate (of Mimigardeford) consecrated the southern structure of the church, that is, the tower, in honor of the holy Mother of God, Mary, and under the name of blessed Ida, and commanded all who dwelt in the neighborhood to keep and celebrate the day of the translation and of the dedication solemnly in its yearly recurrence. He had premised in the same place: But that the veneration of the sacred pledges might be more widely celebrated somewhere , the said pontiff took with him some particles of them, and certain others the lord abbot (of Werden) conveyed to our monastery, all of which we, clothed in sacred vestments, received on the Kalends of December with great honor and pomp and the utmost devotion.*

[3] The time of the translation he further assigns thus: These things were done in the year of the Lord's Incarnation nine hundred and eighty, on the VI day of the Kalends of December, etc. [It is not certain enough at what time the cult began: but it is certainly ancient.] From these things it becomes manifest that already from the tenth century public sacred honors were decreed to St. Ida by the bishop of Mimigardeford: but from what time the people had already paid them to her is not easy to determine. For what Uffing subjoins after relating the Saint's death and honorable burial — Where, by the healings that bear witness, how she is esteemed with God is most clearly proved thus far — designates no certain time. Nay rather, that her public cult did not flourish immediately from her death the often-praised biographer declares in words by no means obscure at chapter 2; in whose opening, having complained that that place (of her burial, certainly), since it was possessed by others by hereditary succession, had begun through the negligence of those in charge to grow obsolete in meanness, he thus proceeds: And because the report of God's holy one had not yet shone forth openly, they buried beside her that little boy (the son of count Rudolph). But hence Ida's sanctity became illustrious: for, the boy's corpse being by God's nod thrice cast out of the Saint's tomb, they abstained thereafter from a profane use of the sepulchre. Her veneration at length revived under Hoger, abbot of Werden, who obtained that that place should be annexed in perpetuity to the monastery under king Arnulf: for from that time (the words are Uffing's) by the diligence of our men the holy hiding-place was more zealously tended, and, the squalor of the former sloth being cleansed away, he took care to add honor to its straitened estate. Then too the bestowal of healings, long since interrupted, returned with an omen desired by very many, and as many as the report of this gift had drawn thither, with the Lord's favor, departed thence eagerly by the way they came. The uncertain year of her death cannot more probably be placed before 813.

[4] The year in which she departed from among the living the biographer nowhere expresses either; hence various men fix various dates. Schaten of our Society, in the History of Westphalia, book 10, fixes her death at the year of Christ 810, citing in the margin Uffing, Surius, and Harey in the Lives of the Saints: but how he draws that year determinately from the first I do not see: the second indeed seems to note it in the margin, but he sets down the year 790, not 810; unless perhaps this error crept into the Cologne edition of the year 1618, which I have in hand. The third finally establishes the year of death noted by Schaten only with the adverb "about" added. I, since arguments are lacking, cannot determine it with certainty: yet since Ecbert, our Saint's husband, is probably the same as the man who in Eccard, from the Loisel Annals, in the year 811 swore a treaty with Hemming on behalf of the Franks (about whom see below, number 22), the death of St. Ida cannot be placed before the year 813: nay, Uffing's narrative seems to require that it be deferred even by one or two years. Now let us treat of the writer of the Life.

[5] Uffing, the Saint's biographer, a writer of the tenth century, Suffridus Petrus of Leeuwarden, a writer of the sixteenth century, in decade 7, chapter 5, on the Writers of Frisia, assigns Uffing as the biographer of St. Ida, in these words: Uffingius, who is also Uffo, of Workum by birth, a Frisian by nation, by profession a Benedictine monk in the monastery of St. Ludger at Werden, flourished about the year M. And there exists an ancient manuscript copy of the history compiled by him about the Life of St. Ida, widow. With Suffridus agrees Valerius Andreas in the Bibliotheca Belgica, letter V: Uffingius or Uffo, a Frisian of Workum, of the Order of St. Benedict in the monastery of St. Ludger at Werden, flourished about the year of the Lord M. He wrote the Life of St. Ida, widow, at the IV of September, in Surius. The same man Mabillon, in the fourth Benedictine Century, in the preliminary Observations to the Life of St. Ludger, acknowledges among the writers of Werden. Further, the monastery of Werden, or Werdinum, which also took its name from the river Ruhr flowing past it, is situated in the forest of Wideburg, adjoining the diocese of Cologne, says the praised Mabillon. The date of the biographer assigned by Suffridus and Valerius is drawn from the very Life which we are about to give: where, relating that the translation of the holy Widow's body was accomplished in the year 980, he treats of it as though he himself with the other monks had received the sacred relics. The words we gave at number 2.

[6] as one held to be learned From these things it follows that Uffing wrote this Life about two centuries after the Saint's blessed departure from among men. Wherefore he himself professes in the prologue that very many of her miracles, blotted out either by the antiquity of the times or by the lack of writers, are unknown to him: but that those which he had learned to be published abroad by suitable persons, made known in modern times both by sight and by hearing, he would hand down in a truthful and simple account. Which he seems to have performed so faithfully that our Bolland, having read this Life through, greatly desired that one which he wrote of St. Ludger, in volume III of March at the day XXVI in the Life of St. Ludger: Would that there existed, he says, the Life which is said to have been written by Uffing the monk, or, as Brower calls him, Usting. For that he was a man of much learning and elegance, Cincinnius relates; and it is easy to conjecture it from the Life of St. Ida composed by him and published at the IV of September by Surius. So great therefore is this biographer's authority as a writer deserves who is held by the learned to be learned, and is convicted of no falsehood, in relating things which happened partly in his own age and partly long before.

[7] he is contemporary with some of the things he writes I said, partly in his own age; for he shows himself to have been contemporary with the translation, and signifies that the miracle of the stone chest emerging of itself out of the earth happened in his time, calling God to witness that he had seen very many in this light who testified that in their boyhood the topmost peak only of the lid had appeared, and that afterwards it had grown out to that which is now seen. And this prodigious raising of the chest had happened over several years by gradually breaking forth. Nor do I think it beside the purpose to note that Uffing wrote the Life of a Saint now, so to speak, of his own household, since the place of her burial together with her holy body had long since been annexed in perpetuity to the monastery of Werden. For hence he could the more easily inspect ancient records, if there were any, or, these being lacking, examine the matter more deeply. That he really had certain records he seems to hint at number 19, where he prefaces that various miracles at various times, by the noting down of truthful witnesses

shone forth supported by them.

[8] Further, we have two Manuscripts, one of which Father Johann Gamans of our Society transmitted to our Elders in the year 1641; whence the Life is to be published. and it is noted at the head: From the notable Manuscript parchment Passional of the month of November of the monastery of Böddeken, of the Regular Order of St. Augustine, diocese of Paderborn, folio XC. The other is the Louvain one; but that seems to have been transcribed only by a flying pen, and one loving a shorter style at the expense of antiquity. Wherefore, since it contains nothing besides what is found in the Böddeken one, and passes over much in silence, I have thought it should be neglected. Surius had a copy of the former in hand at the IV day of September, and differs from it only in very few words here and there. The same Life Leibniz published in the book to which he gave the title Writers serving for the illustration of the affairs of Brunswick, conformable to Surius and to the Böddeken Manuscript, except for the titles prefixed. I shall publish in print the praised Manuscript, changing however the order of the chapters after our manner, and amending from the edition of Surius the errors which crept in through the copyist's carelessness. For the rest, at the end of the said Manuscript I find this noted by our Papebroch: In the same place (in the monastery of Werden) there exists a Manuscript booklet inscribed "A discourse on the life and holy conversation of the same Blessed woman" (Ida), written by John Cincinnius, presbyter, who lived about the year of Christ MCDLXXX, formerly director of the archive of Werden. This booklet I do not have: but since that writer is almost five centuries later than Uffing, I do not think that he relates anything, except perhaps miracles, beyond what the Life by Uffing has.

perhaps alibi*

§ II. Her illustrious stock and parents.

[ ] The Saint's illustrious birth asserted by Uffing That our Saint was born of an illustrious stock, Uffing plainly hands down in his Preface, where he has this: Which venerable Handmaid of Christ, born in the highest place among her own people, is reported to have flourished in the time of the great king Charles, namely of the royal stock of the holy virgins Odilia and Gertrude, daughters of St. Pippin. The same writer at chapter 1 calls St. Ida's father one of the chief nobles of that place. That she abounded also in goods of fortune he hints not obscurely, when he says that Charlemagne, to bring about the marriage of St. Ida with Ecbert, gave to the latter in those same parts many possessions out of the public domain, so that, being made more acceptable to his parents-in-law by a nearer power, he might excel among them in no less dignity than in his native soil. Finally, the consent of Charlemagne himself, sought for the contracting of the marriage, and the parents' favor obtained through him to that end, certainly indicate the Saint's illustrious birth and flourishing fortune. But before I proceed, I would have the reader advised that the manuscript which I use here differs from the edition of Surius in the words alleged at the beginning of this number: for it has of Gertrude, daughter of king Pippin; but the latter, of Gertrude, daughter of St. Pippin. This latter reading, which I have found in others also, I have followed as genuine: for he seems to be treating of St. Gertrude, abbess of Nivelles, whose father blessed Pippin was not a king. But if anyone should wish to stand by the manuscript's reading, he can consult Henschen at the day XVII of March in the Life of St. Gertrude of Nivelles, where he disputes whether another St. Gertrude was the daughter of king Pippin surnamed the Short. Now let us return to the matter.

[10] they are illustrated by Eccard The difficulty here is to show on what ground she is said by Uffing to have sprung of the royal stock of the holy virgins Odilia and Gertrude. That Ida could not have descended from the aforesaid Saints is clear from their virginity. It remains therefore to inquire whether the asserted kinship with each can be established from a collateral line. This the learned Eccard has already inquired into, in the Quaternion of ancient records, page 29 and following, where he traces each of these kinships from the marriage of a certain count Bernard with Gundlindis (whom he sets down as St. Ida's maternal grandfather and grandmother): so that through Bernard our Saint is to be referred to the family of St. Gertrude, and through Gundlindis to that of St. Odilia. Here for thee is this Genealogical connection from the praised writer.

He places St. Ida, therefore, in the sixth collateral degree from St. Gertrude, and in the fourth from St. Odilia. Now, that we may proceed clearly and distinctly, let us hear one by one the arguments on which he rests.

[11] from a diploma of the emperor Lothair, First, the marriage of count Bernard — whom St. Gerard in the Life of St. Adalard, in our Acts, volume 1 of January, page 112, calls the brother of the great king Pippin — with the daughter of Adalbert, he thus proves: That Ida further descended from the royal stock or family of St. Odilia, as Uffing indicates, is to be set in a clearer light. A torch is kindled for us amid the darkest shadows of the eighth century by Lothair, the emperor, son of Louis the Pious. For in a diploma given at the palace of Strasbourg in the year DCCCXLVIII, and published by Guillimann in the Bishops of Strasbourg, chapter V, he says. He then recites the sense of the diploma, but rendered more obscure by the changing of a single little word: wherefore I copy it from the praised Guillimann himself. Let the diligence of all the faithful of God's holy Church and of ours … learn how our beloved kinswoman, the venerable nun and abbess of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, Ruadrut, within the precinct inside the walls of Strasbourg, approached our majesty, offering to our gaze the authorities and muniments of the charters of the illustrious ancestor of our kindred, duke Adalbert. Lothair therefore, who descends from St. Begga, sister of St. Gertrude, acknowledges Adalbert as the ancestor of his illustrious kindred.

[12] Eccard goes on: Nor does it escape those skilled in histories that "parentes" denotes agnates and kinsmen, and so that "parentela" is agnation or kinship. and from the Life of St. Adalard, Now the illustrious agnates or kinsmen of the emperor Lothair cannot be understood to be others than Adalard, Bernarius, Theodrada, and Gundrada, whose brother by the father's side was abbot Wala, also Lothair's friend against his father Louis the Pious: all of whom, on the testimony of both biographers of St. Adalard, SS. Paschasius and Gerard, in our volume 1 of January at the 2nd day, are said to have been begotten by count Bernard, brother of king Pippin. Whence probably their mother can be set down as the daughter of duke Adalbert. Then he proves from the Life of the same saint in Mabillon, and from a most ancient fragment which Vignier recites in the Alsatica, that this Adalbert was the brother of St. Odilia and son of Ethico, duke of Alemannia. And rightly: for by the former, in the very opening of the Life, St. Odilia's father is called an illustrious duke named Adalric, who was also called by another name Edichin. Then at number 19 this is read: She (St. Odilia) had also a brother named Adalard, who had three daughters, of whom one was called Eugenia, another Atalia, the third Gundlindis. Adalard seems to be the same as Adalbert: for Lazius, on the Transmigration of nations, book 8, on Mabillon's testimony, reckons among the four sons of Adalric or Ethico an Adalbert, not an Adalard; and in the praised Vignier, page 63, he is plainly called duke Adalbert … the most glorious offspring of Ethico and Brunswinda.

[13] It is of greater difficulty to show that one of these three daughters of Adalbert was given in marriage to count Bernard. and to the objected That Athala or Atalia, a most holy virgin, was set over the monastery of St. Stephen at Strasbourg as abbess by her father, is manifest from the praised diploma of Lothair. That Eugenia succeeded her holy aunt Odilia in the government of the abbey of Hohenburg, Mabillon relates in the Benedictine Annals, volume 2, page 58, with the agreement of Bucelin, Germania sacra, part 2, page 192. There remains Gundlindis: but she, together with her sisters, is reported in the praised Life, page 494, to have delivered herself over to the discipleship of St. Odilia. The cited Vignier, page 71, makes her abbess in lower Hohenburg or Niedermünster. Eccard nevertheless contends for Gundlindis; for he will readily grant that neither of the two former can be assigned to Bernard as wife. And to the difficulty objected from St. Odilia's biographer he answers that Gundlindis could have been first brought up with her aunt and then given in marriage to Bernard, which certainly does not seem unusual.

[14] But as for Vignier's calling her abbess, difficulties he denies that this can be demonstrated by any contemporary testimony. I admit that he brings forward no such testimony: yet in Bucelin, in part 2 of the Germania Topo-chrono-stemmato-graphica, page 242, from records, as he himself says, of an older age, a certain Gundlinda is named abbess of a certain monastery of Niedermünster. But whether she was that daughter of duke Adalbert of whom we are now treating, Bucelin neither asserts nor can it be hammered out, since he himself confesses that only her name is extant. There is added that this Gundlindis's rule in lower Hohenburg seems to have escaped the learned Mabillon, since he keeps deep silence about her, although at the year of Christ 720, page 58, and elsewhere, he plainly relates that Attala presided over the convent of St. Stephen at Strasbourg, and Eugenia over that of Hohenburg. The same learned Benedictine writes indeed that Gundlindis led a religious life under the discipline of St. Odilia, but since he perhaps drew this from the cited Life of St. Odilia, and does not prove it from another source, the same answer can be made to it as was just made to that. Nor indeed will it seem so absurd to anyone that Gundlindis should be called out of a monastery to marriage, if he considers that she could have been trained under her aunt's religious discipline (as has happened more than once) without being bound by any religious vows: and that she was bound by these I nowhere find sufficiently proved.

[15] it is answered. Eccard adds some conjectures drawn from the names of Bernard's children, which, because they are of slighter moment, I have not thought fit to report here. But neither do I dwell longer on these matters: for it makes little for my purpose whether it was Gundlindis or another daughter of Adalbert who was married to Bernard: another, I say, for besides those enumerated there are further reckoned by the cited Mabillon a Savina and a Liutgardis, whom Vignier in the Alsatica, page 2, thinks were born to Adalbert by a second marriage with Bathildis. Certainly that some one of his daughters was joined in marriage to the often-mentioned count is persuaded by the kinship asserted in the emperor Lothair's diploma, and will be confirmed below from St. Ida's descendants. Thus far a twofold root has been assigned with sufficient probability, by which St. Ida can be referred to the family of SS. Gertrude and Odilia, if it can be shown that she descended from count Bernard and Gundlindis or her sister: for so it must needs be that through Bernard she drew her descent from the stock of St. Gertrude, and through Gundlindis or her sister from the family of St. Odilia. Let us therefore come down with Eccard to the Saint's parents.

[16] It is inquired St. Gerard, in the Life of St. Adalard in our volume 1 of January, page 114, enumerates five children of the often-mentioned count Bernard; namely St. Adalard, Wala, Gundrada, Bernarius, and Theodrada. The first two were abbots of Corbie; Gundrada cultivated virginity; Bernarius professed the religious life in the monastery of Corbie; Theodrada finally, having known marriage, presided as abbess over the convent of St. Mary the Virgin at Soissons. That this last was St. Ida's mother is Eccard's opinion, led by these reasons. St. Ida, he says,

is read in Uffing to have been the only daughter of her father. Behold then for thee Theodrada, sister of Adalard and Wala, daughter of Bernard the son of Charles Martel, who also, before she undertook the government of the monastery of Soissons, is said to have been joined to a husband and fruitful in one childbearing. To prove his assertion he cites St. Gerard (rather Paschasius Radbertus), a contemporary writer. But, with all respect to the learned man, I would say that neither of the authors cited by him asserts it in such a way that it cannot easily be understood in another sense. The latter says thus: But the remaining two, namely our Bernarius and his sister Theodrada, devoted to God, who, the fruit of marriage being already rendered, had seized upon the second grade of chastity, sat at the feet of Jesus at home with Mary: she indeed at Soissons ruling the life of nuns, etc.

[17] Pray, how wilt thou prove from this that Theodrada was fruitful in one childbearing only? as to the Saint's mother Would she not truly be said, the fruit of marriage being rendered, to have seized upon the second grade of chastity, if, being even the parent of several children, and released from her marriage, she had consecrated her widowhood to God by a religious life? But neither does Uffing openly affirm this of the Saint's mother: he says indeed that Ida was an only daughter at the time when Ecbert turned aside to her house; but he does not on that account deny that she had brothers or sisters who might then have died. Certainly she is called an only daughter both who out of many is the one surviving, and who is an only-begotten. Yet the authority of St. Paschasius adduced by the learned man does prove this much, that Theodrada's religious life can in no way hinder her from rightly being set down as St. Ida's mother. There favors it also the conjecture formed from the words of both biographers, which probably bear the sense which Eccard understood.

[18] Inquiring likewise into our Saint's father, and her father. the said author reasons thus: But we must now seek through whom St. Ida — whose name you would not vainly suspect to have been given in memory of Ida, mother of St. Gertrude — is connected with the ancestors of the Carolingian family. And very conveniently there occurs count Theoderic, whom the annalist of Lorsch in express words calls a kinsman of king Charles. He seems to have had a county in Ripuaria on the Ruhr, and so on the borders of Saxony; for there in the year DCCCIII he is said by the same Annalist to have gathered forces and to have moved with them against the Saxons… After this no mention of him occurs, so that it is credible that he died a little after. And where Theoderic chiefly exercised power, there presently Ecbert, Ida's husband, appears. This Theoderic therefore must necessarily be set down as Ida's father. Thus far he, not improbably. For first it is thus understood on what ground Theoderic is called a kinsman of Charlemagne, namely through the wife he married, Theodrada, born to Bernard, Charlemagne's uncle. Secondly, by this way St. Ida is brought through her maternal grandmother to the family of St. Odilia, and through her grandfather to the stock of St. Gertrude. Then the time at which he supposes Theoderic to have died is favorable, if the opinion of Mabillon is true, volume 2 of the Benedictine Annals, at the year 804, writing thus: Theodrada at this time was already living in the convent of blessed Mary at Soissons, and perhaps was already abbess: for if Theoderic died in the year 803, Theodrada, being already loosed from the bond of marriage, could in the year 804 be living in the aforesaid monastery. There favors it besides Ecbert's succession into Theoderic's place, since, as St. Ida is called an only daughter by Uffing, her parents' inheritance had to devolve upon her.

[19] Hence let us come down to St. Ida's descendants, and confirm from them what has been said thus far. From the Saint's descendants Light will be given by the author of the Translation of St. Pusinna, which may be read in our Work, volume III of April, page 171. In this Translation Warin, abbot of Corbie, is said to have been sprung of a most noble family, being begotten of Ecbert, a most illustrious count and duke, of a most splendid mother named Ida. His brothers, equally most illustrious men, shone forth distinguished with great dignities both among strangers and at home. Their niece, as being born of their sister and of a father notable and very renowned, Hadwig or Hedwig, abbess of Herford, was joined to king Charles the Bald in the third and fourth degree of kinship. It is worth producing the very words of the Translation: And she (Hedwig, toward Charles) was in his favor either by grace of kinship, since she was joined to him in the third and fourth degree of relationship, or because her ancestors had enjoyed much familiarity and liberality from the said prince; and then also because her brother Cobbo attended in the palace upon his daily service. This twofold bond of kinship asserted between Hedwig and Charles the Bald confirms not a little the genealogical connection which we have given, and at the same time teaches us the illustrious family of Ecbert. And that this may plainly appear, I subjoin Eccard's reasoning.

[20] the opinion of Eccard If Hadwig was joined to Charles the Bald in the third degree of kinship, necessarily her grandfather and Charles's grandmother, or her grandmother and Charles's grandfather, were begotten of one father. Hadwig's grandfather on her mother's side was duke Ecbert, her grandmother Ida, but her connection with Charles's family exceeds the third degree; her grandfather and grandmother on her father's side are unknown to us; but the Saxons had nothing in common with the Carolingians. Charles the Bald's paternal grandfather was Charlemagne, his grandmother Hildegard the Swabian, who again do not belong here: his maternal grandfather Welf, a Bavarian by nation, cannot make this connection either. Whence its author must necessarily have been Charles's maternal grandmother, Welf's wife, named Hegilwigis, or, what is the same, Hedewigis or Hadwigis; and it is certain to us that she was of Saxon race. Thegan, chapter 26: "In the following year", he says, "he (Louis the Pious) took the daughter of duke Welf, who was of the most noble stock of the Bavarians, and the maiden's name was Judith, who was on her mother's side of the most noble Saxon race, and he made her queen." The name of Judith's mother the author of the Translation of St. Bathildis the queen, chapter 1, discloses in these words: "In the twentieth year of the most serene Augustus Louis reigning with great happiness, he came to the monastery of Kala, where the venerable abbess Hegilwich, mother of the empress Judith, presided over a great flock of nuns." She, as hence appears, after her husband's death was made abbess of the monastery of Kala, and, the reckoning being now deduced accurately enough, must be set down as the sister of duke Ecbert. Thus he, showing that third degree. For in this way Hadwig had Ecbert's father as her great-grandfather, and the same was Charles the Bald's great-grandfather through Hegilwig and Judith. Then he subjoins the fourth degree.

is confirmed. In this Genealogical table Hadwig is distant five degrees from the common stock, Charles Martel, and therefore by the common method of reckoning she is distant just as many from Charles the Bald. But since he is removed only four degrees from the same stock, it can not unfittingly be said that a fourth degree of kinship mixed with a fifth intervenes between Charles the Bald and Hadwig: and so each kinship asserted by the author of the Translation of St. Pusinna between the aforesaid persons is rightly explained. More the curious reader will find in the praised writer: I have thought these things should be transferred hither, not that I adopt every particular, but because that genealogical arrangement seems to me very probable.

[22] Of Ecbert I add a few things. Uffing, book 1, chapter 1, reckons him among the nobles of the East (of Austrasia, I think): Ecbert's nobility and offices. Among other nobles of the East, he says, a certain prefect named Ecbert is said to have come. Then, after some things interposed, he writes that he was set as duke by Charlemagne over the Saxons who dwelt between the Rhine and the Weser. The same man is called by the author of the Translation of St. Pusinna a most illustrious count and duke: the words we gave at number 19. The Frankish Annals of Metz, in Du Chesne, volume 3, page 294, relate that a certain count Egbert, with other counts of Saxony, in the year 809 founded a city at Esesfeld on the bank of the river Stör against the Danes, by the command of Charlemagne. The Loisel Annals, on Eccard's testimony, add that he also in the year 811 swore in the treaty with Hemming the Dane on behalf of the Franks. That this is the same man as St. Ida's husband the aforesaid author judges in the Quaternion, page 29, probably enough, as it appears. For nothing hinders our believing that he lived until those times: and the charge of such great affairs agrees excellently with the illustrious birth, the virtue, the fidelity of our Ecbert, and with the favor in which he stood with Charles: For he was (the words are Uffing's) not a little acceptable to the aforesaid Augustus for the renown of his unconquered constancy and providence. Why then should we distinguish two Ecberts, when the greatness of such offices suits our man, and the reckoning of the time does not oppose it? More in Eccard.

A LIFE

By Uffing, a monk of Werden.

From the notable Manuscript parchment Passional of the monastery of Böddeken, collated with the edition of Surius.

Ida, widow, at the Lippe in Westphalia. (S.)

BHL Number: 4143

A. By Uffing.

PREFACE

Here begins the proem of Uffing, monk of St. Ludger, on the manner of life and the miracles of St. Ida.

[Beginning from Christ's providence, the author runs out into the praises of St. Ida;] God ^b, the provider of human salvation, Jesus Christ, who has not ceased to send workmen even now into his vineyard, has from the beginning exalted his Church with various honors, since he willed that the patronages of his Saints should flourish also among countless nations , and that no part of the earth should be without a share of heavenly gifts. Of whom it is written: God is not a respecter of persons, but in every nation he that fears him and works his will is acceptable to him* ^c. Which indeed we find to have been fulfilled, now at the evening of the world, in the most blessed Handmaid of God; whose tokens of sanctity, supported by the attestation of signs, we desire, if God shall grant it, to set forth as we can. Which venerable Handmaid of Christ, born in the highest place among her own people ^d, is reported to have flourished in the time of the great king Charles ^e; namely of the royal stock of the holy virgins Odilia ^f and Gertrude ^g, daughters of king ^h Pippin: whose health-giving relics if anyone in need of health frequents, he will at once feel himself a witness of health recovered. She therefore, as we shall say in what follows, although bound by the law of marriage, yet preferred nothing to the love of her heavenly bridegroom ⁱ; and therefore not only did she suffer no loss of modesty and chastity ^k, but rather, as conqueress of vices, deserved to receive the hundredfold fruit of the heavenly reward with those hired at the first hour ^l.

[2] [and confessing his own unskillfulness, he promises nevertheless to write her Life truthfully.] Very many of her miracles, blotted out either by the antiquity of the times or by the lack of writers, remain unknown to us: but those which we have learned to be published abroad by suitable persons, made known in modern times both by sight and by hearing, we shall try to set forth — though with a dull wit and unskilled speech, yet in a truthful and simple account — with blessed Ida's intervention as our companion. For in the old Testament the offering of those is not refused who, after the golden and silver gifts which were offered by the rich in the house of God, sent also red-dyed skins and goats' hair ^m with devout mind into God's treasuries for lawful uses. For this reason, most earnestly, the reader of this handy little book

we beseech, that if anything in this little Work proceeds somewhat unpolished or unlearned along the grammarian's path, he may not * lay the mark of rashness upon us, who, having attempted things too strong for us, dare at least to breathe forth into the light from the little nest of our sloth. For the rest, a degenerate style follows the line of historical truth, of which we shall now obtain a happy beginning.

ANNOTATIONS.

m. Exodus, chapter 35.

Surius, gentilium* * superfluous

THE OLD DIVISION OF CHAPTERS.

Chapter I. Here begins the Life of St. Ida, widow, whose feast is kept on the sixth of the Kalends of December.

II. Of the passing of blessed Ida to the Lord.

III. Of Bertger the presbyter, how he passed from this life.

IV. Of the digging up of an infant.

V. How the oratory of blessed Ida could not be burned by the pagans.

VI. Of the woman who stole a garment.

VII. Of a woman's withered hand restored.

VIII. Of a woman cured of dropsy.

IX. Of the health which a nun obtained there.

X. Of the man who received his hearing.

XI. Of a blind woman given sight.

XII. Of a possessed man cured.

XIII. How a bent woman was suddenly made upright.

XIV. Of a woman's health restored.

XV. Of the man who was crushed * in all his limbs.

perhaps contractus* (crippled)

HERE ENDS THE FIRST BOOK. HERE BEGINS THE SECOND BOOK.

Chapter I. That no writings suffice for the signs of St. Ida.

II. How the keeper of the church was rebuked for negligence.

III. How a little child is brought to the tomb, and what was done about him.

IV. Of the man who had his foot with the leg twisted backward.

V. How no one can set forth the present glory of the Saints.

VI. How the fame of blessed Ida was not hidden from bishop Dodo.

VII. Of the bishop's coming, and the translation of the relics.

VIII. The festival appointed of blessed Ida and of the consecration of the church.

CHAPTER I.

St. Ida diligently attends Ecbert in his sickness, and, her nuptials with him being celebrated, departs into Westphalia, and builds a church on the way: the death of Ecbert; Ida's holy widowhood, death, and burial: the virtues and pious departure from life of her chaplain.

Chapter I.

At the time when the most victorious emperor Charles ^a happily governed the sceptres of the Saxons and the Franks St. Ida serves Ecbert as he lies sick in her father's house, and the reins of many nations, a military expedition was directed to the West on account of a sedition of the Gauls ^b; where then, among the nobles of the East, a certain prefect named Ecbert is said to have come, who there fell into a severe sickness. And when, the disease growing worse, he withdrew himself altogether from this expedition , the emperor most diligently commended him to be cared for by one ^c of the chief nobles of that place. For he was not a little acceptable to the aforesaid Augustus for the renown of his unconquered constancy and prudence. Being therefore brought to lodging, he is served with great kindness, because we believe that this his infirmity befell, by divine predestination as is plain, not for the ruin of his life but for the accomplishment of the things that followed. The aforesaid man * with whom he lodged had an only daughter, uniquely beloved, of comely brow and excellent form, who had such compassion on the sick man that several times, waiting on him in her own person so far as befitted her station, she both touched his sores and applied fomentations suited to his pains, and in her comfort he himself gladly took delight.

[4] and, married to him, is honorably sent away by her parents. Meanwhile the emperor, affairs being safely settled, returning victorious and not unmindful of his most excellent leader, came to visit the same city in which he had lately left him, and found him already stronger by the grace and clemency of God the Savior . And while they enjoyed mutual converse for some time, in the course of speech the illustrious man Ecbert suggested to the prince the marriage of the aforesaid Virgin, that by his counsel, nay by God's help, he might obtain the effect of this matter. And the prince, much rejoicing both at his recovery and at his request, both gave his own assent to it and obtained the favor of her parents; and he gave him in those same parts many possessions out of the public domain, so that, being made more acceptable to his parents-in-law ^d by a nearer power, he might excel among them in no less dignity than in his native soil. Besides, he set him also as duke over all the Saxons who dwell between the Rhine and the Weser ^e, those greatest rivers. After this he, himself very religious, received his most Christian Bride with the fear of God, and, being honorably dismissed by all that kindred, resolved to remove to his own country, ever calling to mind how great successes from heaven he had obtained on that journey, and he rendered many thanksgivings to God.

[5] Warned by an angel on the way, she founds a church with her husband's consent. On a certain day, while they were still pressing on their journey, they came to a place beside the river Lippe ^f, which in the Saxon tongue is called Hirntveldt ^g, planted with pleasant groves; and finding there a plain of no great size, as the evening twilight was already coming on, they pitched their tents, and the grass gave healthful sleep to those weary from the journey. And so, when all were sunk in deep slumber, the Lord deigned to send his angel in a dream to the venerable matron Ida; who, after many admonitions with which he instructed her, foretold that an oratory should there be built at her own expense, where she might one day more freely serve the Lord, and promised with prophetic voice that there, after the course of this life was finished, she should await the day of eternal reward together with her husband. She, presently touched with divine compunction, as soon as morning shone, fully set forth to her lord what she had learned from the angel's report: of whom at once she joyfully inquires how these things seemed to his mind. And when he gave credit to her words in everything, blessed Ida, bowed to the ground, in a lowered voice committed it to the Lord that he would bring her happy beginnings to the end of a finished work. Not long after, in the aforesaid place, where once the very stars were hidden by the thickest overshadowing of the woods, a stone basilica ^h is built with polished workmanship, and was consecrated in honor of holy Mary the Mother of God and of St. Germanus ⁱ the bishop.

[6] For to that dedicated place, which is in the district of Drehin ^k on the bank of the river Lippe, certain estates ^l of the illustrious man Ecbert had regard, After a pious marriage where the matron Ida, beloved of God, was accustomed very often to dwell and always most intently to sweat at fresh labors in the worship of God. She strove nonetheless, on occasion of her carnal union, to render to God the things that were God's, and so to temper her outward love that no blemish of levity could darken the strictness of her soul. For if, as the apostolic saying sounds, the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the believing wife ^m, how much more do vessels of equal sanctity shine forth, each supported by the other's teaching in virtues? What can be more fittingly set forth upon this than that in the two who are one flesh there is one undivided working of the Holy Spirit, which inflamed those joined outwardly by the law of wedlock with a more burning love of heavenly things within ⁿ?

[7] Not a few years after this, the task of his warfare being fulfilled, Ecbert being dead, cultivating her widowhood by the exercise of all virtues, the lord Egbert, a man to be honored in Christ, is taken from human affairs ^o, whose spirit presently, a blessed guest, deserved to obtain the palace seats of the heavens. After his passing, with how great strictness blessed Ida confined her tender body is very hard to tell: since she passed the whole space that remained of this sojourn with an abstinence incredible and imitable by few, never relaxing the purpose of her mind from the worship of God: according to the Apostle's saying, she mortified her members upon the earth from every unlawful appetite of belly and tongue, and happily changed all that pompous glory in which she had been most delicately brought up into the winning of the gains of her labors. And whatever of the revenues in her marriage could yearly be gathered, she transferred into the heavenly storehouses by a dispensing ministration to the poor, fearing lest, sowing sparingly, she should also reap sparingly: therefore she sowed in blessing, which hereafter she shall joyfully thresh in a hundred sheaves on the floor of the universal harvest. And that she might be the more closely occupied in the meditation of heavenly things, on the southern side of the aforesaid church she built a porch adjoining its wall, in which she might pray more retiredly and live free from the noise of the crowd; where also the lord Egbert of praiseworthy memory lies laid to rest.

[8] She commanded a marble sarcophagus to be prepared for herself long before her death, because of the uncertainty of the moment, [she fills a marble sarcophagus twice daily with things to be given out to the poor:] which twice every day, as long as she survived, she filled to the brim with various supplies of food or of other things, and cheerfully distributed to those who lacked sustenance. Truly blessed was she, who understood concerning the needy and the poor, that the Lord might deliver her in the evil day. What written description could worthily set down [p] her private zeal of watchings and prayers? Let it be enough for human curiosity to wonder at the things which she did outwardly: but the things which under the cover of outward acts she wrought with secret sweat in the sight of God alone, whose polished eloquence could suffice to relate? For, intent upon the contemplative [q] discipline, she is reported never to have moved her foot outside the door of the cell she dwelt in, save when she was serving the alms of the needy: ever imitating in deed what is written, the perpetual delights of the soul [r]. With such prerogatives of virtues she adorned her sacred veil [s], and moreover in her actions she most cautiously strove to avoid popular favor, and, fixing the most firm anchor of hope in the heavens, she sailed across the broken obstacles of the world in the breastplate of faith as in a safe ship, that she might attain to the full charity of perfection, which is God.

II.

[9] These things being brought to their desirable end, when God, the rewarder of all, purposed that his Turtledove should fly to higher things, [foreseeing at last her death, amid the prayers of pious men she dies piously, and, honorably buried, shines with miracles.] that after sad things she might joyfully * nest more excellently in the heights of heaven, being sharply smitten with a troublesome sickness of her vitals she foresaw her last hour; and calling her presbyter named Bertger, for just causes most faithful to her, and many servants of God, she demands their prayers, and that in

that very moment of her rest they might obtain for her a guidance of the way to the Lord, and with poured-out tears she implores it: it was done, prayer was made, it was heard from the heavens, what long since had been predestined. With this reverend closing of prayer, the burden of the flesh being loosed, she sent forth her spirit to her lover, to enjoy in the upper air a blessed eternity with the heavenly hosts. O the inexhaustible bounty of the Savior! How great his mercy above all things! without whose nod not even a leaf of a tree falls in vain; by whose sending an Offspring of so lofty a birth, rejecting all the things that could allure *, clung to the true life [t], so that in the kingdom of God she deserved to gather the vintages of many branches. And her most sacred body was laid with divine praises in the stone chest which we mentioned above, and is honorably entombed in that very porch in which she gave herself over to the divine worship; where, by the healings that bear witness, how she is esteemed with God is most clearly proved thus far.

III.

[10] Now the aforesaid Bertger was of the company Bertger, renowned for virtues, dies and is buried. which blessed Ida had at first brought with her from Gaul, a man of religious converse and most blessed chastity; being indeed formed by the disciplines of those who had walked in the law of their God without reproach: who also for some years most strenuously tended, honored, and adorned that same church and its sacred shrines [u] with divine and human services. Of whom this too has been spread abroad by the mouths of the faithful, that among the other marks of his gravity he never consented that a woman should either dwell under his roof or serve for domestic uses: and therefore, fighting against the rival of chastity, he took care to guard against, nay to root out utterly, every approach of occasion. To whom also, for so great an innocence of heart, it is reported to have been granted by God to foreknow the last hour of his life: which is the more clear because on the very day on which he was to die he completed after his custom the Sacraments of the Mass, and presently, being sealed with the Lord's Viaticum, in his very priestly vestments before the holy altar he rendered his soul to the Creator, and was worthily buried near St. Ida's tomb: for that he obtained the fellowship of so healing a clay, perhaps some great merit of justice, which commended him, went before [x].

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Caraxare, an old word borrowed from the Greeks, means what "to express," "to delineate," etc.: whence Surius rightly substituted in its place delineabit.

q. That is, contemplative, from the Greek word θεωρία, meditation, contemplation.

r. Surius has: The redemption of a man's soul are his own riches.

s. By the sacred veil I understand the celibate and holy widowhood very like a solitary life. But Bucelin in the Benedictine Menology reckons her among the recluses of his own Order from this passage, as it seems, continuing thus about her at the IV of September: And from the death of her excellent husband, following the institute of our recluses, in the oratory which by an angel's command she had founded in honor of the Virgin of virgins, Queen of angels, and of St. Germanus, shutting herself in and as it were consigning herself to a prison, she never thereafter in all her life set foot outside the door of her cell, and wonderfully adorned her sacred veil with the various ornaments of the rarest virtues. Thus he. Schaten, cited above, book 9, page 591, writes that she after her husband's death shut herself up in a sacred convent with two of her kinswomen, Begga and Gertrude: but he either means this very porch or house adjoining the church, or contradicts Uffing without suitable testimony. And what he adds about Begga and Gertrude, I know not whence he drew it: certainly if he means the daughters of blessed Pippin, he plainly errs: for these had already a whole century before departed from this life. Certainly that cohabitation was unknown to Uffing: for since he commemorates at sufficient length the virtues and death of St. Ida's chaplain, he would not have passed over the pious companionship of her kinswomen Begga and Gertrude, whoever they may have been.

t. Surius has, more aptly to the present metaphor: she clung to the true vine.

u. He seems to mean reliquaries.

x. Gelenius adorns Bertger with the title of Blessed, in the work on the sacred and profane Greatness of Cologne, book 4, announcing thus at this day: Above the river Lippe, of blessed Ida, widow, princess of the Westphalians, and of her chaplain blessed Bertger, presbyter. With the same title he is honored in a certain manuscript sheet which I have, and which is entitled: A little index of the Saints of Westphalia. But Schaten denies his cult in the letter to Bolland brought forward above. Down to Uffing's times he certainly lacked the cult of the Blessed: which two things persuade me. The first is that the praised biographer nowhere calls him Blessed, as he would doubtless have called him if he had known of his cult, especially since Bertger's bones rested in a church subject to his own monastery. The other is these very words: He was worthily buried near St. Ida's tomb; for that he obtained the fellowship of so healing a clay (that is, body), perhaps some great merit of justice, which commended him, went before. For truly he would have abstained from that adverb of doubt, perhaps, or would at least have proved from a subsequent cult that Bertger was worthy of so honorable a burial, if sacred honors had at that time been paid to him.

Surius, exercitus* the same, præfectura* the same adds, comiti* the same, salvantis* Surius adds and quickened by the airy breeze* Surius, lethi* the same: illicita essent*

CHAPTER II.

The profanation of the Saint's sepulchre divinely prevented; the Hungarians try in vain to burn her church; various miracles wrought there.

IV.

But after this, when that place was possessed by others by hereditary succession, The corpse of a boy buried beside the Saint is three times divinely cast out. and through the negligence of those in charge had begun to grow obsolete in meanness, straightway the kindly Lord made known by a terrible event the merits of his holy handmaid Ida, for the chastisement of the wicked. For when the beloved offspring of the illustrious count Ludolph ^a was snatched from this light while still in the white robes ^b, he is carried to that same church, and, because the report of God's holy one had not yet shone forth openly, they buried that little boy beside her: who on the following day was found drawn out of the tomb before the door of the vestibule, in the coffin in which he had been enclosed. Astounded, those to whom the matter had been committed put the little body back again in its former place

*: which nonetheless they found cast out again at a distance by an invisible violence. With obstinate minds therefore, imputing their vain labor to illusions, they boldly ventured a third time: but they spent their strength in vain; because what by yesterday's labor had been closed up, they then saw torn out at the farthest corner of the southern court, where at last, punished with shame, they left it. By this altogether fearful portent it became clear in how great advancement blessed Ida enjoys in heaven, whose sepulchre God was jealous should be stained on earth by no foulness of fleshly corruption.

[12] At the time when the detestable nation of the Hungarians laid all things waste with fire-consuming flames ^c, [The Hungarians, having tried to burn the church and carry off the bells, leave their booty and flee in terror.] the wicked legion came also to the aforesaid oratory of St. Ida; they plundered the crosses and reliquaries and all the church furniture. Then, climbing to the higher parts, they built several fires in the panelled roof; but by the power of God the smothered coal could draw no increase of flames, except that, settling on a few boards, it ate through them, and through these without delay cast the half-burnt timbers down below ^d. Foiled in this attempt, with obstinate effort they attacked the bell-tower, meaning at least to take down the bells. But to these they ran in vain, because by no devices could they get them free: for these men, as it is written, know not how to live justly but always by rapine: they pass all the times of life under deceit. At last, their obstinacy vanquished and their strength unstrung, they suspected that there was there something of divine ^e power, and presently, desirous of flight alone, they bind wings to their feet. And what they had carried off by force was, after their scattering, brought back into the camp *, and honorably restored in its place to the inhabitants. Then the mouths of all break forth generally into the praises of the supreme Protector, since by so evident a token they see the protection of St. Ida present with them.

VI.

[13] While therefore a favorable report was sowing the rays of her sanctity more widely, and many had flocked to her tomb for a vow of obtaining health, it chanced that travelers arriving laid down their little bundles outside the porch, A woman who stole at the Saint's sepulchre pays a horrible penalty. so that, when each had more clearly examined what he had of his own to carry, he might afterwards be readier to go on. Now a certain poor woman among them, when she had begun to empty her bags, driven by the goads of covetousness, stole a shift ^f from her companion; and, not knowing how otherwise to hide it, had thrust it beneath her own dress, and mingled with those who were praying under a feigned show of religion. But she who had suffered the loss, running over everything with her eyes, quickly detected the guilty face, and began to accuse her before all as guilty of the crime. Then the unhappy woman, most like one out of her mind, wavers in doubt whither to turn, and thought flight the safest counsel. There is a throng of men where such an outcry is heard: and now that most wretched woman, the space for escape being taken away, leapt, at the point of death, upon the fence with which the churchyard was surrounded, and, being straightway pierced by a most sharp stake and disemboweled of all her entrails, there paid the penalty of the sacrilege committed, offering to all who should afterwards dare the like a fearful example. For she would have believed that such a deed would be expiated in a different way, if the severity of heaven had not been jealous not only of the crime but of the dishonoring of the place: for as from this there sprang a richer compunction in sensible minds, so on the other hand a greater confusion and shuddering ^g arose in the slothful and the rash.

VII.

[14] In the province of Drehin ^h there was a woman called Eggu , [A woman's withered hand, restored, withers again on account of a wicked pretense.] whose right hand was folded into the palm and almost dried up, and by such an infirmity she was disabled for many years. To her on a certain night it was said in a dream that she should shape and mold in wax the likeness of her half-dead hand, and carry it to the tomb of St. Ida, and there, according as she had hope of health, continue instant in prayers. She, at once understanding the course of the truth, began not slothfully to hasten the desired journey; the eagerness of her vow supplies nimbleness to her feet, and she burns by running to shorten the long paths. And when, coming in haste, she had with mournful sobs begged the help of healing, and had lighted lamps out of reverence for the Saints for whose sake and to whom she had come to pray, using a more wholesome counsel she obtained leave to pass the night there, and presently, according to the prophetic promise, by the help of God's holy one she received back entire the accustomed strength of her hand. But afterwards, feeling herself daily worn away by a sharper want, because formerly under the pretext of beggary she had been wont to obtain not only alms but gain, being entangled in diabolical snares she left the neighboring country, and where she could not easily be recognized she by a wicked pretense feigns a crooked hand. Nor did such deceits escape the Lord, the avenger of such evil, by whose just examination a voluntary fraud does not pass unpunished: for presently, cheated of her fresh gift, she is brought back to her former state of deformity — as before of itself, so then by compulsion. Assuredly with an equal recompense is such obstinacy weighed, so that she who feared to become poorer by God's gift afterwards experienced a double ⁱ poverty.

VIII.

[15] There was also brought to the same place another woman horribly afflicted with the sickness of dropsy, A dropsical woman healed. who swelled with a belly so distended that she could scarcely be carried through any door ^k, the mass of her body hindering. Entering therefore the sacred building with great difficulty, those who had carried her thither keep the night watches there with her and for her, beating the sepulchre with tears and the heavens with prayers. Not yet had the following dawn shone, and all the deadly humor flowed out of that most foul pool, and the flood, poured forth, drenched the whole pavement, as though water were being upset from a great tomb. She, her skin at once loosened and her belly emptied, was made so light as though she had never endured the burden of so huge a load: she then returned home more joyful than her wont, who once, loathing this light, hung scarcely on the last edge of death; nor was she thereafter troubled by such a suffering, through the merits of St. Ida.

IX.

[16] There is a small village in Nordergoa ^l called Seudinon, [A nun, warned by an angel, is freed at the Saint's tomb from a long-standing paralysis.] where a certain nun named Werensnidis was held in honorable repute among her own. She was for five years anxiously tormented with a paralysis from the failure of the joints of her limbs, and wherever the necessity of the roads brought her for the sake of healing, she was wont to be carried in a blanket ^m or in some other litter. To her it was also commanded by an angelic oracle in a vision ⁿ to seek the health-bringing threshold of the venerable Ida, and to have no distrust of her health being restored, faith accompanying her. Greatly gladdened by this revelation, she at once summoned her brother and all the kinsfolk she could, briskly sets forth what counsel the prophecy had given her, and eagerly begs that they would quickly assist her longed-for journey. All favor her suggestions; she is brought to the place fruitful in signs, and they spent that day and night wakeful in the zeal of prayer: but when day now seemed to whiten, her former strength began gradually to revive through her veins, the knitting of her fibres joins together her severed limbs, and the whole order of her members returns anew. Then, the celebration of Mass being begun, she received such strength that she could by herself hand the offerings to the priest and hold the psalter in her own hands. Presently so astounding a miracle went abroad publicly; a chorus is raised by both sexes together, and the more eagerly the more they visibly recognized the suffrages of God's holy Handmaid. The woman returns with unaccustomed step to her carriage (for she was of the nobility), and a little while after grew perfectly well, fully recovered.

[17] In the district of Paderargoa ^o a certain man was exceedingly troubled with the affliction of a headache [p]; A deaf man receives hearing, by whose intolerable assault he had been deprived of the use of his hearing through the whole space of ten years. Him in sleep, as it seemed to him, a woman of comely form and snowy raiment addresses, who kindly taught him to make a wooden cross on which the image of his head should be fixed, and to carry it, with the faithful most friendly to him, to the often-mentioned oratory for his restoration. Awakened from sleep, it did not displease him to perform what was bidden, and with a faithful company, whom the fame that publishes healings had persuaded, he began to bend his course thither. And now, having passed the point that halved the journey, the deafness of his left ear indeed is unlocked, while the other was still shut in its former insensibility. Daring by this wonderful token to hope for better things, they accomplished the rest of the way singing Kyrie eleison. Meanwhile the throng of singers reaches the court: when behold, his right ear suddenly cracked, as if a dry twig were suddenly broken, so that those standing near, dulled with amazement, guessed that he would there quickly fall into the last peril of his life. From which cracking presently a wasting humor began to flow from his ear, and all the corruption departed, until, the venomous fluid being wholly discharged, he is again given his hearing restored, having experienced in himself, by true events, the truth of the dream's assurance. This miracle certainly not merely some rare onlooker but almost all the common folk who flocked in solemn procession to the church knew to have been shown for the declaring of blessed Ida's merits.

XI.

[18] There agrees with the foregoing miracles that also which, under Bilo, the religious presbyter of the aforesaid oratory, flew to our knowledge by the mouths of many. a blind woman receives sight. At a certain time, when very many had flocked in crowds to the same dedicated relics, a woman blind in her eyes was also present, who prayed the more intently beyond the rest, the greater the loss of visible things by which she was afflicted. And when the celebration of Mass was going on about the third hour, she began with great entreaties to ask those standing round to make the priest come to her: and when he was at once brought, the woman thus questions him: "Is it so, I think — or does my sight deceive me — that thou art now clothed with an alb and a stole?" He affirmed that it was truly as she had said: but she: "And I say that for the space of twenty years I have not deserved to see such whiteness of raiment, nor any color at all. But now, through the patronage of these Saints, I can see the people here present." When she repeated these things, all held their mouths, intent; and behold, bloody tears flowing drop by drop over her cheeks stained her whole face, and the degenerate film fled from the new light. So then, having obtained the sharpest eyesight in such a manner, she rendered all who were present witnesses both of blessed Ida's sanctity and of her own health.

XII.

[19] On the coming of a certain most sacred solemnity of Pentecost, A youth is seized by a demon and set free. when a crowd more thronging than usual frequents that place yearly, while at Mass the holy Gospel was being read, a most savage demon with hostile daring violently invaded one of the youths in the crowd, and in the sight of all tormented him with horrible convulsions and gruntings. Him presently no small press of young men with great difficulty held until the Mass was ended, and, though he struggled with great efforts, they dragged him to the aforesaid healing sepulchre. Then the priest admonished the people to flee to the known helps, and to implore the faithful patronage of St. Ida. Presently there is a continual insistence of prayers: the shout strikes the heavens: nor was there ceasing from the work begun until the most foul robber left Christ's bondman and, chattering, poured himself away into the empty shadows. For what, as it is written, is the fellowship of light with darkness, and what the familiarity

of a vessel of iniquity with a place of holiness? Hence let the wise sagacity of the faithful weigh with how great an eminence of dignity her spirit is endowed among those above, whose ashes powerfully drove diabolical obstinacy from its seats.

XIII.

[20] At another time also there is carried in a cart to those same relics a woman named Werinhilt, A bent woman is made upright; who with contracted sinews was so bowed down that her breast seemed to cleave to her knees: her feet too, in a deformed fashion, she had turned backward: whence she offered a pitiable spectacle to those who saw her. When there she had wearied her body's spent strength by most intense supplication, at the coming of dawn, when now the tops of the groves had begun to redden with the lamp of Phœbus, she is suddenly raised upright by divine power and restored to the most entire health. The pilgrim woman marvels, walking with new footsteps, and, having found there an occasion of staying, she settled down for no small time to labor in the service of St. Ida.

XIV.

[21] another receives the use of her legs, lost through a long infirmity: There is a city in Saxony which is called Sosatium [q], noble for the multitude of the people dwelling in it: where also a woman sprung of the nation of the Slavs is reported to dwell [r], who through three whole years endured such feebleness from the knees downward that her barren limbs seemed already to grow cold from long infirmity. The wretched woman dragged along the ground a useless weight, and, deprived of her own steps, used the support of two staves in place of feet. She, when she learned that the renown of Christ's most blessed Handmaid was spreading far and wide like the rays of the sun and would profit in all kinds of necessities, being herself also desirous of her own healing, taking wax candles with her, came not without the greatest labor to the appointed place. Her little gifts being offered, therefore, she began, crawling on her hands, to reach for the sacred clay, and with frequent wailings to beat her panting breast: whose vows the divine medicine straightway favored and fulfilled; and what the compassion of the pitiable woman wrung from his chosen Handmaid , God received with a favorable ear: for rising from her prayer she stood with firm ankles, and the natural color revisited her reviving skin, and all her limbs rejoice in their ancient strength. In this excellent manner, having obtained her desire, she rendered worthy thanks to Christ her deliverer, the swiftest efficacy of whose healing she obtained by the healing merits of blessed Ida: and the staves on which she had once leaned she hung up before the doors of the church as a memorial to publish the thing to posterity, and ran back rejoicing to her own home.

XV.

[22] Nor do we think that miracle should be covered with silence, a man horribly crippled is healed. which the confirmed assertion of the faithful, by common report, has transmitted even to us. Not many days after this, a wretched and pitiable man is carried to the above-mentioned tomb, capacious of signs, whose face bent down to the ground even to his knees after the manner of beasts, his other limbs being fit for no use. The loss of this disfigurement he bore in obscurity for several years, displayed to mortals as a portent horrible to see. He too, being laid at the healing tomb, with his mouth — which alone he could use — and with his understanding there mournfully bewailed the bereavement of his condition, and exhorted those whose minds the anguish of his brokenness had softened for God's sake to do the same. His mournful entreaty and the dire dishonoring of his enfeebled body move the beholders: they pour out prayers by families, each the more fruitful the more compunctious of heart; and so all appeal for one man to one God. And when such little prayers had been offered, the fruitful clemency of God did not delay to bestow healing on the destitute man through his holy Novice, who while she lived never ceased * to bow her neck to the Lord's commands. For the zeal of entreaty being finished, while each began to rise up from the pavement, his body, as he himself asserted, grew warm with a certain inward vital infusion, and the health he had asked ran gently through his limbs. Anointed suddenly with this poultice unknown to all, he resumed unaccustomed strength, and the human frame of his limbs is graced with flexibility: until little by little he began to raise himself and to see the sky, and at the same time to lift his upright face toward the stars. Great praises of thanksgiving therefore being paid to God his savior, he returned home unhurt to his own huts [s].

ANNOTATIONS.

p. It is a certain grievous humor of the head: otherwise κεφαλαλγία, pain of the head.

q. It is a city in the circle of Westphalia in the county of Mark, called by the natives Soest.

r. This manner of speaking seems to hint that this woman was still surviving when Uffing wrote.

s. Du Cange interprets magalia as a city, and says it is derived from the Punic magal, that is, a new farm: here it seems to denote huts or a village.

perhaps, abdiderunt* Surius: they were found in the camp* the same: experiendæ* add non* perhaps crederetur* Surius: Eggua* * i.e. leave elsewhere inclinis* perhaps by divine force: Surius has, upon her knees* the same, Vernula* citissima* read nulli* read eos* read destitit*

CHAPTER III.

The church with the Saint's tomb given in perpetuity to the monastery of Werden; her cult flourishes again: a sacristan's negligence is divinely rebuked; the tomb, which of itself emerged from the earth, is made illustrious by miracles. The translation of the body, and the appointing of its yearly festival.

Book II. Chapter I.

Of this blessed Matron of God, therefore, various miracles at various times shone forth, supported by the noting down of truthful witnesses, By the negligence and greed of her ministers the Saint's cult was diminished; which lie open to be believed by hearers or even by readers the more clearly, the more the visible healings by their continual recurrence more attentively commend her. For we do not believe that in earlier times she took a holiday from the relieving of the afflicted, although very many things have been withdrawn from our knowledge, which, as we mentioned above, the insolence of those presbyters covered over by silence; who set their minds most greedily not on the place but on what was bestowed on the place. For the folly of certain men grew to this, that, valuing the little building of the sacred dust ^a at nothing, they made it rather a storehouse for their own profits ^b, and, almost every observance of decency being cast off, each man, consulting his own affairs, allowed his mind to wander to other things. Yet we have heard that the detestable insolence of some was punished with a fitting retribution: but that this negligence grew in the years near her falling asleep, no faithful man who does not appear a rival of her virtues can doubt ^c: for from the time when that precious treasure was there laid up, until the times of our venerable brother Hoger ^d, under king Arnulf ^e, that place was assigned to the right of the most excellent duke Odo ^f, who was the great-grandfather of this most serene Augustus Otto ^g.

[24] From whom that same venerable abbot exchanged that royal court ^h, other possessions being given in return, according to the royal usage; [but under abbot Hoger, her church being given to the men of Werden, it flourished again.] and thereafter it is seen to endure perpetually to the present in the property of our abbey, that is, of St. Ludger ⁱ. From that time, by the diligence of our men, the holy hiding-place was more zealously tended, and, the squalor of the former sloth being cleansed away, he took care to add honor to its straitened estate. Then too the bestowal of healings, long since interrupted, returned with an omen desired by many; and as many as the report of this gift had drawn thither, with the Lord's favor, departed thence eagerly by the way they came. But to set forth all the things which we have heard were wrought in that place by blessed Ida's help is not within our power, either easily to comprehend in mind or fitly to plough out with a goose-quill *: for they exceed number: since we have inserted into this little work a few out of many, sufficient only for our unskillfulness, who, being wholly ignorant of the rhetorical antidote, scarcely deserve to be fed even on the rustic fare of a tasteless boorishness. But so far as is in us, it is assuredly the gift of him from whom begins to be all that tends to not-being; helped by whose grace we shall strive to recount the remaining miracles, as we can and as we truly perceive them.

II.

[25] The matter which we try to set forth is said to have happened in those days when the aforesaid Bilo

had not yet been promoted to the priesthood and had undertaken the discipleship ^k of the church of Herzfeld, The keeper of the church is divinely rebuked for profaning holy places. whom we know to have sweated in devout services in the bosom of that place as long as he lived. For from his earliest youth he took delight in a great love of it, and according to the measure of his powers he spent there whatever of seemliness he could. On Saturdays too and on the chief vigils of the other festivals he was accustomed to sweep the church, to veil the altars, to light the candles, and to strew sweet-smelling herbs. Him, while he diligently persisted in obedience of this kind, on a certain night in sleep the figure of an unknown person addresses in these words with moderation: "I approve indeed that thou hast acted well and profitably in this, that thou greatly servest the ordering of the church's furnishings: but thy foolish rashness is much to be reproved in this, that the heaps of sweepings and refuse carried out of the church thou pourest out beside the tombs of the Saints, and presumest to profane the health-giving ground with miry filth. Beware therefore, if thou wilt take counsel for thy salvation; and let no dishonoring be done there henceforth." That he was blameworthy of this sin he himself publicly confessed, and affirmed with an oath that he had been reproved by such a saying. Thereafter he cautiously avoided what was forbidden, and gave himself in future more amended at the warnings of him who threatened. Hence let the kindly reader diligently consider with how great a shearing of severity he must be punished who presumptuously strives to dishonor sacred monuments, if he charges guilt ^l even upon this man, who through sloth, not through malice, so far as we may conjecture, undertook incautiously to handle the places adjoining them. It is clearly brought about that the Lord keeps all the bones of the Saints, since honor abides for them on earth, and in God's kingdom their names and praises shall abide without the dread of death.

III.

[26] A certain woman of Saxony was the mother of a pitiable offspring, [An infant, his twisted face being restored, is bound over to the service of St. Ida:] whose face from the first birth was bent back to the shoulders and held fast in an unturnable stiffness, presenting the likeness rather of some monster than of a man. This portentous deformity brought very mournful sighs to the anxious mother; and she judged it a more tolerable evil never to have borne a child than to have lived with cares ever growing to increase. But hearing of the grace of the healings which the Lord mercifully imparts to the sick through St. Ida, she hastily went to her Lady, set forth the event of her misfortune, and with groaning asked that by her help she might accomplish the journey she desired. That lady obeyed her requests, and whither the choice of the anxious woman urged, she brought with her the woman with her twisted child; and, prayer being first made, the lady herself set the little infant upon the altar, saying these words with springing tears: "If thy intervention with God, O blessed Ida, deigns to obtain the restoring of this little boy *, I forthwith give him over by perpetual right to be bound to thy service [m]." Prayer accompanied this promise at once, and a hearing accompanied the prayer: for within the space of that very hour, all looking on, the infant's little neck is bent back with a sudden turn, and his face, set in its own state, is becomingly adorned, showing thenceforth no marks of the former loss. Presently there was no less haste in fulfilling their vows than acclamation in rendering praises to God: and returning home with happy success, they rejoiced to spread abroad on every side the mighty works of God.

IV.

[27] It happened also at a certain time that another young man was brought thither, whose right leg with the foot was so turned backward that he could in no wise set it down to the ground. To the heap of this misery he suffered no small affliction of his left side, a young man, freed from a contracted leg, binds himself to her service. and being on this account destitute of almost all hope of health, he carried about not only his weakness but even the useless weight of the limb for a support. He too, being set by the pious solicitude of his parents before the venerable urn, bound himself by a vow taken with the common consent of all, that if by blessed Ida's intervention he were in any way granted the ability to walk, he would not delay to claim himself for her service by right of ownership; for he was born of free stock ⁿ. These conditions being first made, after long prayer, the foot pressed into a wrong position seemed gradually to slip back; the long-standing binding of the bone too is loosened, and the whole frame of his side, anointed with vital warmth, is quickened to its former vigor. And afterwards in the course of time, as his health increased, he grew so strong that, though still limping with his foot, he could plant his step by himself, and not long after, without the support of a staff, he began to be carried by that which he had before carried, and looked on his bearer with a kindly gaze: and not unmindful of his promise, for the health he had recovered he submitted his free neck in that same place to serve the Saints, and resolved to spend his whole life's age in blessed Ida's service.

[28] The astounding mighty works of the supreme Giver, by which he glorifies his churchmen upon earth, [God, who blesses all the Saints in heaven, willed to enlarge St. Ida's glory on earth,] seem very perplexing to set down worthily, and, so far as human capacity knows by sense, they recoil from every reckoning of scorn at the first front of admiration. For if the brightness of manifold worldly eloquence should pour out all the store of its songs, it does not suffice to polish in words their temporal glory — how much less will it be able to penetrate the forest of their perfection ^o? It escapes human knowledge how great a multitude of heavenly sweetness is prepared for those who love God and worship him in truth. Among the countless thousands of Saints too whom orthodox religion venerates throughout the fourfold world, a far more numerous throng is reckoned of those who are withdrawn from the knowledge of mortals and are enlightened by the gaze of their Rewarder alone. Nor yet is the least hair of them held in contempt with God: for although some, more than others, on account of the obscurity of their fame, enjoy unequally an unequal honor, yet all alike are exalted among the stars in an equal [p] eternity.

[29] Hence the Lord did not suffer his handmaid blessed Ida to be hidden away under the mound of earth; while her stone tomb of itself emerged from the earth: but he resolved to make the lamp hidden under a bushel a most welcome spectacle to many, so that, set in a more eminent place, it might spread abroad from afar still wider rays of sanctity. That is, the stone chest in which the venerable remains had been laid up and committed to the earth began by a certain invisible motion to emerge upward, and, as though disdaining the violence of the earthy mass, struggled from within against what pressed upon it, and so through several years, breaking forth by degrees, showed itself plainly to beholders, until, being wholly separated from the ground, it settled entire upon the surface of the pavement: for the earth found no fit lodging for so great a deposit, whence also it could not endure its fellowship. But if this matter, as though feigned — which God forbid — silently troubles anyone , we call God to witness that we have seen very many in this light who testify that in their boyhood the topmost peak only of the lid had appeared, and that afterwards it had grown out to that which is now seen: but if he will not even so give credit to this attestation, behold, by God's grace what is said is at hand. If his ears refute it *, let him prove these things by the evidence of his eyes, and by proving learn to become believing. Let us therefore marvel at and undoubtingly venerate not a fortuitous but an essential mercy of the Lord, from whose prevenient grace so fruitful an olive sprang up among us: for no one interprets these and like things otherwise unless he pursues the losses of his own soul.

VI.

[30] The miracles being in some part recounted by which blessed Ida's most health-giving sanctity became known to the neighboring peoples, [moved by which and by other prodigies, the bishop of Münster, at the entreaty of the abbot of Werden,] we think it not unfitting to insert briefly into this our little history something about the translation of the sacred relics, so that from the same source from which the advancement of the blessed dust is made surer, a richer religion may grow for the hearers: for the very slender little spark of our knowledge shall not be without a share of her praises, whom for the protection of many the heavenly clemency brought from the western parts of the world [q] into these lands: to whose inexhaustible bounty it is likewise rightly imputed that such a pearl was found in the Saxon fields, and that he deigned to enrich so lowly a plain in situation with most precious pledges. When by the little reports of such wonders she had won the minds of very many, the knowledge of the matter came also to the most reverend Dodo [r], prelate of the Church of Mimigardeford. He, rejoicing at such great goods, that these things above all should have come to pass either in his times or in a place subject to his care, rendered boundless thanks to God, the maker of all: whence, as report of these things daily grew more famous, it seemed good to our elder Ludolph [s] to approach that illustrious bishop with entreaties, that he would deign to translate the bones of blessed Ida from the tomb into the church and to perform the consecration of her basilica. The effectiveness of this exhortation was nonetheless helped by the kindly diligence of our brother Hugh [t], to whom at that time the management of our affairs in those parts had been enjoined, who also nobly enlarged that restoration [u]. And when the truth of this news first became known to the parishioners, namely that God's chosen Novice was to be carried into her oratory, flocking thither in heaps they desired to be present at the reverend rites.

VII.

[31] Then the said prelate, kindly assenting to their requests, [raises the sacred bones, sweetly fragrant, from the coffin and solemnly places them on the altar,] coming on the appointed day, revisited the most sacred sepulchre, and there, prayer being poured out, most intently committed what he had purposed to begin to Christ the supreme counsellor: then, adorned with the pontifical insignia, he approaches the sacred tomb, a white-robed company of the lower order accompanying him. Where he first admonished our elder and all who stood by to call together upon God, the origin of all goodness, that he would deign to show the effect of his will in the beginning of this deed; for although he in no wise hesitated about the merits of God's holy one, yet, using his accustomed prudence, he wished to do nothing of himself inconsiderately or out of order. This supplication being first made, with the equal consent and desire of all he commanded the marble lid to be removed: and while they hastened to obey, presently a most sweet fragrance belching forth from the monument sprinkled the bystanders with an odorous delight; so that all clearly felt that it had been sent from heaven for blessed Ida's merit. Which being done, the bishop, having kissed the sacred remains, raised them with all honor from the sarcophagus and carefully laid them in a shrine fitted for their reception, while the monks and clerics meanwhile earnestly chanted psalms and the litany. Then, with crosses, candles, and censers going before, with the sweet song of those who sang, the kindly pontiff with our elder took up the holy bier [w] to be carried, and placed it honorably upon the altar in the church. There too he briefly recited to the people some things about blessed Ida's holiness, and presently, as he himself raised the Te Deum laudamus*, all things resounded with the answering chant of the people's praise.

VIII.

[32] But that the veneration of the sacred pledges might be more widely celebrated somewhere, the said pontiff took some particles of them for himself, [keeps some relics for himself, grants others to the abbot: dedicates a part of the church to St. Ida, and institutes the feast of the translation.] and certain others the lord abbot conveyed to our monastery [x], all of which we, clothed in sacred vestments, received on the day before [y] the Kalends of December with a great display of honor [z]. These things being thus accomplished, the venerable

prelate consecrated the southern structure of the church, that is, the tower, in honor of the holy Mother of God, Mary, and under the name of blessed Ida, and appointed to all who dwelt in the neighborhood that the day of the translation and of the dedication should always be solemnly kept as a holy day in its yearly recurrence. When with such fitness of things he had strenuously prepared everything, permitting the people, fortified with the episcopal blessing, to go home, he too departed thence joyful with his own. These things were done in the year of the Lord's Incarnation nine hundred and eighty, on the sixth of the Kalends of December [aa], on the fourth weekday [bb], in the eighth Indiction, in the reign of the most victorious Cæsar Otto, in the twentieth year from that in which he began to reign with the elder Augustus his father, of blessed memory, and in the eighth year from that in which he alone obtained the imperial monarchy [cc], above all things reigning the eternal prince our Lord Jesus Christ, the authority of whose empire governs the reins of the whole world by his sole will, and is by all created things celebrated, praised, and adored throughout all ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. These things are true if they are taken of the duration of eternity and of essential glory alone; false if they are said of accidental glory.

q. That is, Neustria.

r. Dodo is reckoned the tenth bishop of Mimigardeford or Münster, both in the Catalogue of the bishops of the aforesaid diocese by Matthæus Tympius and in the Chronicle of Münster of Arnold of Bevergern in Anton Matthaeus's Analecta of the old age. The former speaks thus to our purpose: Dodo carried the torch before his people both in life and in doctrine … and with Ludolph, abbot of Werden, in the year CMVIII he raised from a lowly tomb the bones of blessed Ida, renowned for manifold miracles, and laid them in a worthy place in the church of Herzfeld, which he himself (read she herself) had once piously built. Note however that the year 908 is faultily set down for 980, perhaps through the negligence of the compositors (which in Arabic figures has happened more than once).

s. The list praised above numbers Ludolph fourteenth among the abbots of Werden. Bucelin agrees in the Work cited above, part 2, page 312: Ludolph, fourteenth abbot of Werden, a noble Frisian, a man of the highest devotion and piety. He in the year CMLXXX, with Dodo bishop of Münster, raised from the earth the body of St. Ida, widow, in our church of Herzfeld near the river Lippe, and honorably placed it on the altar.

t. The praised Bucelin names Hugh as parish priest of Herzfeld: These things were done, he says, … under the aforesaid abbot of Werden, Ludolph, and Hugh, monk of the monastery of Werden, pastor of the church of Herzfeld. And he cites Uffing and Cincinnius, so that that management which Uffing relates was committed to Hugh included also the pastoral care.

u. In Surius it is: who also nobly enlarged the same church with no small restoration.

w. Namely on which the sacred relics of Ida had been laid.

x. Bucelin, cited above, has this about this translation of the relics: Whose (St. Ida's) holy head was at that same time translated thence with solemn procession and great reverence to Werden. On the contrary, in the manuscript little index of the Saints of Westphalia I read this: Her (St. Ida's) sacred head is kept at Liesborn in the monastery. Which of the two monasteries possesses this sacred treasure I have not ascertained; yet the sayings, seemingly opposed to each other, can conveniently be reconciled if we say that one part of the sacred head is kept in the monastery of Werden and the other at Liesborn. Certainly, if we must stand by the biographer's words, the whole head does not appear to have been translated at that time to Werden; since he relates that only some particles of St. Ida's body were carried thither by the abbot: and this manner of speaking would be used only ineptly of so notable a part of the body as the head is.

y. Surius reads: at the Kalends of December.

z. By these words he hints that he himself was present at the receiving of the relics.

aa. Hence gather why in the title of chapter 1 of the old division it is said: whose feast is kept on the sixth of the Kalends of December.

bb. So it is also noted in the edition of Surius, but in both places, as it seems, faultily, for in the year 980, Indiction VIII, the VI of the Kalends of December fell on the sixth weekday, not the fourth.

cc. This twofold epoch of Otto II agrees with the year of Christ assigned and with the Indiction, if you take the beginning of the former not from the time when he was taken by his father into partnership of the empire, but from the time when he was taken by him into partnership of the kingdom of Germany. For from the year of Christ 961, in which, on Pagi's testimony in the Critica, being made king of Germany he began to reign with his father, to the year 980 on the sixth of the Kalends of December, the twentieth year was running. Again, the same Otto II, his father having died on the Nones of May of the year 973, obtained the empire alone: and so in the year 980, on the sixth of the Kalends of December, the eighth year had already begun in which he alone governed the reins of the empire. And that this twofold epoch is so used by Uffing is plain from the very terms which he uses: for by to reign he indicates the kingdom of Germany, and by the imperial monarchy the empire. These things I have thought should be noted, lest anyone from Pagi and others should charge Uffing with error. For Pagi binds to the year of Christ 980 the eighth and the fourteenth year of Otto II: but he begins the later epoch from the year 967, in which, his father living, he was crowned emperor: for the rest, Uffing's statements agree excellently with Pagi's reckonings.

* i.e. with a pen scopare* (to sweep) Surius better, censura* * i.e. of a little child * namely the staff read portatorem* Surius, electos* the same better, indagationis* * i.e. to lie hid Surius interposed æmulatio* Surius, illum* * i.e. commended