ON ST. NOTBURGA, HANDMAID AND VIRGIN, IN THE CASTLE OF ROTTENBURG IN THE COUNTY OF TYROL,
A PREVIOUS COMMENTARY.
Notburga, handmaid and virgin, in the castle of Rottenburg in the county of Tyrol. (S.)
BY J. P.
§ I. A Synopsis of the deeds of the Saint, little known among published writers before the seventeenth century, and the antiquity of that Synopsis.
Silence about the Saint among published authors The more certain is the ancient and uninterrupted cult of this holy Virgin down to our own times, and the more illustrious the veneration of the people of Tyrol and of the neighboring parts toward her, the more wonderful is the silence about her and her deeds in the Lucubrations published by German writers down to the seventeenth century. Whence it came about that she remained unknown not only to foreign writers until the said century, but even after it became known to few, or at least was neglected or passed over by those very men who compiled the most ample catalogues of Saints and Blessed of both sexes collected from everywhere — Ferrari, Castellano, and the like. At last one occurs, Arthur du Moustier, who deigned to honor her with the title of Blessed, and transferred her with an elogium into his Gynæceum on the sixteenth day of the month of November; and he chose this day, I think, because in Matthew Rader, presently to be cited, he perceived the Acts of St. Notburga, from which he abridged his elogium, placed immediately after the Acts of St. Leopold, Margrave of Austria, whose annual memory recurs in the Calendars on the fifteenth day of November; and because documents were lacking from which he might learn the Saint's feast day among the Tyrolese.
[2] before the seventeenth century; the Tyrolese of today But God, who had made known the sanctity of his Handmaid by various prodigies before and after her death, has increased her splendor in this eighteenth century with so many miracles and with so many benefits granted at the Saint's invocation, that the Tyrolese of today, roused by them, have lately labored in emulation of one another, and, with plainly happy success, continue to labor, to repair whatever neglect there was on their forefathers' part, and to communicate to foreign nations that veneration toward their Countrywoman which has now grown immense among them. All these things will be clear both in this previous Commentary and in the treatise on the Saint's posthumous Glory to be subjoined to the Acts, where in the course of it we shall review writings recently published, and shall produce manuscript instruments and other aids necessary for proving her ancient and present cult, transmitted to us from there with remarkable benevolence and solicitous zeal.
[3] Matthew Rader, cited at number 1, a native of Innichen in Tyrol, after Rader and a few others make it good. and a priest of our Society, was the first of all whom I know to make public the Life of St. Notburga, or Nuppurga, or, as others write, Notburgis, in volume 3 of Bavaria Sancta, published in print about the year 1627, collected, as he indicates in two places, from the documents of Franz Gosen and Hippolyt Guarinoni, of whose age and authority we must treat below. Then followed Andreas Brunner, a native of Hall likewise in Tyrol, and a priest of the same Society, who in the third part of the Annals of Bavaria, published in print in the year 1637, gave a compendium of the Life taken from Rader. The same was done by Johann Adlzreiter, chancellor of the privy council of Bavaria, in the new collection of the Annals of Bavaria, published about the year 1662. Besides those hitherto named, we knew no writers who could be of help to us in elucidating the Saint's Acts, nor were there any manuscript instruments available suitable for the same end.
[4] Until at length in the year 1736 the most distinguished Anton Roschmann, Several instruments sent to us from there, licentiate of both Laws, prefect of the public library of his sacred Imperial and Royal Majesty, and under-keeper of the secret archives, sent to us from Innsbruck a Relation, printed in the German tongue, concerning the elevation of the sacred body performed in the year 1735, to be set forth more fully later. And in the letter attached to the relation he gave hope that, after searching the archives, he would furnish very many papers and ancient and recent documents, most useful both for elucidating the Life and for describing her posthumous Glory. And this he carried out most fully; inasmuch as his kindness was so great that it did not suffice him merely to transmit a good many bare documents, but he moreover deigned to prefix learned observations to them, to put into Latin not a few things composed in another tongue, and to illustrate most of them with historical, geographical, diplomatic, and critical Notes. We indeed do not give these here in a single unbroken course, because we have set ourselves another order; yet we shall try to use the studies and labors of that most distinguished man in our usual way, so that the reader may easily discern what is his and what is ours — although we gladly acknowledge that these latter too are owed to him, since in these things also he has everywhere carried the torch before us.
[5] Among the instruments already mentioned the first place is claimed by the synopsis of the Life, and first a synopsis of the Life, which, as it was transmitted in Latin by the said Roschmann, I judged should be printed here entire before I should discuss the place whence it was taken, its age, and its authority. It runs thus: There was once a nobleman; he had a God-fearing, pious maidservant, who was called by her name Notburga: she was his dear cook, and gave to the poor very willingly, without loss to her master, the food left over from the table; this greatly moved the lady's bile, who ordered these leavings to be carried to the sty for feeding the swine. As Notburga was taking the food with her and preparing to go to the house of the needy, her master meets her and asks: Notburga, what are you carrying? Whereupon she answered out of fear: I am carrying splinters of wood: and when he had looked, the thing appeared to him no otherwise. Notburga, returning home, was very badly received by the mistress.
[6] Afterward the mistress died, and came every night into the sty presently after the Saint's death, and grunted like a swine; then the master wished exorcisms to be applied: afterward she answered, I have sinned mightily, because I ordered the food to be mixed with the swine's swill and withdrew it from the needy. After this Notburga hired out her labor to a peasant, expressly reserving to herself that on the eve of a feast day she should abstain from work before evening; and it happened that on a Saturday they were reaping wheat in the field, when it was the eve of a feast. Notburga hung up her sickle and departed, prayed, and performed her domestic work as before; and when she departed from the peasant, he failed in body and in goods.
[7] as is believed, Afterward the nobleman took another wife, and hired Notburga again, and says to her: Notburga, what you did before, do the same still. Then Notburga asked her master that, when she should die, he would yoke two oxen to a wagon, lay her body upon it, and let them go where they would, and whither they should draw her, and where they should halt, there she should be given burial: and when she had died, this was done. Then the two oxen carried the body across the Inn and over a high mountain, and halted; there she was buried: and that nobleman caused a church to be built at his own cost to the praise of Almighty God under the name of holy Notburga. Renewed by Johann Walck, sprung from the lordship of Kufstein, and at this time serving the provincial court of record of Rattenberg, who offered this to this honorable church in honor of St. Notburga in the year of the Lord 1615.
[8] inscribed on a tablet and fastened to the altar. That this synopsis of the Life, inscribed on a little tablet, hung in her church from the first times after St. Notburga's death and lay open to the eyes of all, Roschmann notes in his manuscript Notices, and after a few words continues thus: Although that tablet has often been transcribed out of devotion (as appears from the last copy), and in certain words, perhaps antiquated, has been somewhat changed, yet it doubtless embraced the chief matters, although through its brevity more than once labored and involved. In the meantime, however, this notice does not seem to be despised, especially since it is by no means dissonant from the fuller Acts. Then, after a few words which we shall report below, he says that the vernacular style of the tablet — German, that is, in which tongue it was drawn up — is not repugnant to the first times after the Saint's burial; and that for greater credit, as he says, he has transmitted it hither just as he found it written out on parchment on the twenty-first day of April in the year 1735, together with the Latin interpretation already given, accommodated to the simpler German style.
[9] A difficulty against so great an antiquity of the tablet, We do not touch here on the several matters narrated in the tablet and, according to the said author, more than once labored and involved through their brevity; for these will gradually unfold of themselves from what is to be said in the course of the work. Yet since the discussion is chiefly about its antiquity and authority, the last period of it demands some brief examination: That nobleman (this was Henry, lord of Rottenburg, of whom more also in the course of the work) caused a church to be built to the praise of Almighty God under the name of holy Notburga at his own
cost — namely about the year 1313, which is everywhere set down as the Saint's year of death, or at least a little after the said year. For in this period Guarinoni, the author of the longer Life to be mentioned in the next §, judges that a manifest error lurks, and from that same period he forms an argument against so great an antiquity of the tablet; and that you may rightly perceive it, two things must be observed in passing.
[10] formed by a certain person, is set forth. The first is — and this according to Guarinoni himself, according to Rader, Roschmann, and all others, is most certain — that Henry, lord of Rottenburg, in his own castle, immediately after the holy Virgin's death, caused a chapel to be built on the very spot where her chamber had formerly stood. The second is, and according to the same authors no less certain, that the chapel of Eben (by this name is called the place where the Saint was buried across the Inn, and where the tablet was hung up) had been consecrated to St. Rupert, bishop of Salzburg; and they hold that nothing was changed in its very narrow structure until the fifteenth century, when, all the lords of Rottenburg being now extinct — these are Guarinoni's words — by the money of pious persons, as the autograph letters which survive show, a new church was built, and, its name being changed, was dedicated to the memory of St. Notburga in the year 1434, on the Friday within the Octave of the Assumption of Mary, as is expressly read in the letters of consecration, which we shall give entire and examine when we discuss her Posthumous Glory; these things suffice for the present matter.
[11] These things being so laid down, Guarinoni first rightly warns that the words of the tablet cannot be understood of the church of St. Notburga at Eben; it is examined, but then, proceeding further, he thus concludes: From which it appears that this writing was first fastened up in the new church, and was composed after its building, without sufficiently careful examination: for the author confounded the chapel built in his own castle by the lord of Rottenburg with the little shrine of St. Rupert, that is, took and wrote one for the other. The first admonition of Guarinoni the most distinguished Roschmann adopted, as he ought, in his Observations; but he asserts that he cannot assent to his other clause, which otherwise would not a little oppose the tablet's antiquity and authority, and judges that all confusion is absent from its last period, and that the author in it truly meant to designate, not the church of St. Notburga at Eben, although the tablet is fastened to its altar, but the chapel of Rottenburg.
[12] And indeed I detect in the period given no particle and by more probable from which I must necessarily gather that the author's discourse was about the church of Eben: none indeed either from which I might prove that the chapel of Rottenburg is designated; but while I suppose with Roschmann that the tablet was hung up in the Rupertine chapel in the first times after the Saint's burial, I do not see what need there was for the author to add a particle of this kind, since it was very well known to the people that the Rupertine chapel had existed before the Saint's death, and that the chapel of Rottenburg in the castle, not so very far distant, had been erected by the lord in honor of God and of St. Notburga. Nor ought the same author to have foreseen that after a whole century the narrow little shrine of St. Rupert would pass into an ample church and take on the name of St. Notburga, and that thus, after two further centuries, it would seem to a certain person that the discourse in the tablet was about the new church, as if this were indicated to have been built by the lord of Rottenburg.
[13] But, you say, the very word church confirms Guarinoni's conjecture. and more probable I answer that in the German copy — which alone is to be consulted here — there is read ein Gottshaus, which word properly sounds a building sacred to God, and which could be taken both for a larger church and for a smaller one or a chapel; and here especially, if the chapel of Rottenburg was such as Guarinoni himself describes it in Roschmann, saying thus: For Henry of Rottenburg, all delay being removed, after the burial ordered that chamber, where the Handmaid of God had been wont to sleep and had died, to be cleansed, the upper wooden floor to be removed, an elegant vault or arching to be built, the place to be adorned into a chapel, an altar and a long window, such as befits such places and which survives to this day, to be constructed, and a bell to be set up in the tower, which should call the people to the celebration of divine offices there. Moreover the particle ein, placed before the word Gottshaus (which if it be rendered in Latin will make this sense: That nobleman caused one, or rather some, building sacred to God … to be built), somewhat hints that the author did not wish to point out the sacred building to which he attached the tablet; otherwise he would more aptly have written dieses or diess Gottshaus, this sacred building.
[14] reasons Lastly, even setting all these things aside, the very tablet from which our copy was transcribed by Roschmann in the year 1735 makes Guarinoni's conjecture less probable; for it had by then been preserved there fully a hundred and twenty years, having been renewed, namely, in the year 1615. Therefore before that one there had existed another, which, worn out by time, doubtless needed renewal: but how long this one had been preserved there before is not clear; yet nothing forbids our attributing to it just as many years; and thus we shall presently arrive at the end of the fifteenth century, in which same century the church of Eben was erected. Let us suppose then for the moment that the tablet was affixed about the year 1500, and that the church was completed and finished about 1430. Is it probable enough that any author was so ignorant and careless of the facts as to ascribe to the lord of Rottenburg, then dead more than a hundred and fifty years, the building of a church erected about seventy years before, and that he should note this on a tablet affixed to that very church and exposed to the eyes of all? For, to say nothing of the autograph letters which Guarinoni testifies survived in his time, and in which the church was said to have been built by the money of pious persons, could not and ought not the author of the tablet to have been better instructed by men then still living, who in their youth could have beheld that church's beginnings, or at least have learned of them from their parents?
[15] is dissolved. All these things conspire so that, yielding to the opinion of the most distinguished Roschmann, we acknowledge, at least in this place, no error in the synopsis of the Life inscribed on the tablet, no confusion of sacred buildings proceeding from its author; and so that it appears to us far more probable that the said tablet was hung up in the old chapel of St. Rupert before it was enlarged in the fifteenth century, that is, before the church of St. Notburga at Eben was built, to whose altar so old a monument was again fastened. Nor is it unlike the truth that it was renewed more than once, and that hence it came about that not only were some words changed, but some were passed over through carelessness; as the said Roschmann observes: we shall give his words in the notes on the Acts collected by Guarinoni himself, as will presently be said.
§ II. The authors are enumerated who, whether in manuscripts or in printed books, consigned the Saint's deeds to writing; the Acts to be given here.
Of Francis Gozenius or Gezner, The most distinguished Roschmann in his manuscript notices — which you are always to understand whenever we cite him — reviewing in order of age the writers who consigned anything about the deeds of St. Notburga to writing, begins in this manner: The first who brings in mention of our Saint, on the testimony of Guarinoni and Rader, is Franciscus Gozenius, so called by Rader and his followers. Guarinoni gave the occasion, since he calls him Francis of Gozens on account of his nobility, but he wrote himself Gezner, along with his brother. That this author's name was Gezner, not Gozenius, he then proceeds to prove at greater length; he alleges first an autograph instrument of the year 1514, seen by himself, in which Francis Gezner appears with his brother John Gezner, and in which their kinsman is called Sigismund Kripp — which he advises should be noted, because it was with this family that Guarinoni found Francis's codex. Besides that instrument, he says that another was likewise seen by himself, which was drawn up in the year 1497 for the noble maiden Magdalena Geznerin.
[17] Secondly he observes that the time in which Francis Gezner flourished does not disagree in the fifteenth century with the time in which Rader and Guarinoni say that their Francis Gozenius wrote; for the latter, in the preface to the Life of the Saint published in the year 1646, cites the documents of Gozenius as written a hundred and fifty-eight years before; the former, at the end of the Life of the same Saint published in print in the year 1627, indicates that the same documents of Gozenius were written quite a hundred and more than thirty years before; so that each arrives at the end of the fifteenth century, in which, according to Roschmann's testimonies, Gezner must have flourished. The same Rader distinguishes his Gozenius with the title of the equestrian order; Guarinoni in the place cited calls him noble (and in another place a noble, valiant, and most learned knight), whose elegant sepulchral vault, inscribed with his name and those of his ancestors, the parish of St. Nicholas at Hall still preserves. Both the titles and the place agree; for the said Roschmann, having adduced the testimonies of Matthias Burgklehner and Maximilian count of Mohr, Tyrolese writers contemporary with Guarinoni, proves in the third place that the Gezner family was illustrious for nobility about the same time at Hall on the river Inn, in which city, among the Kripps, joined by blood to the Gezner family, Guarinoni found the documents, as was observed above.
[18] After these things set forth more fully, Roschmann at last concludes: a most noble writer, A man of this noble family, therefore, Francis Gezner, collected the illustrious pedigrees of his ancestral stock and the notable things of the province of Tyrol; and while he makes mention of the excellent line of the lords of Rottenburg, and together of this holy Virgin as their maidservant, in a brief but well-founded elogium, he is worthy of the greater credit because he could draw these things from his parents and great-grandparents dwelling at Hall, and hence distant scarcely more than half a day from the place of the events (the church of Eben, as also the castle of Rottenburg) — men who learned all this from those who were either present themselves, or had learned it from these very persons, or perhaps had seen it depicted in the Rupertine church. But since the author was so little distant from the place, it is credible enough that he himself at some time visited that church and read the synopsis of the Life inscribed on the tablet, whence he drew what he inserted into his own Work about the Saint's deeds: for these are very few, and not dissonant from the words of that same tablet.
[19] Very few, I say — if indeed he wrote no more an elogium about the Saint than what Guarinoni reports from him, closing his little book, printed in German in the year 1646, thus: There follows the notable testimony concerning St. Notburga of Rottenburg, written a hundred and thirty-one years ago with his own hand by the noble, valiant, and most learned knight Francis of Gozens, master of the liberal arts and of philosophy, in his Tyrolese Stemmatology, folio 85, expressed in these words in the German tongue: "Saint Notburg, who is buried at Eben on the royal road toward Achen, is said to have been the cook of the lord of Rottenburg in the castle of Rottenburg, and to have died in it, and was drawn thence by two oxen to the said Eben, that she might be buried, etc. Saint Notburgis, pray for us. This Notburg, a holy virgin in the whole region of the county of Tyrol and in Bavaria, is famous chiefly through the miracles which at her church, in which she is reported to have been entombed, are worked for all those who invoke her in their necessities,
and have come about in various ways — besides the sanctity and divine life, and above all the clemency toward the poor, which she displayed while living." It might seem here that Guarinoni contradicts himself in the words prefixed to Gezner's elogium, in which he says that his testimony was written a hundred and thirty-one years ago; whereas, as I noted at number 17, in his preface to the Life he cites the documents of the same Gezner as written a hundred and fifty-eight years before; but, that I may not break the thread with a useless digression, see the knot untied in our Notes on chapter 3 of the Life, letter o.
[20] from manuscripts now lost. Besides these things, therefore, we have nothing from the manuscript documents of Gozenius or Gezner, conceived at least in his own words; but whither these went after Guarinoni and Rader used them, or, as Roschmann says, where in the world they are today, no one will easily say; yet that same most distinguished man judges that far more things pertaining to this matter were committed to writing by Gezner, and grieves that Guarinoni, to the great loss of history, after the words was drawn by two oxen to the said Eben, that she might be buried, broke off the narration with the clause and the rest. Certainly that clause indicates that some things were passed over which followed the burial; whether likewise things which had preceded it is altogether doubtful, since Guarinoni in his preface says that in the Work of Gozenius there is a brief mention of St. Notburga, and that thus, though in few words, her memory was preserved.
[21] A similar one written by Marcus Sitticus in the sixteenth century. After Gezner there follows next in age Marcus Sitticus, free Baron of Wolkenstein etc., who at the close of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth embraced in fourteen books the ancient History and the chief affairs of those parts. The said Roschmann transcribed for us, from that manuscript Work, which he greatly commends, and which he says survives for the greater part to this day with Marcus's grandson, the most excellent lord Dominic count of Wolkenstein etc., an elogium of St. Notburga; to which, although it differs so little from Gezner's elogium of the Saint that I scarcely doubt it was drawn from it, it has nevertheless seemed good to grant a place here. Saint Notburga, who is buried in the place Eben, on the royal road toward Achen, is said to have been the cook of one of the lords of Rottenburg in the castle of Rottenburg, where also she died. Thence she was drawn by two oxen to the said place Eben. This holy virgin Notburgis is famous throughout all Tyrol, both for the holiness of her life and for her beneficence toward the poor, whence also singular prodigies have been and are worked for all who invoke her in their necessities in that church where she is said to have been entombed.
[22] Guarinoni, the first collector of the German Life At length there succeeds the often-praised Hippolyt Guarinoni; he was a native of Trent, of a noble family, by profession a doctor of arts and of medicine, honored by his Imperial Majesty himself with the honorary title of chief physician, and in the year 1607 given as physician to the most serene archduchesses Maria Christina and Eleanor, sisters of Ferdinand afterward emperor II, as also to the whole royal convent of Hall, to which those most religious princesses had attached themselves. While he was occupied with this office, in the year 1619 he obtained, from Johann Jakob Kripp, a man of chief nobility in the city of Hall, the manuscript codex of the aforesaid Francis Gezner, in which, under the title of the lords of Rottenburg, a brief mention occurred of their holy maidservant Notburga. On that occasion it came into his mind to collect and render the Acts of that same Saint entire, so far as might be permitted — which had hitherto been performed by no one; he undertook the matter, being spurred on also by the most serene and most pious archduchesses Maria Christina and Eleanor, and applied himself to it with the greatest zeal for about three years, as he himself relates more fully in the preface to the printed Life.
[23] In the said preface he likewise sets forth by what aids he composed his Work; from various documents, and first indeed, besides the tablet of Eben and Gezner's elogium, he praises the most reverend lord Hieronymus Agricola, at that time vicar general of the prince and bishop of Brixen, and afterward his successor in that bishopric itself, by whose singular favor and help he professes himself to have been supported; secondly he alleges autograph instruments from the archive of the celebrated monastery of St. George, distant about a mile from the castle of Rottenburg, which were entrusted to his good faith as far as Hall. Thirdly he cites other instruments pertaining to the family of Rottenburg, and especially those which, by the will and desire of the most serene archduchesses, Matthias Burgklehner the noble historian had collected from the archducal archive of Innsbruck and transmitted to Hall. Finally, in the printed little book itself, at number 28, he mentions certain Annals, I know not which.
[24] These things we have judged should be set down beforehand to this end, for his integrity and piety lest the reader, when we produce a biographer more than three hundred years later than the events, should suspect that there is being thrust upon him a Life resting for a great part — namely in circumstances which are drawn neither from the tablet of Eben nor from the Work of Gezner — upon slight conjectures or upon traditions not sufficiently founded and examined. But neither do we contend by these things that the author drew each and every thing from documents, granted nothing at all to conjectures, and brought forward nothing from traditions alone; since he himself in the published little book more than once expressly indicates his conjectures by these phrases: So far as there is room for conjecture; It is lawful to believe, etc. But in the manuscript fragments from which we shall say that little book was abridged, he often appeals to the concordant tradition of the people and of the nobility, and to the testimonies of old men who had learned this from their forefathers and had narrated it to him; so that even thus his ingenuousness and trustworthiness in other matters may shine out.
[25] Moreover the Tyrolese proclaim their Guarinoni to be such with many encomiums of praise that it seems wrong even to call his good faith into doubt. You have a brief elogium of him in our Work, volume III of July, in the Historical Commentary on Blessed Andrew, the boy of Rinn slain by the Jews, page 463, which we received in the year 1722 from the celebrated abbey of Wilten in Tyrol, of the Premonstratensian Order of canons. Receive another from the manuscript Notices of the most distinguished Roschmann. Guarinoni was a man born and made for bringing to light the Acts of the Tyrolese Saints, and himself already placed by writers on more than one score among those Venerable Tyrolese — namely those who had died with a great reputation for piety — most worthy of this prerogative, unless everything deceives me. Hence he proceeds to praise him for his sincere and fervent piety, his German candor, his zeal for religion, and other virtues which the Works written by him and read through by himself breathe everywhere, and on account of which he also deserved to be wonderfully preserved more than once in the greatest perils of life.
[26] he is celebrated among Tyrolese writers. With ampler encomiums of praise the same Guarinoni is celebrated by the Reverend Lord Adrian Kempter, canon of the aforesaid abbey of Wilten, in a Work recently published on the Acts of the said Blessed Andrew, where, being about to describe Guarinoni's Life from page 18 to 37, he prefaces it in almost the same way: His most innocent character and the holiness of his life grave men have commended in their writings, and all report celebrates, so that he has even obtained a place among the venerable persons of our fatherland conspicuous for singular piety. After this he relates at length the virtues recounted by Roschmann and several others, and confirms them by adducing the testimonies of contemporaries, and mingles with them some occurrences which befell that same Guarinoni, plainly wonderful and prodigious; and at last concluding, he says: We have pursued these things more fully, that we may procure authority even with posterity for a citizen who deserved excellently of his fatherland, whose History of St. Andrew the boy … we subjoin at the end of our Work. Which words we have adopted, because for no other cause have we here touched upon these elogia concerning that same Guarinoni, the biographer of St. Notburga.
[27] He at first left the Work unfinished, It remains that we should briefly indicate what and in what manner Guarinoni wrote. From the year 1619, as has been said, having scraped together documents from every quarter he could, he applied his mind and pen to the Acts of St. Notburga, and toiled at them diligently for about three years. The Work, very diffuse, so far as I conjecture from the fragments, he divided into seven parts, and each part into several chapters: but in an order merely rough and confused. For besides that he mixed in with them some things which pertained little or nothing to the Saint, or which at least could have been expressed in fewer words, he repeats now and then at length in one part what he had also set forth at large in another. This happened, I believe, because, as in the course of time he obtained more and more notices, his intention was to bring the whole Work to the file and to cut away superfluities before it should be made public, or committed to the press.
[28] thence Rader abridged the Life published in Latin in the year 1627 But since probably other business then pressed him, and since at that time our Rader was at leisure for composing volume 3 of Bavaria Sancta, he communicated to him his own and Gezner's manuscripts, from which Rader selected whatever would contribute to a well-ordered History, and turned it from the German into the Latin tongue; as he himself testifies in the said volume 3, page 169, at the end of the Life of St. Notburga in the following words: These things I have excerpted from the autograph documents of Francis Gözenius, of the equestrian order, written quite a hundred and more than thirty years ago, and from the pen of Hippolyt Guarinoni, a noble physician, and have given them to Latium. So that the Saint's Acts came forth in Latin in the year 1627, fully nineteen years before their first collector Guarinoni published them in German in the year 1646. Nay — what is worth observing — even three years before that, namely in the year 1643, they appeared in our Belgium by the care and labor of the Reverend Lord Gabriel Jakemin, priest, canon of the collegiate church of St. Peter at Cassel in Western Flanders, who, having given them from Rader in the Flemish tongue, inserted them under this title, The Wonderful Life of St. Notburga the virgin, in a little book which he entitled The Solace of those who serve piously, and a copy of which, elegantly printed at Bruges in Flanders, we keep in the greater library of our house.
[29] Finally Guarinoni himself, doubtless perceiving that he had attained his intended end neither through Rader's Latin edition and at last Guarinoni himself published it in German in the year 1646. nor through Jakemin's Flemish-Belgian one (if indeed he ever saw this), inasmuch as he had planned the Life in German so that it might be read by all the natives and the neighboring peoples, resumed his labor, and, imitating Rader, abridged the chief Acts of the Saint from his own fuller Historical documents, and published them in his native tongue in the year 1646. But this German little book too — whether because fewer copies were printed, or because almost all, worn out by the use of continual reading, have perished — is so rare today that Roschmann affirms that, although he sought it many times and ransacked more than twenty libraries, he was able to find only one copy, destitute of a title, upon which, led by a kind of good genius, he chanced with the noble matron de Kleblsperg, sprung from the quite noble house of the Kripps.
[30] That German Life the said most obliging helper of our labors had already turned into Latin This, rendered into Latin by Roschmann, and furnished with fuller annotations, when at last there came to light, as he himself says, the fragments of this Notburgan History written by Guarinoni — altogether rich, but, by what mischance I know not, mutilated in several places and gnawed by mice. For when in the year 1745 our Most August Lady Maria Theresa had decreed to furnish a public library, and had most graciously granted her own books from the castle of Ambras and from the court here, several illustrious persons, incited by this example, endowed it (the library of Innsbruck) with great benefactions; and among these the most illustrious lord Charles count of Welsperg in Primiero and Langenstein, hereditary prefect of the stable and kitchen of the province of Tyrol, chamberlain and councillor of His Sacred Imperial Majesty etc., gave to the library as a gift four huge volumes of autographs of the venerable Guarinoni; the fourth of these contains unpublished pieces and fragments of the Acts of our Blessed Notburga.
[31] Of the seven parts of the said manuscript Work only the seventh is perhaps unharmed; we give here with several fragments of the fuller Life, the first three are certainly missing entire, of the fourth three chapters are lacking, and of the sixth the first six. I hesitated for some time in doubt whether it was advisable to grant them a place here: the following reasons impelled me to grant it. The first was that I perceived that this was what the learned men of Tyrol desired, and above all the most distinguished Roschmann, who transcribed them as a treasure happily found, rendered them into Latin, elucidated them with his own annotations, and destined them hither. The second, because from them the reader was to be more fully instructed concerning what I have touched on in this and the preceding § about their author and his manner of writing. And the third, because in them are contained some things which for brevity's sake were passed over in the other History. Yet since I perceived that the Work was so confused, mutilated in the greater part, and stuffed with many accounts by no means pertaining to this subject, I judged that the readers' weariness must also be consulted. Wherefore, that some satisfaction may be given to both, I shall subjoin the said fragments to the shorter Life, taking my beginning from chapter 7 of part 6, because from here the narration begins to be in some fashion ordered; the rest I shall use in the Notes on that same shorter Life, wherever it needs greater elucidation.
[32] compared with Rader, and illustrated with notes. But Rader's most elegant Lucubration I shall pass over, both because his Bavaria Sancta is sufficiently published and easily come by, so that an easy approach to it lies open for the curious reader; and because it differs very little as to the substance of the things narrated from the already mentioned shorter Life of Guarinoni, besides whose manuscripts, and Gezner's, Rader seems to have consulted none. Wherever, however, a notable difference occurs, I shall advise the reader; nor shall I neglect the learned observations which the most distinguished Roschmann added to Rader, since they are such as can bring very much light to the matters narrated by Guarinoni and to others to be discussed in this Commentary.
[33] Before all these we set a Life engraved on copper After Guarinoni and Rader a place in the series of biographers is claimed by the Reverend Lord Matthias Platner of Brixen, curate of the church of St. Notburga at Eben, who about the same times exhibited the Life of the Saint, engraved on copper in a single plate, with distinct little pictures, and wished it to be dedicated to the most illustrious and most reverend lord John, bishop of Brixen, prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Further, from the title of the dedication Roschmann elicits the age of the plate in the following words: Now this bishop John Plazgumer governed … the church of Brixen, as two manuscript catalogues which I have at hand (and a third, which is inserted in volume VIII of the German Spicilegium) teach, from the year 1641 to 1647, commended by the mouth of all for his doctrine, character, vigilance, and zeal. About a hundred years ago, therefore, this series of matters which concern the holy Notburga was engraved on copper. Accordingly its author, as I was just hinting, was a contemporary of Guarinoni and Rader.
[34] at about the same time. A copy of the plate we received from there by the care of the same Roschmann, and we have judged it worthy to be again engraved on copper here and reprinted and prefixed to the Acts, both because it scarcely yields to them in age and because it sets forth as it were at one view what is there related at length, nay even some things which have perhaps been passed over in the shorter Acts, and were received from the longer fragments of the Guarinonian History, now lost. The chief of these are what are represented in the little pictures 1, 2, 3, and 18. For the rest, the engraver was ordered to keep in the new impression of the plate the same form as the older one and the same order and position of the little pictures: but the inscriptions which were subjoined to each, except the middle one, in the German tongue, we have given in Latin, as the most distinguished Roschmann interpreted them in his often-mentioned Notices.
[35] Notice of the remaining biographers, There remain three authors who committed the deeds of St. Notburga to the press. The first of them is Father Georg Seysers, a priest of our Society, but whose Lucubration neither came into our hands nor did we labor that it should come, for the reasons alleged by Roschmann in his Notices and thus abridged into a compendium in his own words: The Reverend Father Georg Seysers S.J. published (in German) a synopsis of the manner of life of several Tyrolese Saints, in a brief style and in a slender little book, made public at Innsbruck in 1661, and dedicated to the most serene Sigismund Francis, archduke of Austria; and since he asserts that he has abridged his material from Gozenius and Guarinoni (whom this author, living at Innsbruck, must certainly have known by sight as physician of the college of Hall, and while he lived), I have added from these in their place what seemed singular — which it may suffice to have noted. See below the Notes on chapter 1 of the Life, letter f.
[36] The second, whose name is Silvester a Plan, is likewise a German writer, but of what condition or age he was is unascertained; since we have come to knowledge of him only from an anonymous Italian author, who is the third of the aforesaid for us, and who in his letter to the reader prefaces thus: The Life of St. Notburga, the Tyrolese virgin, drawn up in German by Silvester a Plan and rendered into Italian, we commend to the press, etc. But this Italian version, which I have perused, and about which, on account of certain miracles or benefits obtained from God by the help of St. Notburga which are appended to it, a fuller discussion will be set up in part 2 of the Posthumous Glory, §§1 and 2 — this Italian version, I say, is such that I have not doubted that the German author too had either Guarinoni or Rader before his eyes, and therefore I have not judged it worth the labor to inquire further into him or his book.
§ III. Of the birthplace and place of death of St. Notburga.
From the similarity of the names Rattenberg Before we print the Acts, some things must be discussed which require a fuller exposition than can conveniently be inserted in our Notes. First there presents itself a difficulty as to the Saint's birthplace and place of death, arisen from the fact that most historians and geographers have confounded two places and the lords of those places. It must be noted therefore that in the age of St. Notburga there was in those parts a city and a castle whose names did not differ much. The city's name was Rattenberg or Radenberg, compounded from the German word Rad, in Latin Rota, a wheel, and Berg, a mountain; and with this signification the city's arms agree, as Roschmann testifies, representing a wheel set upon a mountain. It still exists today with a fortification of no mean sort, on the river Inn between the cities of Schwaz and Kufstein, and once belonged to Bavaria, but is now annexed to the county of Tyrol.
[38] Three hours from there toward Schwaz stood the castle and Rottenburg called Rottenburg, its name compounded from the German Rot, red, and Burg, a fortress or castle. And this, in the words of Roschmann, was always in the territory of the princes of Tyrol, nor did it at any time belong to Bavaria. Its lords in all the charters — of which the same Roschmann testifies that he has seen very many — are called only lords of Rottenburg, by no means of Rattenberg; and with this denomination their family arms agree, exhibiting on a white shield a castle of red color. Now let us hear what ancient and modern writers report about the birthplace of St. Notburga. About it the tablet of Eben recited at number 5 is silent, and Francis Gezner and Marcus Sitticus praised above. Guarinoni says she was born of upright parents and citizens; but he says nothing of the city's name, at least in the printed little book: what he handed down in the fuller Life we do not know, since the earlier part of it has perished.
[39] Rader in Bavaria Sancta prefaces the Saint's Life in this manner: confusion and error about the birthplace arose. Since Blessed Notburga of Rottenburg, the modest handmaid and virgin of Christ, lived at Rottenburg a hundred and ninety years and more before Rottenburg, Kufstein, and Kitzbühel were taken out of the Bavarian dominion or reckoned to Tyrol — which was done only after the year 1504 by Maximilian I Augustus — Blessed Notburga has by her own right been entered in the register of Bavaria Sancta; since at that time in which she was among mortals she was born and died on Bavarian soil. So he; and presently, repeating the same about the place of her birth, he says, Notburga, born at Rottenburg, at that time in Bavaria, now in Tyrol. Brunner, in part 3 of the Annals of Bavaria, book 5, writes thus: Born (St. Notburga) at Rattenberg, once a Bavarian city, now added to the Tyrolese, she bound her service to the lords who took their name from the city. Brunner was followed by the other annalist of Bavarian affairs, Johann Adlzreiter, part 1, chapter 25. Martin Zeiller in the Topography of Tyrol, published by Matthäus Merian, page 148, about the city of Rattenberg — which he indicates is also commonly called Rottenburg — adds to our purpose the following, rendered from the German into Latin: where the holy virgin Notburgis was born. Hence it is abundantly clear that the authors agreed well enough about the place of birth itself, however differently they expressed it and however they erred in other things, and that all of them, when they wrote that our Virgin was brought into the world at Rottenburg or Rattenberg, had in view not the castle of Rottenburg but the city of Rattenberg.
[40] The testimonies of various persons are brought forward, And that she was really born at Rattenberg Roschmann confirms from the tradition and the testimonies received there. Here are his own words: I went to the place itself in the year 1738 to investigate what underlay the matter: and the superiors confirmed it, chiefly the ecclesiastics, on their priestly faith, with their own hand and with their seals; and indeed two of the civic magistracy as well. And some elderly laymen testified on oath that they had received it from their own parents, who were very old: namely that she was born of citizen parents in the corner house of the Stettner family on the public square, her father being a maker of hats. Nay, both Magistracies had not hesitated to affirm that the voice of the people also is consonant with this. That house too was shown to me, ennobled by so great a birth: and the burgomaster of the town, its possessor, asserted that it lies deep on account of the frequent floodings of the Inn, and that when in the year 1731 he had had it decorated, he had detected traces of an ancient workshop such as is required for making hats. So that most distinguished man, who then, among the instruments subjoined to his Notices at number 8, produces the following testimony,
subscribed by three priests and fortified with their seals in the margin.
[41] both of ecclesiastics, At the requisition of lord Roschmann, Apostolic notary deputed in the cause of the translation of the holy Notburga, we the undersigned attest on our priestly faith — since the voice of the people is the voice of God — that by the force of traditions held at all times by old men (although on account of their great antiquity no proofs from the registers of baptisms and of the dead, of which we possess none beyond two hundred years, are at hand) she was born the daughter of a hat-maker in the Stettner house at Rattenberg. Given in the parishes of Reith, Kundl, and Rattenberg. Master Johann Georg Schmid, fifty years of age, and for six years parish priest of the place, and moreover for more than twenty years an assigned curate in these canonries, attest as above. I, Johann Paul Reichartinger, born at Innsbruck, for twenty-five years parochial vicar at Kundl, and previously for six years vicar at Rattenberg, sixty-nine years of age, testify as above. I, Johann Baptist Waldherr, forty-three years of age, for more than six years vicar of the place, and moreover sixteen years ago an assistant here, likewise attest. Receive the testimonies of the others also, mentioned above by Roschmann.
[42] and of laymen Done at Rattenberg, the seventeenth of September 1738. Before the most noble and most distinguished lord Anton Roschmann, licentiate of both Laws, secretary of the university of Upper Austria of His Sacred Imperial and Royal Catholic Majesty, as Apostolic notary and recorder in the cause of St. Notburga etc. The assessors and witnesses required being the illustrious lord Christoph Frölich of Frölichsburg, provincial judge of Tyrol for His Sacred Imperial and Royal Majesty's customs, exchange, and land-rolls; and the most noble and excellent lord Andreas Micheler, doctor of medicine and public physician of Rattenberg: Joseph Angerer, recorder of the civic senate there, acting as clerk. Being required and sworn, there appears lord Simon Stettner, now the presiding burgomaster of Rattenberg, and produces the original charter of arms of Ferdinand I, king of the Romans, given at Innsbruck on the seventh of October 1555, and the deed of purchase of his house, given on the twenty-fifth of February 1643, with another writing worthy of credit, that the Stettners were burgomasters from the year 1529 to 1553; and he deposes further that he well remembers that about the year 1693 or 1694 his father Wolfgang Stettner narrated to him, the deponent, when he was a little child, that in his house, according to the universal public report, St. Notburga was born, her father being a maker of hats. That his father repeated this very thing often about the year 1710, in which the deponent contracted marriage, and that he himself frequently heard this. This witness added further that he had also found traces of a hat-maker's workshop when in the year 1731 he had had this house of his restored and adorned; and that the foundations too were altogether deep, which however the Inn, washing against them, had filled up with sand carried down, from which it could be inferred that the house is very ancient. Having read it over he confirmed it and signed himself
(L.S.) Simon Stettner.
[43] Being required and sworn, lord Johann Georg Saltzburger, the testimonies of men, a citizen from the year 1701, now of the inner civic council and former recorder, sixty-eight years of age, deposes that immediately after his arrival, on various occasions, and chiefly from the lord father of the present lord burgomaster, Wolfgang Stettner, he had heard that St. Notburga was born in the Stettner house and was a hatter's daughter. Being asked, since he had been recorder, whether he had found nothing in writing, he answered that he had found no records older than the year 1400; but since he knows that the place is far more ancient, he asserted that these could be believed to have perished. Having read it over he confirmed it and signed himself.
(L.S.) Johann Georg Saltzburger.
[44] Being required and sworn, Christoph Lenderer, citizen and craftsman in pewter-founding at Rattenberg, deposes that from his father, seventy-five years old, and from his mother, ninety-two years old, he had often heard it narrated that St. Notburga, the daughter of a citizen and hatter, was born in the Stettner house: he added that he had heard the same from the sacristan of this vicariate, a man of eighty years and quite skilled in these matters, born at Rattenberg, and from other men, both ecclesiastics and laymen, throughout his whole life. Wherefore the deponent too, with another citizen, Kellenberg, was affected with singular joy when they were present in the year 1718 at the elevation of the sacred body, because she was a Citizen of Rattenberg, whom they had often venerated at the place Eben, whither they had been led in the public supplicatory procession from this city (Ernützgang). Having read it over he confirmed it, etc.
(L.S.) Christoph Lenderer.
[45] N.B. The lords assessors added this with their own hand: confirmed by oath, whence it is gathered That the persons named above, namely our citizens, took the oath in our presence also, and are of good reputation and skilled in these matters, we, being required, testify by these presents. Done as above.
(L.S.) Johann Christoph Frölich of Frölichsburg, judge of the land-rolls, and provost of the prince's chief toll at Rattenberg.
(L.S.) Andreas Micheler, doctor of philosophy and medicine, public physician of the city and judicial district there.
It agrees word for word with the autograph record, duly fortified with their seals. So I testify, having made the collation,
Anton Roschmann, as above.
[46] that she was born in the city of Rattenberg. It is established therefore, so far as it can be established amid so great a scarcity of ancient documents, that the Saint was born in the city of Rattenberg — which city, probably after the destruction of the castle of Rottenburg, began by a gradual corruption of the name to be called Rattenburg, Rottenberg, and Rottenburg. By a corruption of the name, I say; for if the place's arms set forth at number 37 sketch the true etymology of the name, of which I have no doubt, it ought to be called Rattenberg, as it is also called in the instrument just recited. That corruption of the name has begotten confusion among authors, and first so great a confusion in our Rader that I by no means grasp what he meant when, from the fact that Rottenburg, as he himself writes, Kufstein, and Kitzbühel were joined from the Bavarian dominion to the county of Tyrol only about the year 1504, he concludes that the Saint was born and died on Bavarian soil.
[47] She died in the castle of Rottenburg. For by Rottenburg he certainly must have understood the city of Rattenberg, since he subjoins that it was at that time in Bavaria, now in Tyrol; and thus it only follows that she was born in Bavaria, and not likewise that she died there. For she did not also die at Rattenberg, where she was born, but in the castle of Rottenburg, as he himself, after Gezner, Marcus Sitticus, and Guarinoni, hands down in the Life: but that the castle of Rottenburg always belonged to Tyrol Roschmann contends, nor do I think the contrary will easily be shown. This indeed no one will deny, that the lords of Rottenburg, with whom St. Notburga served and died, were reckoned among the Tyrolese nobles, held a place among the most illustrious magnates of that province, and were distinguished with the mastership or prefecture of the court. For this Guarinoni, Rader himself, Burgklehner, and other writers on Tyrolese affairs and on the most illustrious family of Rottenburg, cited by Roschmann, testify with unanimous consent: nay, various autograph charters alleged by him, and recited so far as they pertain here, make this manifest. For brevity's sake I transcribe here the text of one only. Otto, count of Tyrol and duke of Carinthia, in a charter of the year 1303 granting the right of a city to the town of Hall, among the witnesses names thus the master of our Saint and his brother or kinsman: Our faithful Henry of Rottenburg, master of our court, and Siegfried of Rottenburg, judge at Hall.
[48] Those who wrote otherwise must be corrected, Brunner, cited at number 39, does not openly report the Saint's place of death; yet he writes in such a way that you would suspect that he thought she served and died in the city of Rattenberg itself, since he says that she served the lords who took their name from the city; in which he must certainly be corrected: they had their name from the castle of Rottenburg, not from the city of Rattenberg, as is gathered also from what has been said before. Adlzreiter must likewise be corrected, where he calls Henry, the Saint's master, "of Rattenberg." To them must be joined likewise Martin Zeiller in his Treatise on the ten circles of the Roman-German empire, published at Ulm in the year 1660, when on page 67 he has this in German: There is also a Rottenburg in Tyrol, which belonged to Bavaria before, in the year 1504, the emperor Maximilian I joined it, together with Kufstein and Kitzbühel, to Tyrol: and here St. Notburga was cook, who deserved excellently of the needy, and ceased to live in the year 1313. For, besides what we have observed on Rader, in the year 1660 nothing but ruins survived of the castle of Rottenburg; therefore that author's discourse is about the city of Rattenberg, where St. Notburga is neither read to have been cook, nor certainly did she cease to live.
THE LIFE
Written by Hippolyt Guarinoni, printed in German in the year 1646, and rendered into Latin,
the translator being the most distinguished Anton Roschmann, Licentiate of both Laws in the kindly university of Innsbruck, etc.
ON ST. NOTBURGA, HANDMAID AND VIRGIN, IN THE CASTLE OF ROTTENBURG IN THE COUNTY OF TYROL,
Notburga, handmaid and virgin, in the castle of Rottenburg in the county of Tyrol. (S.)
By Hippolyt Guarinoni.
PREFACE.
Deploring the carelessness of our forefathers, Although from the time at which this holy Virgin passed to those above (for she is reported to have lived under Rudolph I a, the first Austrian emperor) her memory has always been famous, and her cult and the number of those coming from abroad have, on account of the benefits divinely granted at her tomb through her intercession, been growing more frequent year by year; yet the rudeness and lukewarmness of those times had hitherto granted us no document consigned to writing which might duly give credit (if we except b a small and worn tablet embracing most of the things worthy of note while she lived — namely her age, her place, her master, and her service), until the year one thousand six hundred and nineteen from the restoration of Salvation should come round.
[2] For in the course of this year it happened, doubtless by the guidance of provident Godhead, how the author was led to write that a certain man c at Hall on the Inn, established in the service of the most serene archduchesses of pious memory, Maria Christina and Eleanor, sisters of Ferdinand II the emperor, who were attached to the royal convent there, by good fortune chanced, in the house of the lord John Jakob Kripp etc., a man of ancestral lineage, piously deceased, upon a very old book depicting the smoke-darkened wax seals, titles, and arms of the Tyrolese provincials — which the noble Francis of Gozens d, its author, noble in family, learning, and the laurel of philosophy (and whose elegant sepulchral vault, inscribed with his name and those of his ancestors, the parish of St. Nicholas at Hall still preserves), had written a hundred and fifty-eight years before. In it, since there had also been a place for relating the history of the most illustrious family of Rottenburg, there was conveniently thrown in a brief mention, which nevertheless might command full credit, of the holy Housekeeper of this most noble family, and thus, though in few words, her memory was preserved.
[3] That same official, then, of whom we have spoken, being piously encouraged also by the aforesaid most serene archduchesses, and moreover supported by the singular favor of the most reverend and most learned man of pious memory, the lord Hieronymus Otto, at that time vicar general of the most exalted prince and bishop of Brixen, and afterward his most clement successor in that bishopric,
and by his singular help, not without an inmost feeling of the heart, with an eager mind and with all zeal applied himself for about three years to this, that he might collect and render the Acts of the holy Virgin entire so far as might be permitted; and all this partly by the help of autographs which were found in the archive of the celebrated monastery of St. George e (between whose religious of the Order of St. Benedict and the lords of Rottenburg a close familiarity had existed), by the care of lord Christoph, afterward the most reverend prelate, and which were entrusted to the good faith of that same hagiographer as far as Hall.
[4] and by what instruments he was helped To these there were added also other instruments pertaining to the same lords: as also all those which, by the will and desire of the Most Serene ladies, the most noble and most excellent lord Matthias Burgklehner, vice-chancellor of the exalted government of Upper Austria, a notable historian, dug out with unwearied effort from the archducal archive of Innsbruck, and, reduced into order, transmitted to these princesses on the fourteenth before the Ides of October 1619: namely the pedigree and the wives of the lords of Rottenburg from the year 1219 down to the last shoot of the family, Henry f, whose wife was twice an Agnes and twice a countess, the first of Kirchberg, the second of Württemberg, and on whom for the crime of treason a fine of twenty thousand gold pieces of annual revenue had been imposed by Frederick duke of Austria g.
[5] he brings forth. Furnished therefore with these aids, the author (who earnestly commends himself to the devout prayers of his readers), judging that he had obtained a distinct knowledge of the events and their times, in order to consult the pious desires of her clients and of pilgrims, set forth at greater length these several ascertained matters in the year 1646 h.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
The Saint's service with the lords of Rottenburg; her liberality toward the poor proved by a prodigy and by the death of her harsher mistress.
Among the illustrious lords of Rottenburg Among the illustrious families of the Tyrolese about the year 1280 the stock of Rottenburg had easily yielded second place to none. For Henry a, lord of that family, with the highest authority among the provincials, discharged the office of prefect of the court with prince Meinhard, count of Tyrol and duke of Carinthia. His birthplace, his seat, and the title of his family was the castle of Rottenburg built by his forefathers; besides which the lordships of Rettenberg, Friedberg b, Matrei c, and several others had also come to him by inheritance; nay, the last of this lineage was rightly called, in the age of Frederick duke of Austria, lord of twenty-four lordships d.
[7] the Saint serves in the year 1283. To that illustrious man Henry there was a maidservant, born of upright parents and citizens e about the year of salvation 1265 f, Notburga by name, who then in the year eighty-three g was hired by his wife Gutta h to take charge of the kitchen and the provisioning, that is, the household management; and, with a mind inclined toward the wretched, yet without loss to her master's substance, nay, not even against the will of the married pair themselves, she cheerfully bestowed the leavings of the table on the poor who ran up to the castle gates after the meal, and at the same time fed their souls too with salutary admonitions.
[8] Her liberality toward the poor, Now there dwelt in this castle with the father a son also i, joined in marriage to Ottilia k, a woman avaricious beyond most, and by no means approving that the crumbs of the feast should be yielded to the needy; yet, out of reverence for the authority of her father-in-law and mother-in-law, she kept silence while they lived. But when these had been carried to burial after six years l, and she herself was now brought to the administration of affairs, she forbade all relief to the needy, and ordered the Housekeeper to spend whatever food was left over on fattening the swine. But she, defrauding her own appetite, offers to the beggars the food withdrawn from herself and her allotted portion of wine, being refreshed every Friday especially with bread and water only.
[9] which her more avaricious mistress condemns, Yet this fasting of her Servant stirred the mistress's ire, and therefore, when her husband once returned from the court (for he had succeeded his father in dignity with the prince, and after the custom frequented the royal palace rather often), she redoubles her complaints that Notburga by her liberality was giving a handle to the lowest sort of men and to vagabonds, by which a disastrous whirlwind might easily overthrow the castle of an absent lord; wherefore the master himself resolved to make trial of this matter.
[10] is divinely Nor was an occasion lacking to Henry a little after; for as the knight was returning from the prince's court with his retinue, Notburga meets him m, making for the royal road to refresh with her own food and drink the poor wretches shut out from the castle. Being asked therefore by her master what she was carrying, she, repeating to Henry the mistress's prohibition since the death of his parents — who had been very greatly inclined toward the afflicted — openly professed that she was bestowing on the poor the portion of food and wine destined for herself; and at the same time, unfolding her apron, she shows the scraps of meat and bread n.
[11] proved But heaven drew a film over the man's eyes, presenting, in place of the food, splinters of wood, tokens of a wooden and dry heart. Then, as he tasted the wine, it sent in vinegar o. And so the lord of Rottenburg, thinking that he was being mocked, dissembled the injury in silence and hastens to his wife, to inform her at greater length of the course of this affair. Notburga meanwhile, ignorant of it all, was gladdening the poor folk on the road with her little stores of food and wine. But on her return to the castle Ottilia receives her without self-control, severely reproaching her as to where the little devotee had learned to palm off on her master splinters for food and vinegar for wine. And so, having overwhelmed her with poured-out reproaches, she dismisses her from service, her husband not being unaware of it. To this the innocent Virgin said not a little word, but, having commended the matter to those above, engaged her service to a simple little peasant at the place Eben, on the Alps opposite the castle of Rottenburg [p].
[12] and the mistress's hardness Nor had much time flowed by meanwhile when Ottilia was afflicted with a grave illness, to whom Notburga at once brought help, straining every sinew that she might care for her soul, and that the mistress might wash away its filth by holy Confession and prepare herself for eternity — until she was snatched away by a premature death, leaving a single son, Henry [q]. But behold the avenging wrath of the Godhead. The mistress Ottilia, brought always by night to her sty and her swine, so harassed the other swine with grunting and quarreling that the sound, echoing through the broad courtyard of the castle and carried into the very chambers, shook off sleep from all with horrible terror.
[13] To bring a remedy to this evil the lord of the castle summons a religious man from the monastery of St. George, is gravely punished. who, adjuring the specter according to the rite of the Church, found it to be Henry's wife, distinctly professing that she had sinned in no way more grievously in her life than when she had ordered the leavings of the feast, refused to the wretched, to be carried to the sty. She therefore earnestly begged that her husband would not be loath to make good the loss inflicted on the needy, and to help her soul with prayers; nor did her husband fail so wretched a wife, as I shall relate more fully below.
ANNOTATIONS.
pertained to the most illustrious Trautsons in an unbroken series, and came only to two others in the interval; yet at that time the lords of Rottenburg had long been extinct. So he. Gezner's Stemmatography lies hidden to this day, on his own testimony; Burgklehner's Commentary on the genealogy and succession of the lords of Rottenburg, which he composed, has perished; nor is count Brandis's lucubration at hand for us, so that we might judge whether he clearly shows that that lordship did not devolve upon the lords of Rottenburg. Certainly Burgklehner in his other Work, to be cited at letter h, attributes to that same Henry a wife of the Matrei family; and Henry of Rottenburg, the grandson of the same Henry, in a charter often to be mentioned below, for the foundation of an anniversary day and of other pious works assigns first an estate at Thienzens in the parish of Matrei. Matrei, commonly Matray, Baudrand describes thus: A castle of the county of Tyrol in Germany, at the roots of the Alps and beside the river Ultz, distant two German miles from Innsbruck to the South, toward Brixen.
For he was wont to share out his meals among the wretched, and to hold out to the needy with a secret hand what gifts he could to one begging. Noticing this, he who had the care of the storeroom resolved at a chosen time to catch him carrying wheaten food. When white winter through the Alps was wintering … Meeting him therefore, he demands what he was carrying in his laden lap; he said he was carrying fresh roses (God breathed these words into his mouth); and loosening his lap, he brought forth at once (a wonder!) rosy flowers …
p. The tablet of Eben places this agreement with the peasant only after Ottilia's death. Rader agrees: The Handmaid of Christ, he says, wondering at the intemperance and rage of her mistress, since she was conscious to herself of no insult toward her master, nor a party to any fault, began to pack up and gather her little belongings, that she might depart. But behold, the heavenly Godhead, about to vindicate its Handmaid, casts the mistress into a grave illness, from which she died, being carried to burial before Notburga set foot out of the castle. Then, having pursued at greater length what our author has in the two following numbers, he at last subjoins: But Notburga meanwhile sought another head of a household, and, loathing splendid halls, betook herself to the simplicity of country folk; and, the hall being changed for a sheepfold, she preferred to tend harmless cattle in a stable than to pursue courtly delights. For although many noble women sought her service on account of the odor of virtue which she had spread far and wide, yet she engaged her work in the fields to a rustic husbandman who dwelt five miles from Rottenburg. It must be therefore that in one place or the other the order of events has been inverted; or else that the whole business was accomplished in such a way that Notburga, having received the order to depart, presently dealt with the peasant, but that before she bade her last farewell to the castle, her belongings being already gathered, illness overwhelmed Ottilia, whom she attended until death — as our author himself signifies in the following number and in the fuller History, number 12, in these words: But the lady, before the departure of her Maidservant, was carried off by an unlooked-for death, and was borne from the castle to the tomb.
q. He is the one whom we have called Henry the third at letter i.
CHAPTER II.
The Saint's service with the peasant; the suspension of the sickle in the air; her return to the lord of Rottenburg, and his prosperity thereafter.
The devotion of her who serves with a peasant is made illustrious by a miracle. While therefore Notburga was engaging her service, as was said before, to the little peasant of Eben, not far from the chapel of St. Rupert, whose compass today takes in the space of the choir in the sacred building of the holy Virgin, she had stipulated in the most express words that, being free from her servile task, she might then be at leisure for prayers when according to custom work ceased on the eves of feasts a. And it happened that at harvest time, on a certain Saturday, the husbandman was urging the work of gathering the sheaves beyond the hour agreed on before, demanding that Notburga's prayers be omitted. But she said: I will have my sickle as the judge of our lawful compact; and with these words she lifted it on high and hung it in the air as though on a nail; and the Virgin afterward drew back again the blade so hanging, which salutarily struck the eyes and minds of the reapers b, having been released to her appointed prayers in her chapel: by no means for the rest refusing any of the lowest services, among which we count the care of animals; and on that account, since her holy death, singularly venerated and propitious in the public needs of livestock c.
[15] Meanwhile Henry paid grave penalties to God the avenger for conniving at his wife's conduct, The lord of Rottenburg, oppressed by calamity being afflicted from Notburga's departure with more than one evil. For about the year 1290, in which Ottilia departed to the majority, the calamity of war afflicted the valley of the Inn not lightly, and set the brothers Henry and Siegfried at odds with murderous hatreds. For Henry, prefect of the Tyrolese court, stood on his prince's side,
while Siegfried followed the standards of the adversaries, Otto duke of Bavaria and Conrad of Salzburg d, and wretchedly laid waste the lordships of Rottenburg, Tratzberg e, Rettenberg f, and Friedberg g, so that Henry, reduced almost to his last stake, yet acknowledging his error h, was at length restored to himself and made vows to those above, presently to be related more fully i.
[16] Henry therefore sought the Alps and the peasant's cottage on horseback, he hires Notburga again; to procure his little servant Notburga once more for his future wife Margaret, the maiden of Hoheneck k, either the sister or the near kinswoman of the archbishop Rudolph of Hoheneck l, formerly secretary to Rudolph I the emperor, and lately taken from among the living m; and, cheered by the most longed-for consent, he returned home glad n. Notburga therefore, being back in the castle, and having been ordered to keep that solemn practice of hers, presently asks of her master that, if she should ever chance to die, he would see to it that her body be placed on a wagon, that yoked oxen be harnessed to it, that these be let go freely, and that wherever at last they should stop, her remains be committed to the earth o.
[17] Meanwhile the unhappy husbandman, having suffered no small losses in his household substance, is increased in riches was gradually consumed by consumption; whom nevertheless (so far as there is room for conjecture) the holy Virgin visited and taught to die piously. The lord of Rottenburg, on the other hand, felt heaven so favorable to him that within the space of five years he found his goods, worn down by the calamities of war, not only restored entire but even remarkably increased: and that chiefly from the time at which he most indulgently committed to his Maidservant the care of the household and of the poor, who greatly exulted on that account; which was strenuously practiced through the eighteen years thereafter [p] which Notburga faithfully spent with Henry and his wife Margaret of Hoheneck.
[18] Hence too the lord, mindful of his promise and of his deceased wife, establishes yearly alms for the poor, in the year 1298 instituted sacred rites to be duly celebrated every year for her and for himself, and at the same time that five hundred poor be fed once every year with bread and meat, or in place of meat with cheese, in the monastery of St. George [q]; and the pious will of the founder was satisfied as long as the condition of the times permitted [r]. Both sons trod in their father's footsteps — the one the son left by Ottilia [s], the other by the lady of Hoheneck — most piously instructed by Notburga and brought up to the consolation of the wretched [t], ordering that this yearly dole be given to a full thousand needy persons, and that the same be proclaimed from the pulpit in all the nearest sacred buildings on the two preceding Sundays [u]: so that Henry the father too eminently amended, and immensely made up for, that harsh mind which he had put on toward the needy under his former wife.
[19] Meanwhile he himself was heaped with goods no less than with dignities; transfers his goods and dignities to his son. for when his father Meinhard [x], prince of the Tyrolese, died in the year 1305, his son Henry succeeded [y], who in the next year was elected king by the Bohemians [z], and who named our Henry prefect of his now royal court and moreover of the Adige. But the father, desiring quiet and about to care for his soul, bade farewell to the court, his son whom Ottilia had borne being, with the king's consent, substituted in the dignity. Returning therefore to the castle of Rottenburg, and intending above all to attend to the business of his salvation, he frequently called in the religious of the mount of St. George, with whom he had always been on familiar terms.
ANNOTATIONS.
matter he leaves. This Notburga did and accomplished excellently: but by what means is hidden to this day.
p. I should believe that the eighteen years here expressed are begun by the author from Henry's nuptials with the lady of Hoheneck, perhaps entered upon a year or two after St. Notburga's return, which, as Rader distinctly writes and our author sufficiently hints, is tied to the year 1293; and from that year to the year 1313, which all give as the year of our Saint's death, more would have intervened.
q. See most of these things lucidly explained in the often-mentioned charter.
r. To this Roschmann: Whether the number has been diminished I do not know. In the meantime this alms is still bestowed abundantly every year in Lent, as I am an eyewitness, who for that purpose deliberately went there from Innsbruck.
s. Of him thus in the Fragments of the fuller History: That only son Henry, when he grew to manhood, succeeded his father in the office of the mastership of the court, as being older by birth than the rest; which dignity, however, he did not enjoy long, being taken from among the living in the forty-first year of his age, probably about the year of Christ 1324; for about the year 1293 he was a boy of ten years, as you will gather from the notes above at letters m and n. Of him, now dead, his brother Henry IV makes mention in a charter of the year 1329, the beginning of which Roschmann recites from the autograph preserved with the monks of St. George in these words: I, Henry of Rottenburg the younger, master of the court, by the force of these presents make known for myself and for all my heirs, by this letter, to all now present and to come, that with full deliberation and with the will and consent of all my heirs I have bequeathed, for the souls both of themselves and of my dear brother Henry of Rottenburg, formerly master of the court, to whom may God be merciful, a perpetual Mass to be celebrated every day in the monastery of Mount St. George in the valley of the Inn, of the Order of St. Benedict, of the diocese of Brixen, etc.
t. The remaining offspring of Henry II and the lady of Hoheneck he enumerates thus in the Fragments: This second wife, the lady of Hoheneck, more inclined toward the afflicted, bore and brought up for him three males and two daughters: Henry, Gebhard, Nicholas, Elizabeth, and Gutta… All reached a more advanced age. The eldest of these succeeded his brother in office: the two remaining brothers also obtained excellent honors. Of the two daughters Elizabeth married the lord of Schrofenstein, the other the lord of Freundsberg: and all these children, their parents being dead, were surviving in the year 1335. Nor is it wonderful: they grew in virtue from their tender years under Notburga's leading; what wonder that they advanced in the goods of mind and of fortune? See the charter appended to the Fragments, and the notes there at letter k.
u. These and other things are established from the charter already mentioned, which our author testifies in the Fragments that he had.
x. Roschmann at this place corrects Guarinoni, saying: The excellent man errs here: for on the testimony of Burgklehner, volume 1, book XIII, chapter V; of the Stams Chronicle of Gay, and of the Mortilogium, nay of this prince's very epitaph there, he died in 1295. We do not have Burgklehner's Work, nor Paul Gay's Chronicle, nor the Mortilogium, unless it be the brief Chronicle presently to be cited; but from other sources so many testimonies of writers are available that I cannot prudently doubt Guarinoni's error. For, to say nothing of others, the death of Meinhard is fixed to the year 1295, in Hieronymus Pez volume 1, by the anonymous chronicler of Leoben and by Vitus Arenpeck the Austrian chronicler; and in volume 2, in the same Pez, by the anonymous author of the brief Chronicle of Stams carried from the year 1253 to 1496, which Paul Gay could have seen, and which runs thus: In the year 1295, on the Vigil of All Saints, died Meinhard duke of Carinthia, count of Tyrol and Gorizia, advocate of the churches of Aquileia, Trent, and Brixen, our founder, a notable and distinguished man, entombed here. And the epitaph just mentioned indicates the same year in these little verses:
Twice five hundred years and ten times twenty and ninety join, and also ten in the middle, after the birth of Christ; then is this light taken from him.
y. In my judgment a second error lurks here: for four sons are attributed to Meinhard — Otto the eldest, Albert, Louis, and Henry the youngest — by the author of the brief Chronicle of Stams, by Arenpeck, and by others everywhere who discuss his genealogy. Albert, according to the chroniclers already assigned, yielded to fate in the year 1292; Louis in the year 1305; And in the year 1310 (these are the words of the brief Chronicle of Stams) on the day of St. Urban the Pope died the illustrious duke Otto, the firstborn of our founder, entombed here. To him at last Henry could have succeeded; unless someone would have it that not only the firstborn succeeded his father at once, but along with him both the younger brothers. Giovanni de Rubeis in the Monuments of the church of Aquileia, part 1, column 738, produces a charter given by Otto in the year of the lord 1302, on the twenty-sixth day of November, in the fifteenth Indiction; by which he confirms and enlarges the privileges of the monastery of Sittich of the Cistercian Order for himself and for his brothers. The beginning of the charter is this: We Otto, by the grace of God duke of Carinthia, count of Tyrol and Gorizia, advocate of the churches of Aquileia, Trent, and Brixen, for ourselves and for our dearest brothers Louis and Henry, profess, etc.
z. He had taken to wife Anne, the elder sister of Wenceslaus the seventh, king of the Bohemians; but how, when he was taken from among the living about the year 1306, Henry was elected his successor by the Bohemians, and with how varied a fortune he fared, may be seen in the historians.
CHAPTER III.
The Saint's death; her wonderful burial; her cult presently begun; a church and chapels erected to her.
The Saint dies; At last, seized about the year 1313 of the world's redemption by her final illness, Notburga, fortified with the sacrosanct Mysteries, Henry having first been reminded about her burial, while all wasted away with grief, and the poor — if ever, then certainly here — were squalid with incredible mourning, passed most piously and at the same time most happily from the inn of mortality to blessed immortality.
[21] her body, by a mighty prodigy, A funeral wagon therefore is prepared, the oxen are yoked, and when the sacred remains of her body had been placed on it and the castle gates opened, a free departure is laid open; whereupon they briskly took themselves to the royal road. This sacred funeral, behind the priest (who, it is lawful to believe, was a Benedictine religious from the sacred mount of St. George), Henry the father and the son b, carried on horses, accompanied, and the rest of the household on foot. When they had been carried to the public road, the wailing and howling of the beggars, indulging their grief in crowds, received them, which, interspersed with sighs through the whole space of the journey, afforded a sad spectacle to the beholders. But far more astonished were they made by the oxen, which, at once deserting the straight path, made crosswise for the banks of the river Inn: and the opposite shore was not then joined by a bridge, and the crossing itself both the little boat and the boatmen, lingering on the farther edge, had hindered.
[22] is carried across the river Inn; But be astounded at the prodigy and the work of the right hand of the Most High! The rush of the most rapacious river did not frighten the oxen, though it was then much fiercer with its waters swollen c (for this happened about the feast day of the Virgin's Nativity d). The waves therefore leap apart, and as once the Red Sea for the Israelites, and the streams of Jordan for the Ark of the Covenant, so here the Inn afforded a dry crossing to the Virgin's bier and to those who carried it e.
[23] and after a short halt, by a new prodigy, Then the young oxen are borne into the village of Jenbach, in the midst of which they take rest, as though about to await the companions of the funeral, who had first to be ferried over by the help of the little boat. The place they call to this day SERA, from the chest well guarded with a little chapel g built around it, to receive the offerings customarily made to this holy Virgin in memory of the event here done. A little after, when the companions had come up, they hasten by the field road to the torrent which takes its name from cheese h.
[24] she is set down at the altar of the chapel of St. Rupert to be buried. Then, having measured out a steep road as far as the upper plain, they rest again toward the little building sacred to St. Rupert, beneath the shade of a very large hazel growing against the wall of the chapel. And now everything was being prepared for conducting the funeral by the Christian rite, the sign of the Cross going before and the priest following, when, no one noticing, the oxen with the funeral suddenly rush into the church. When all who were nearest ran up, those oxen were already back from the chapel and before the doors, the sacred burden having been set down at the altar, while each again marveled at the novelty of the prodigy; since the Saint's building was bounded by so small a space as would scarcely suffice for turning the yoke of oxen and the wagon.
[25] Moved by these latest events with an inmost feeling of the mind, the lord of Rottenburg, on his return, A twofold chapel is founded for her; ordered that that place in the middle of the village, where the beasts first drew breath, be marked out, and that a chest to receive the pious liberality of those making offerings for the little building of Rupert, and walls to cover the chest, be built on the spot; and that the chamber from which the Saint sought heaven be changed into a chapel and serve for the celebration of the sacred rites — as we see in this castle to this day.
[26] But the greatness of the deeds and of the benefits granted through her prayers immediately after her death, and, her cult being spread abroad, published far and wide, had summoned clients in crowds even from more distant, not to say from neighboring, regions, as the original History testifies i. Wherefore they had also procured abundant gifts offered, fields and rents, and, a hundred and twenty years after her blessed departure, even an ampler fabric of a church of red marble, the chapel of St. Rupert occupying only the space of the choir (as is gathered from the pavement of the ancient vault), to which a new tower also was added.
[27] This recent church indeed, completed without arched vaulting in the year 1434 of the Redeemer's birth, the most reverend pro-bishop of Brixen, Albert, ordered by a solemn rite to be sacred to the memory of the holy Virgin. also a church; Finally the vault, embracing the whole building, the emperor Maximilian I of Austria and the most reverend prelate of Brixen, Christoph Schrofenstein, caused to be set on eighty-one years afterward k.
[28] Nor after these things were there ever lacking works accomplished by Notburga above the force and order of nature, she grows famous for benefits; or clients even of great name, whether from devotion or from gratitude, as the Annals l more fully report. But the stock of Rottenburg, this holy Housekeeper bearing it up, was raised to such a summit of glory that the last of the family, unequal to bearing it, unmindful of the bounty of those above and drunk with fortune, dared to contend in war with Frederick archduke of Austria, and was ordered to transfer to the victor's treasury annual revenues of twenty thousand florins (for this sum the twenty-four lordships over which he ruled were paying him within this time) m.
[29] Finally he caused a hospice to be built at Kaltern, endowed by himself with the necessary revenues. the chapel is twice preserved from fire. He was joined to two wives, and then about the year 1416 of salvation restored yielded to the fates, as we are taught in the fuller History n. That castle of Rottenburg
was twice consumed almost entirely by fire, as is plain even today to those who look on it. Yet the flames, not daring to sin against the sacred Virgin's chamber, however entirely built of wood it was, have preserved it untouched for us to this day.
[30] There follows the notable testimony concerning St. Notburga of Rottenburg, written a hundred and thirty-one years ago o with his own hand by the noble, valiant, and most learned knight Francis of Gözens, The author's conclusion by the testimony of Gezner. master of the liberal arts and of philosophy, in his Tyrolese stemmatology, folio 85, expressed in these words in the German tongue. "Saint Notburg, who is buried at Eben on the royal road toward Achen, is said to have been the cook of the lord of Rottenburg in the castle of Rottenburg, and to have died in it: she was drawn thence by two oxen to the said Eben, that she might be buried… Saint Notburgis, pray for us… This Notburg, a holy virgin, is famous in the whole region of the county of Tyrol and in Bavaria, chiefly through the miracles which at her church, in which she is reported to have been entombed, have come about in various ways for all those who invoke her in their necessities; besides the sanctity and divine life, and above all the clemency toward the poor, which she displayed while living [p]."
ANNOTATIONS.
p. Thus Guarinoni closes the shorter Life, suppressing various things pertaining especially to the Saint's cult, and set forth at length in the longer History, as we shall see in the Posthumous Glory, where we shall recite most of them, and in the Fragments, which we subjoin here in the manner and order which we stated in the previous Commentary, number 31. We have divided them into two parts, and prefixed titles to them after our custom.
FRAGMENTS OF THE FULLER LIFE
By Hippolyt Guarinoni.
Transcribed from the autograph manuscripts of the August Theresian public library at Innsbruck, and translated from the German tongue into Latin, the translator being the most distinguished lord Anton Roschmann.
Notburga, handmaid and virgin, in the castle of Rottenburg in the county of Tyrol. (S.)
By Hippolyt Guarinoni.
PART I.
The wonderful crossing of the Inn by the oxen carrying the sacred body of the Deceased; the remaining order of the journey and the burial.
The oxen, the body having been carried across the Inn, Meanwhile the astonished people on the bank, transfixed with immense amazement, behold the oxen with the corpse of the Deceased now at the very brink of the Inn, nay entering it and crossing it sideways. At what time of year this prodigy was wrought is not established from the writings. That it happened about the time of the Virgin's Nativity is argued both by the shade of the linden and by the ferrying of the river which the lords a and the people who accompanied the funeral used. Lindens afford shade if they abound in leaves, that is, in advanced spring, in summer, and in mid-autumn still: but the ferry is generally of no use in either the spring or the summer season, since the Inn, when the snows are melted by the sun's heat, is wont to go out beyond these banks; yet meanwhile even in the autumn season it easily surpasses twice over a man's measure in depth at this place b.
[2] the body having been carried across It is moreover established from the testimony of old men at the place situated at the foot of the hill on which the castle of Rottenburg is built, called Rottholz, whom I questioned, that they had heard from their forefathers that the oxen rested a little in the middle of the Inn, and then briskly made for the opposite bank — then fortified by no embankment, as it is today — and nearest to the village of Jenbach. Having measured this, with no delay interposed, they make for the said village, and go on as far as the Cross set at the fork of the road which leads through the field to the stream Kasbach, and there take rest until the companions of the funeral should arrive, who had certainly persuaded themselves, seeing these things, that our Saint had chosen for herself the cemetery of this village. It must not be omitted here that many with one voice reported to the writer of this History that it was handed down from their great-grandfathers that the waters of the Inn, as once those of the Jordan, drew back on either side of the Inn and afforded a free crossing to the oxen that were drawing the sacred remains c.
[3] The inhabitants of the village of Jenbach, when they beheld the oxen alone without a driver, astonished not undeservedly, rest once, asking what this funeral meant and whence it had been brought, report that half an hour flowed by until the companions arrived. For neither could the master with his companions be ferried over so promptly. Meanwhile, when the funeral had in such a manner escaped the eyes of Henry of Rottenburg, he, as soon as he had been carried across, leaps on his horse, and, following the oxen at a swift pace, finds them surrounded, as we have said, by a great throng of those running up, in the place described, and instructs them as they marvel in the whole course of the matter. When meanwhile the remaining companions also arrived, it seemed that the holy Virgin had destined this place for her rest, being otherwise well known to the people of Jenbach; but while they take counsel about setting down the funeral, the oxen suddenly take up a brisk journey, hastening northward to the stream Kasbach.
[4] This road is the royal way into the valley of Achen d, neighboring Bavaria, again and to the monastery of Tegernsee e: the road itself for more than an hour is steep enough, with farms and peasants' cottages set here and there; hence it is not to be wondered at that the number of those running up increased. When they had accomplished half the road, the animals rested again for a quarter of an hour. Then presently, drawing the sacred relics upward, they at length measured out this height. Here on the left is the road into Bavaria; but the oxen, deserting the royal road, enter upon the right-hand road toward Eben f, so called from its pleasant plain.
[5] Our Saint had long been known in this neighborhood g, as we have heard; and a third time at last at the chapel and that a great concourse was then made is evident enough. That this holy Handmaid had chosen this place Henry believed on this ground too, that from his castle he had often with a straight glance
looked out upon this sacred little building; and that Notburga had greeted it and greatly loved it: and not far from there had left with the peasant such examples of humility, and had so often used this very little building for the exercises of the most intense piety.
[6] What we have set forth at greater length in the History thus far about the unlooked-for journey of the oxen of St. Rupert at Eben, is, on the other hand, in the tablet publicly fastened up in the church, comprised altogether lightly and ineptly in these words only: "And when she died, it was done as she asked, and the oxen drew her across the Inn and up over the high mountain; then they stood at rest, and she was entombed." And although this road, this mountain, this place were all very well known, yet the writer here neglected the particulars; but another noble historian, Gözenius \*, supplied them, and the constant memory among posterity. He therefore writes thus about the happy crossing and the tomb: "And there she died: thence she was led by two oxen to the said place Eben for her burial h."
[7] Concerning this burial the writer of this History did not omit to inquire further from the older men of this place. where the body, set down before the altar Among other things \* that the oxen, wearied, halted again before the compass of the chapel of St. Rupert, at the hazel tree, until everything should be prepared. A certain noble man, also quite burdened with old age, narrated to the author that he had heard from his forefathers (as men who refer the origin of their nobility almost to the times of this Saint) that the oxen suddenly entered the chapel with the sacred funeral; and when those who were present had noticed this and were approaching the church, the oxen, with the wagon now unloaded, meet them at the doors, the sacred funeral having been set down at the foot of the altar. This was a manifest prodigy, since the chapel was so narrow that it gave no space for turning the wagon i.
[8] prodigiously, is buried. God therefore willed that these sacred remains, which came to this place by no human help and not without a prodigy, should reach the very tomb. The ceremonies therefore being performed according to the custom of the Church, they were there committed to the earth before the altar: on the following day the funeral rites were duly paid, and when these were finished the master Henry departed, not without tears, from his most pious Maidservant, to whom he commended himself and his whole house with his whole heart.
[9] A chapel is founded in the village of Jenbach. When on his return from the burial and the obsequies he had come to the second halting-place, that is, to that spot where the oxen rested a second time beneath the shade of the trees and thickets, he ordered the place to be marked and a linden to be planted, which is preserved always down to our own times, and will be guarded in times to come as well k. But when he came to the first halting-place in the village of Jenbach, in the middle of the road he caused a very small chapel to be built, with a painting of the prodigious crossing of the Inn and with a locked little chest for offerings. This chapel indeed has wholly fallen into decay through long time; but there has remained to this day the little chest with the name The Chest of holy Notburga, and whatever is offered there goes to her church at Eben: it is doubtless to be hoped that the chapel too will in time be built again l. And here the author ends the sixth part and the Life of this Handmaid of God, certainly of great sanctity, and lingers a little in mind and heart at her tomb.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ elsewhere Gezner*
\ supply he understood*
PART II.
A repetition of the prodigies wrought in her life, her death, and her burial.
The author repeats Of a threefold kind are the miracles or honors by which God thrice best and greatest renders his servants known and honorable to the world — in life, in death, in burial, and further afterward. And although we have already narrated whatever was accomplished in her life, yet all must still be repeated in its own order. And first indeed it is established that there, where this Handmaid of God stayed in service, all the goods of body and of soul were brought in together and abode: on the other hand, if she departed from any place, these goods too all vanished together — which we have narrated at greater length in the preceding History itself.
[11] A second prodigy during her life was the blinding of the eyes of her master and of his servant. the prodigies, For while Notburga was carrying to the poor the food withdrawn from herself and her drink, Henry deliberately put himself in her way, to test what she was carrying: and so, while he tastes the food a, it seemed to him as if they were splinters; and the wine, when sipped, seemed to him vinegar, for the reasons set forth in the History. \*
[12] The third, the unlooked-for death of her mistress Ottilia, who dismissed her Maidservant from service on account of her almsgiving; which happened in her life, but the lady, before the departure of her Maidservant, was carried off by an unlooked-for death, and was borne from the castle to the tomb. For all who are hard toward the wretched, for the causes set forth in the History, are not destined to be long-lived. The fourth, the terrible apparition of the aforesaid Ottilia in the sty among the swine, inasmuch as she had granted to them the leavings of the food more willingly than to the poor. Thus the Godhead avenged the grave injury which the mistress inflicted on God's Handmaid.
[13] The fifth, the admirable suspension of the sickle in the air, which was accomplished in the sight of so many persons. of St. Notburga, The sixth, the prediction of things to come, inasmuch as, from her knowledge that she would die in this castle, she made an agreement with her master as to what she wished to be done with her after her death; although she afterward stayed eighteen years more in his service. Nor do I doubt that many other things besides happened, which perished either through the drowsiness of those times or perhaps also through the repeated fire b.
[14] And first c indeed she reminded her lord in her last illness of his promise, namely what was to be done with her body after her death; in her death and burial secondly, the oxen's own free guidance, which was so straight, so convenient, and so prudent that it surpasses all human prudence and understanding. Thirdly, the admirable crossing of the Inn by the oxen with the sacred pledge, namely from one bank to the other opposite it; for old men still living in that neighborhood affirmed to the writer that they had heard nothing else but that the sacred body, the wagon, and the oxen came up on the mainland in no way wet, but all dry. What I passed over in silence in the History must not be omitted here: some affirmed that the oxen walked upon the waves; but others, and those of more weight — among whom were some supremely pious men, honored by God even with miracles — brought to his house at the very hour when he was writing these lines, confirmed to the writer that the waters, divided like the Red Sea of old, afforded a dry road to the oxen: on which assertion accordingly the common report rests, that the crossing was dry.
[15] came to pass; Fourthly, her knowledge of the remote and unknown place of her burial, to which the dumb oxen so advanced and ascended that, although led onto erring ways, they never suffered themselves to be hindered — by sure signs that the sacred remains and the oxen were brought to this place by the leading d and escort of angels. Fifthly, the halts deliberately made at certain places, especially in the middle of the village of Jenbach, ordained by the Lord God to this end, that through them the memory of so prodigious a burial might remain for perpetual times, and that the people might in their posterity be a most faithful witness. Sixthly, the wonderful entry of the oxen and the turning of the wagon in so narrow a chapel, which makes up the space of the choir in the present elegant church e; and at the same time the setting down of the funeral before the altar and in that place where she is venerated today f.
ANNOTATIONS.
\ add it is clear*
A NOTICE.
Notburga, handmaid and virgin, in the castle of Rottenburg in the county of Tyrol. (S.)
The autograph of the charter here subjoined, as I have elsewhere hinted in a word, the religious of the Order of St. Benedict on Mount St. George possess in their archive, and it, and other things mentioned here and there, were exhibited and communicated to me (these are the words of the most distinguished Roschmann) by the most reverend, most illustrious, and most ample lord Lambert, abbot there, assistant of the archiepiscopal university of Salzburg, a learned man and a singular venerator of the holy Notburga. No mention indeed of this Saint is made in it; yet it has seemed good to give it entire as the said Roschmann transmitted it rendered into Latin from the German tongue, because after the tablet of Eben it is the most solid foundation of the Acts, and an indubitable indication of the good faith with which they were drawn up. For by this charter there are clearly proved most of the things which Guarinoni relates in the Acts, whether fuller or abridged, about the ancient splendor, dignity, and power of the stock of Rottenburg, about its lords and their wives and children, and about their pious foundations and beneficence toward the poor. To the charter I shall subjoin notes, but very brief ones, and those almost only such as may confirm what I have already noted, or may correct the errors which seem to have crept into it.
A CHARTER
of Henry, lord of Rottenburg, written in the year 1335.
From the archive of St. George.
Notburga, handmaid and virgin, in the castle of Rottenburg in the county of Tyrol. (S.)
By Henry the Lord.
A pious foundation on Mount St. George, I, Henry of Rottenburg the younger, master of the court, make known for myself and for all my heirs and all my successors, to those who shall inspect, read, or hear read these letters patent, that I came to the honorable assembly of Conrad, abbot of the church at Mount St. George, and to the whole convent there at their monastery, and exhibited, showed, and proved to them with a pure conscience and with testimony the letters and seal of their predecessor abbot Rupert of pious memory and of the convent, with the testimony and letters of the reverend lord bishop Landolf a, at that time bishop of Brixen, and of the chapter there, given in the year from the Nativity of Christ one thousand two hundred and ninety-eight b, on the Sunday next before the feast of St. George: namely, that lord Henry of Rottenburg the elder, master of the court, my father of pious memory, had given to their monastery twenty marks of Verona, and that on all days in the chapel of St. John a perpetual Mass should be read for him, and after his death an anniversary be celebrated every year eight days before the feast of St. Andrew or eight days after it, with commemoration, Masses, Vigils, and alms and other good works, noted hereafter.
[2] Regarding therefore and acknowledging the great and faithful benefits and favors bestowed by my said father on their monastery, formerly made under certain and still to be bestowed by me Henry his son, of their good will and counsel they renewed and confirmed all that was promised and enacted, as is noted hereafter. First, that they celebrate the anniversary of my said father lord Henry of Rottenburg, of his first wife lady Ottilia, and of lady Margaret of Hoheneck his second wife, my mother c, with Masses, commemoration, and Vigils; and on the same day give as alms to about five hundred persons cheese and bread, or meat and bread, whichever can more conveniently be had. And if on this anniversary day anything should be lacking of the aforesaid number, it must be supplied in full at the next such anniversary and distribution, in that sum which is noted below. Without any fraud or omission: and every year let this twofold distribution be published on the two nearest feast days preceding these two anniversary days, that the poor may seek this alms d.
[3] Let a full portion also be given to the convent morning and evening, conditions, and let each of the priests on the same day be ready to read a Mass for the deceased; and if they wish to celebrate this anniversary, they must give notice of it at Rottenburg and Rettenberg, so that four of my officials and servants may be present when this anniversary is celebrated. And so let them and all their successors celebrate this day perpetually. Moreover let them read on all days in the chapel of St. John an eternal Mass: on Sunday of the most holy Trinity; on Saturday of the blessed Virgin; and on the other days — Monday, Friday, Thursday, and Wednesday — let them read the Mass of the dead, for the salvation of his own soul and of the souls of all his honorable predecessors and successors, and for the aid and solace of all the faithful departed. But on the feast of that Saint in whose honor the church is consecrated, they may read a Mass of that Saint, and let them remember the aforesaid souls with a collect: all faithfully as [ ] … and to the priest reading this Mass let a measure of wine be given on all days for the bettering of his stipend.
[4] and penalties But if, which God forbid, they should not firmly observe this their aforesaid obligation, let me, my heirs, or my officials admonish them of this obligation and exhort them in their monastery to fulfill it, as is written above. If then within the next fourteen days they shall not have fulfilled it, let them, without any admonition to be awaited on that account from their superiors, be deprived of all divine office in their monastery so long until they shall have fulfilled all these things in full with the prescribed articles, and shall have made good what was omitted; and if they shall have done and fulfilled this, they may again celebrate the divine office as before.
[5] in case of negligence, made by his father But if they shall have omitted it for four weeks, and within the time in which they ought, shall not have amended themselves — which God forbid — let me, my heirs, or successors have full power to give twenty pounds f of money from their two rent-rolls (at Mieders fourteen pounds of money, and at Clapfs six pounds) to another church or monastery, wherever it shall more please us, in place of the twenty marks which my said father gave to this monastery; and if this money should be given to another monastery or church, let them not celebrate divine offices, according to the will and counsel of their bishop, until they shall have given satisfaction to me and to my heirs.
[6] and increased by his brother, Moreover the son of my said father, of pious memory, lord Henry of Rottenburg g, who died after him, my brother, gave to their church fifty pounds of money for improvement in the goods written below, that they might the more carry out and fulfill the said obligation h. And these are the goods: first at Wulenpack twenty-seven pounds of money, as rent one hedge of turnips, 151 eggs, and six cockerels; at Cholpach, seven pounds of money; the holding which Hadmar cultivates, ten pounds of money, as rent thirty eggs, one lamb, and four cockerels; at Albethal six pounds of money, as rent two cockerels, thirty eggs, and the fourth part of a wether: and let them use and enjoy the said goods as their own without any bond.
[7] he renews; and, instituting another also, Further be it known that if the said abbot Conrad, his convent, and all their successors should neglect what is prescribed and not fulfill it, let me, my heirs, or successors have full power to withdraw with fifteen i pounds of money, as is written above, in place of twenty pounds of money, on all that reasoning and understanding which has already been noted before. Further be it known that the often-mentioned abbot and his convent, for all their successors, with good counsel and will named and confirmed to me the altar of St. Stephen, situated in their church, at which for me, my brothers Henry, lord Gebhard, lord Nicholas, and lady Elizabeth of Gernstein, and lady Gutta of Freundsberg k, and for the wife of my said brother l, lady Elizabeth of Eremusium, and lady Elizabeth Leschavia, and for all their heirs and successors, a perpetual Mass shall be read without any intermission; and that we shall on no account change that altar; and that there a Mass be read on Sunday of the most holy Trinity, on Wednesday of St. Nicholas, and on Saturday of the blessed Virgin; but on the other days let them read the Mass of the dead for the salvation of his own soul, of his heirs', and of all his successors' souls, and let them remember all their predecessors, for the aid and solace of all the faithful departed, for the salvation of their souls.
[8] But if the feast day of that Saint in whose honor the said altar is consecrated should be celebrated, he determines the pious works to be performed yearly, then let them read a Mass of that Saint and remember the aforesaid souls with a collect, all faithfully as at other times. Moreover let them devoutly beseech God for my salvation and that of my wife the lady of Trautberg while we live, and if either one or both of us shall depart from this life, let them faithfully remember our souls and those of our predecessors; and to every priest reading this Mass at St. Stephen's let three denarii of the current money of Meran be given on all days.
[9] Afterward let them celebrate the anniversary of the said lords and ladies and of all their heirs every year eight days before the feast of the most blessed Virgin assumed into heaven, with Masses, commemoration, and Vigils; and on the same day let them give as alms to about five hundred persons, as is noted above, cheese and bread, or meat and bread, whichever can more conveniently be had: and on this very day let each of the priests be ready to read a Mass of the dead, and for this let him have from the abbot a twenty-piece; and let a full portion be given to the whole convent morning and evening; and if they wish to celebrate this anniversary, they must give notice of it at Rottenburg and Rettenberg, so that four of my officials or servants may be present when this anniversary is celebrated: and therefore I have given to them and to their church fifteen marks of money out of the goods to be noted below, that they may read these Masses and celebrate the anniversary of my said kinsmen and of their successors on every ground which has been prescribed. And these are the goods:
[10] First an estate at Thienzens in the parish of Matrei m, he designates the lands, which Omersael cultivates, which renders two (so called) n Gallung of barley, and two pounds, and as rent two shoulders, six loaves, three cockerels and a roebuck, thirty eggs: then an estate at Pfons, which Zund, the son-in-law of Conrad of Pulle, now cultivates, and which renders ten measures, partly of rye, partly of barley; and eleven pecks of beets, two pounds and thirty asses for half a hog, two shoulders, [ ] loaves, six cockerels, fifty eggs. An estate at Paz, which Pazer cultivates, renders six pecks of rye, six of barley, six of oats, two pounds, one shoulder, two loaves, two cockerels, thirty eggs. At Ellenpogen one estate, which Guldeiner cultivates, renders five pounds, and six twenty-pieces as rent; and one estate, which Marcus cultivates, renders three and a half pounds, two loaves, one shoulder, one cockerel, and fifteen eggs; and one estate, which Conrad Gast cultivates, renders eighteen pounds, two shoulders, two loaves, one roebuck, forty eggs; and one estate at Multhal renders five pounds, four loaves, two shoulders, four cockerels, sixty eggs.
[11] One farmstead at Ramsan renders twenty-four pounds, twenty larger loaves, he assigns them, ten cheeses, a hundred eggs, ten cockerels, one pound for half a hog, ten smaller loaves, four hams, and half a hog's head: and one estate at Vorpih renders twelve pounds, twelve pecks of rye, two shoulders, four cockerels, sixty eggs: and one farmstead at Obergasteig renders thirteen pounds, twelve pecks of rye, two shoulders, four cockerels, a hundred eggs. And if the aforesaid goods should yield more than fourteen o marks, let this be granted to them for improvement: and for all the said goods I and all my heirs will provide them and their monastery warranty according to the norm of the Statute of Tyrol.
[12] and under like conditions and penalties But if they or their successors should neglect what is prescribed, or not fulfill it, let them pay a penalty of fifteen marks in that manner which is written above,
concerning the twenty marks of money [p]. But if, which God forbid, it should happen that a great calamity of the province or a fire should afflict their monastery also, let them celebrate the aforesaid Masses and give the alms as they are able, faithfully and without any fraud. But if afterward my heirs or kinsmen or servants shall have admonished them to observe and fulfill again what is prescribed, then let them be wholly bound to do it in every manner in which it is written and founded above.
[13] he concludes the act. The witnesses of this said matter are: Lord Henry the Prior, Lord Peter, Lord Ludwig, Lord Conrad, Lord Dietrich, Lord Frederick, Lord Berchtold, Lord Nicholas, Lord Otto, Lord Ludwig, Lord Henry, all of the convent. Lord Berthold of Freundsberg, Lord Frederick of Rottenburg, [ ] of Kaltern, Henry judge of Rettenberg, Seyfrid of Horlachen, Henry Wurtel, Ulrich Specht, Seyboth Mayr, Nicholas Probst, Henry of Reuffenegg, Ulrich of Zoehing, Dietelin Ulrich their provost, and several other honorable men. And that this settlement may be perpetually and firmly observed by them and their successors, I have given this letter fortified with the appended seal of lord William of Gerenstein [q] and my own: Done in the year from the Nativity of Christ one thousand three hundred and thirty-five, on the Sunday after the feast of St. Nicholas.
(L.S.) (L.S.)
ANNOTATIONS.
p. That one mark was worth several pounds I need not point out, since in the preceding number, omitting others, a full ninety pounds are enumerated to make up fifteen marks; but hence I observe that two errors have crept into our copy. For it is said here that as a penalty for negligence fifteen marks are to be refunded, that is, the whole sum assigned for the foundation, and that in that manner which is written above concerning the twenty marks of money. And so above, in number 5 at letter f, for twenty pounds one must read twenty marks; and in number 7 at letter i, for fifteen pounds one must read fifty pounds: for such were the sums appointed for the foundation and the improvement, and such accordingly are to be demanded back as a penalty for negligence, as is clear.
q. He was probably the father-in-law or the brother-in-law of Elizabeth of Rottenburg; for, if Burgklehner cited at letter k expressed her husband's name rightly, he was called Henry.
POSTHUMOUS GLORY.
PART I. Her ancient and present cult at Eben and its neighborhood.
Notburga, handmaid and virgin, in the castle of Rottenburg in the county of Tyrol. (S.)
BY J. P.
§ I. Documents of a cult begun from the Saint's very death.
The ancient cult, besides other things, While we gather together the prodigies by which almighty God deigned to make illustrious the life, death, and burial of his beloved Handmaid, we cannot but profess that the tradition of the Tyrolese is not empty, by which they trace the beginnings of her cult back to the very times of her death. Guarinoni reports the tradition thus in the Fragments of the fuller History: The devotion therefore which God stirred up both in near and in far distant peoples through the pilgrimages instituted immediately after her death from Tyrol and Bavaria to her tomb, he has recompensed with many graces through her intercession. Of which matter all posterity, and moreover the noble writer mentioned a little before, … is a witness. He points to Francis Gezner, and subjoins in part his words, given by us in the previous Commentary, number 19. But what Guarinoni and those who followed him embraced in fewer and merely general words, it has seemed good to us to explain more fully, and, keeping so far as was permitted the chronological order, to show by documents and the testimonies of writers her ancient and never interrupted cult down to these our times.
[2] are attested by the chapels built The chief argument for a cult and veneration begun immediately after her death is the chapel of Jenbach, which Guarinoni mentions in the abridged Life, and again in the Fragments of the fuller Life in this manner: But when he came to the first halting-place in the village of Jenbach (Henry of Rottenburg returning home from the burial or obsequies of the holy Maidservant) in the middle of the road he caused a very small chapel to be built, with a painting of the prodigious crossing of the Inn and with a locked little chest for offerings. This chapel indeed has wholly fallen into decay through long time; but there has remained to this day the little chest with the name The Chest of holy Notburga, and whatever is offered there goes to her church at Eben: it is doubtless to be hoped that the chapel too will in time be built again. These words, although recited before, I have judged should be repeated in this place, because they differ a little from the present tradition of the villagers.
[3] soon after the Saint's death; one at Jenbach, The most distinguished Roschmann in his often-praised Notices sets up a discussion about the same chapel in two places. That this was built immediately after the most holy Virgin's death, he says in the first place, by the lord of Rottenburg in memory of the first rest taken by the oxen beneath a linden after the dry crossing of the Inn, both constant tradition reports and reason itself persuades; for this chapel is situated in the village of Jenbach, whose patron — of the village and of the parish church there — is indeed St. Wolfgang: unless therefore some singular and extraordinary cause had existed, I do not think it would ever have been permitted for a chest to be publicly set up in the village for any other Saint than the patron of the place; much less for the offerings (which I too found there, namely some mineral stones from the metal-miners, with a walled and closed little chest) to belong anywhere else than to the church of that place — as these do, all of which are carried to the church of St. Notburga. This chapel I visited in the year 1735, on the twenty-second of April, in my office, when as Apostolic notary I had been required by the ecclesiastical superiors to draw up the customary instrument before the delivering up of the sacred body; and I found there a painted image of the holy Notburga, beside which the stones which I have called mineral were set, and there on the left side I found a closed little chest of brick for offerings of money. You have an impression of the said chapel here in the attached plate.
[4] which is believed to exist to this day, The chapel exists therefore even now in the same place where in his own age Guarinoni testifies it had wholly fallen into decay, and that only the little chest had remained. Was it afterward built again, as he himself had hoped? The tradition of the inhabitants seems to oppose. Hear Roschmann setting it forth more clearly elsewhere: This chapel survives even today, and in it an image of the holy Notburga is seen painted, and beside it usually some mineral pebbles offered, which the metal-miners offer in thanksgiving if by this Saint's help they obtain rich veins in the mountains. On the left side of this chapel there occurs a closed little chest of brick, or the Treasury mentioned before, for offerings of money. This chapel, as I have received from the older men there, has been from all memory of men in veneration and cult there, and is believed to be the same which was founded immediately after the death of God's Handmaid.
[5] For my part, since it is not fair to deny credit to Guarinoni, but more probably it was renewed out of the ruins of the old one, who himself surveyed those parts, I judge that both his statements and the tradition of the inhabitants must be taken in a suitable sense, and reconciled in this manner: when therefore Guarinoni wrote that the chapel had in his own age wholly fallen into decay, and on the other hand that the little chest had remained, he meant to indicate that it was so destroyed that, although the walls or the ruins and foundations of the walls survived, it could not easily be repaired, but had to be built anew and entire. But the inhabitants reckon the chapel existing today to be the same as that which was founded immediately after the Saint's death, because it was built on that very spot, upon the same foundations, and even with the remains of the older chapel employed — perhaps while Guarinoni was still living, nay even at his instigation and promotion. This I suspect first because in the abridged Life, published in print more than twenty years after the fuller one was written, he speaks of the chapel at number 23 as if it existed at that time; secondly because we read that he was greatly devoted to works of this kind. Let Adrian Kempter, cited in the previous Commentary, be heard: For this is that Guarinoni … who with immense labor restored the History of several venerable persons and Saints of our fatherland, and singularly of St. Notburga the virgin and St. Andrew the martyr of Rinn, advanced their cult, and enriched his (St. Andrew's) church with an endowment established; who finally raised a notable church to St. Charles Borromeo, although he by no means abounded in riches. Nay, he took such delight in these things that he not only acted as a diligent architect and painter … but even as a mason, as the same Kempter writes and proves.
[6] There now succeeds the chapel of the castle of Rottenburg, of which we have discoursed thus in the previous Commentary at
the Life, on occasion of the tablet of Eben, another in the castle of Rottenburg, so that it is not necessary to show here at greater length that it was built, according to the testimonies of writers alleged there, at the same time and by the care of the same man as the chapel of Jenbach, and accordingly is another and distinguished monument of our Saint's most ancient cult. A monument, I say; for although it is today in ruins, its remains are nevertheless to be seen, and it survived entire in Guarinoni's times, as we conjecture from his words recited in our said Commentary, number 13. Receive other things from the Fragments: This chapel (into which the writer diligently inquired) was often renewed, and was worthily kept until about twenty years lately elapsed. Until certain men, possessed by the genius of the age, removed the altar elsewhere out of the chapel and the castle, and turned the elegant place, wretchedly devastated, into a storeroom; which the author of this History taking ill, he set his hand to it with his companions, removed the stores, cleansed the place, and restored the altar and the sacred furniture, until the matter should come into a better state.
[7] This holy Virgin's chapel was also preserved in two fires now past, which seized the whole castle without and within. The tenant of this castle, an upright and God-fearing man, narrated to the writer that on the night which followed the day on which the altar with the rest was removed from the chapel, which was twice preserved in the midst of fire; on that very stair by which these things were dragged, a huge tumult arose, heard by himself and his household not without trembling: a clear indication that this irreverence, offered to a sacred place, certainly displeased those above. Besides the chapel there also remained unharmed by the fire the kitchen and the servants' heated room, although the whole flooring and the vault itself were built of wood, and they survive to this day with chests remaining from the time of St. Notburga: all of which could not have been preserved without singular divine help, since the flames were raging round about and consuming everything; and these things I myself beheld not without repeated emotion.
[8] but to it, now destroyed, there has succeeded a new one outside the castle. In this state, with its chapel, was the castle of Rottenburg about the year 1620, when Guarinoni wrote these things. Its present state the attached plate exhibits, and the most distinguished Roschmann, likewise an eyewitness, describes it, whose words I here likewise transfer: At the same time and on the same day (the twenty-second of April in the year 1735) I visited the castle of Rottenburg itself, and there took care to have shown to me the chamber which through three centuries and more, amid so many injuries of times and of men, the whole castle being ruined and fallen, has remained, and not many years ago still stood entire, visited by pilgrims (as I had heard from living witnesses) amid prayers and tears. I entered through a huge heap of ruins, still by that door which belonged to the chamber or chapel: but except the main walls I found everything in ruins. With the tenant of the place, however, I found a wooden altar with a linen covering and an antependium, as they call it, and a panel set upon the altar; I received again, to be brought for the most illustrious lord of the manor, three wooden statues of about two palms, of ancient workmanship and of at least three centuries, of SS. Augustine, Wolfgang, and Hedwig duchess of Meran — which last, on account of its singular antiquity and its garb, with the lord's consent I brought into our public library, and all who have seen it thus far have admired it. So he. But elsewhere, repeating almost the same things, he subjoins this: But our Saint's statue, long since carried to Schwaz to be repaired, was never restored — which yet, being very ancient, I greatly desired to see. But today there has succeeded in place of the ancient chamber, at the foot of the castle, another chapel of wood, venerated likewise with great devotion, where among the offerings I beheld a mineral stone so large that the church of Eben itself could show none of that size. Two monuments of most ancient veneration having now been assigned, a third ought here to be subjoined — namely the tablet embracing the Life in a compendium, and, according to Roschmann's probable conjecture, hung in her church in the first times after St. Notburga's death. But we have recited it entire in the previous Commentary, and have abundantly opened our own opinion about its antiquity: it follows therefore that we should bring forward what we have ascertained about the church itself.
§ II. To the chapel of St. Rupert at Eben there succeeds in the fifteenth century a church distinguished by the name of St. Notburga; other arguments of a continued cult.
From the ample gifts of those visiting the Saint's tomb That there once stood at Eben a low and narrow chapel distinguished by the name of St. Rupert, in which the sacred remains of St. Notburga were committed to the earth, is sufficiently known from what has been said before. It has also been said in the Life, number 26, what sort of cult she presently obtained there; but it is well to repeat that text of the Life here, that we may more conveniently and in better order add what serves for its elucidation and confirmation. But the greatness of the deeds and of the benefits granted through her prayers immediately after her death, published far and wide, had summoned clients in crowds even from more distant, not to say from neighboring, regions, as the original History testifies. Wherefore they had also procured abundant gifts offered, fields and rents, and, a hundred and twenty years after her blessed departure, even an ampler fabric of a church of red marble, the chapel of St. Rupert occupying only the space of the choir (as is gathered from the pavement of the ancient vault), to which a new tower also was added. This recent church indeed, completed without arched vaulting in the year 1434 of the Redeemer's birth, the most reverend pro-bishop of Brixen, Albert, ordered by a solemn rite to be sacred to the memory of the holy Virgin.
[10] We have no testimonies of contemporaries at hand by which we might make certain whatever the biographer here and elsewhere asserts in general about so many pilgrimages instituted to the Saint's tomb, a new church is built, about the benefits obtained there, and about the gifts and offerings made between the year of her death and the year 1434, the epoch of the church built and dedicated to St. Notburga. We deservedly doubt too whether such testimonies were at hand even to the biographer himself, since in the Fragments he calls as witness of his assertion only posterity, together with Francis Gezner, a writer of the expiring fifteenth century. However the matter may stand, Guarinoni's assertion becomes to us altogether credible from what was said in the preceding §, nay even indubitable from the very building of the new church: for we do not see why, in a valley not much frequented, as it appears, before the Saint's death, and not inhabited by rich men, a church should have been substituted for a small chapel, and St. Notburga substituted for, or at least joined to, the old patron St. Rupert, unless the occasion had been afforded by the concourse of people to the tomb, drawn on by benefits, at first unusual and then constantly continued, and unless the abundance of gifts collected over a long time had contributed the means and the ability.
[11] For the rest, the epoch of the church completed and consecrated Guarinoni, and Rader and others following him, set at the year 1434, from the autograph letters which in 1434 which the archive of Eben preserves, and which, as we received them transcribed by the most distinguished Roschmann, we here exhibit. Albert, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Salona, we wish it to be established to all the faithful of Christ who shall inspect these letters, that in the year of the Lord 1434, on the Friday within the Octave of the Assumption of Mary, we humbly and devoutly consecrated the chapel of St. Notburgis in the valley which was called Eben, and the altar and the aforesaid chapel in honor of the holy Rupert and of many other Saints, whose relics have been enclosed and laid up by us; and we have ordained that their dedication be solemnized and performed henceforth in times to come on the Sunday next before the feast of St. Bartholomew.
[12] was consecrated, Desiring therefore that the aforesaid chapel and altar be frequented with greater honors and devotions, and that they be thereafter continually venerated by the faithful of Christ, to all truly penitent, confessed, and contrite who shall have visited the aforesaid chapel on its dedication or on its patronal feasts, and also on the festivals written below — namely on the feast of the Lord's Nativity and the three days following, of the Lord's Circumcision, of the Lord's Epiphany, on the day of the Supper, on Good Friday, on the holy day of Easter and the three days following, of John the Baptist, of Peter and Paul and of all the Apostles, on the festivals of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the festivals of St. Michael and of all the angels, and on the Commemoration of all the faithful souls, and also on every Sunday through the course of the year, and when at the morning or evening ringing they shall have prayed three Ave Marias, or shall have stretched out their helping hands to the fabric of the said chapel, to its ornaments or other necessaries, and shall have left to it a sacred alms, of whatever name or kind it may be, and shall have devoutly bestowed their prayers and other works of piety for all the faithful departed — as often as they shall have done such things with devotion, we, trusting in the mercy of almighty God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul and in his authority, mercifully relax in the Lord forty days of criminal and a year of venial sins from the penances enjoined on them; in evident testimony of which matter we have thought fit to have our pontifical seal appended. Given and done in the year, on the day, and in the place, as above.
(L.S.)
[13] it took on the name of St. Notburga, The sacred building, which the letters call only the chapel of St. Notburgis, and hint was dedicated together with the altar in honor also of St. Rupert and of other Saints, is constantly written the church of St. Notburga in many instruments which Roschmann cites or recites. The greater part of them are made up of autograph letters of purchases made for the same church in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, from which you may not only gather that the name of St. Notburga alone thereafter clung to it, but may also certainly learn that the multitude of people running thither to the Saint's tomb and bringing gifts always persevered and grew. The first and most ancient of all the instruments, drawn up namely in the year 1467, is, as Roschmann writes, a letter of rents and revenues sold, which the most illustrious brothers of Freundsberg and knights of the Mount of St. Peter had in the valley of Achen. The buyers were Leonard Walch of Eben and Sigismund Well of Perlisau, stewards of the church of St. Notburga at Eben, etc. The second instrument bears the year 1470, in which the same stewards bought another fief for the same church.
[14] it obtains its own priest. The substance of the third is a notable purchase (the words are again those of the praised Roschmann) of a plot for a house for the priest who was from then on and in perpetuity to dwell at the church of St. Notburga, made by its steward John Blaser in the year 1474. It is indeed notable, because through it we learn when that church began to have its own priest. But no less notable are the letters written in the year immediately following, by which four Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church granted indulgences to be gained in the same church, and exhorted the people to devotion and pious liberality. Those letters Roschmann judged worthy that he should transcribe them entire, and we that we should commit them to the press. They run thus.
[15] Stephen, of the title of St. Adrian; Ausias, of the title of St. Vitalis; and with indulgences John, of the title of SS. Nereus and Achilleus;
and John Baptist, of the title of St. Balbina, priests, by divine mercy Cardinals of the sacrosanct Roman Church, to each and all the faithful of Christ who shall inspect these letters, everlasting salvation in the Lord. The more fervently we lead the minds of the faithful to works of devotion, the more salutarily we provide for the salvation of souls. Desiring therefore that the filial church of St. Notburga at Eben, of the parish church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Münster, of the diocese of Brixen, be frequented with fitting honors, and be duly repaired in its structures and buildings, and be increased, preserved, and maintained with chalices, lights, books, and other ecclesiastical ornaments necessary for divine worship, and that the faithful may the more willingly flock to it for devotion's sake and the more readily stretch out their helping hands to this repair, preservation, and maintenance, the more abundantly they shall perceive themselves refreshed there by the gift of heavenly grace —
[16] trusting in the mercy of almighty God and in the authority of his blessed apostles Peter and Paul, transmitted from Rome, to each and all the faithful of Christ of either sex, truly penitent and confessed, who shall have devoutly visited the said church yearly on the festivals and days of St. Rupert and St. Sigismund, and of SS. John and Paul, and also of St. Augustine, and of the dedication of that church, from first Vespers to second Vespers inclusive, and shall have stretched out their helping hands to the aforesaid, as is set forth — we the aforesaid Cardinals, and each of us for himself, for each of the festivals and days of this kind on which they shall have done it, mercifully relax in the Lord a hundred days from the penances enjoined on them \, to endure in past, present, and future times. In faith and testimony of all and each of which, at the humble supplication of the parishioners of the said church, beloved to us in Christ, we have ordered and caused these letters to be made and fortified with the appending of our accustomed seals. Given at Rome in our houses in the year from the Nativity of the Lord one thousand four hundred and seventy-five, on the twenty-third day of the month of December, in the fifth year of the Pontificate of the most holy in Christ father and our lord, lord Sixtus the fourth by divine providence. H. Brunus.*
(L.S.) (L.S.) (L.S.) (L.S.)
[17] and is enriched with goods whether by donation Sixtus IV, on the testimony of Panvinio and others everywhere, was proclaimed Supreme Pontiff in the year 1471 on the fifth of the Ides of August, and in the year 1473 on the Nones of May adorned with the purple, with the titles expressed above, Stefano Nardini, archbishop of Milan; Ausias de Podio, archbishop of Monreale in Sicily; Giovanni Arcimboldi, bishop of Novara; and Giovanni Battista Cibo, bishop of Molfetta, who on the death of Sixtus IV succeeded to the Apostolic See and was called Innocent VIII. These things suffice for the elucidation of the letters which we have recited. I return to the documents of the archive of Eben. The same church of Eben, says Roschmann, possesses an autograph charter on parchment of the year 1482, fortified with the seal of the prince (Sigismund Archduke of Austria), well examined by me and entire, by which he remits the feudal right owed to him in certain lands purchased for the church by its stewards. A copy of this I shall give in the next §.
[18] or by purchase. There are also present, the same author continues, letters of the year 1482 of the sale of a certain fief in the village of Münster, saving the right of Sigismund Archduke of Austria, for the stewards of the church of St. Notburga, Leonard Kandlinger and Ulrich Velderer. In the year 1488: similar letters concerning an annual rent of three pounds of Verona bought "for the venerable church of St. Notburga." Besides what has already been alleged, he mentions in general authentic instruments of the years 1468, 1482, 1510, 1516, 1518, 1525, and 1537, in which purchases or donations made to the same church are recorded. And by these what we said at number 13 about the perseverance and increase of the cult and of the pious liberality of the people flocking to the tomb is abundantly confirmed.
Annotata\ eis*
§ III. The piety and munificence of leading men, chiefly of the Most August House of Austria, toward the Saint, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; the cult continued and increased down to our times.
The highest princes What is set forth under this title Guarinoni embraced thus in the Fragments: That immense reverence and devotion with which princes were borne toward this holy Virgin was at all times remarkable. The emperor Maximilian the first, together with the suffragan of Brixen, of Schrofenstein, caused the vault or arching of the church, which it lacked for eighty years, to be raised. Sigismund Archduke of Austria esteemed this Saint greatly. To these last words of the Fragments Roschmann subjoins the following: All the rest is missing; so that one may at least suspect that other things of the same kind were collected and noted by the author, and have perished through the iniquity of the times. There is added that in the abridged Life, at number 28, he asserts that there were never lacking clients even of great name, whether from devotion or from gratitude, as the Annals more fully report. That we do not know what Annals he here points to we have already noted in the Notes on that same text.
[20] namely Sigismund But the veneration of Archduke Sigismund toward St. Notburga asserted by Guarinoni shines out in the charter which we alleged at number 17, and now bring forward entire: We Sigismund by the Grace of God Archduke of Austria, of Carinthia and Carniola, count of Tyrol, give assurance. Whereas the steward of the church of holy Notburga in our lordship of Rottenburg has, with our license, bought for the aforesaid church the goods presently to be described, which are subject to us and to our House of Austria by feudal right, we, out of the love of God and the singular inclination with which we are borne toward the said church, have appropriated to that same church the goods presently to be designated, and have given them as allodial and its own property. And we give and appropriate these also, as much in our own name as in that of our heirs and successors, of certain knowledge and by the tenor of these letters.
[21] So indeed that that church, or its provost, whoever they shall be in time to come, may and must, for themselves, from now and always, by right of property in the place of that church, hold, possess, use, enjoy, exchange, sell, or deal with them in any other manner whatsoever; Archduke of Austria just as with the other proper goods of that church, without any interruption, hindrance, or contradiction to be made by us or by anyone in our name; saving however the right of any other party. For we have faithfully and with all fraud removed renounced entirely the feudal right and every other. And these are the lands and fields: first a field at Lindenfeld; likewise a field at Eggarten; likewise a field at Kurzenfeld; likewise a field at Creizfeld; likewise a field at Obernfeld; likewise a field at Arbeitsplunt. Again a small meadow closed with a hedge; likewise a plot for a barn. These goods come from the elder Leitgeb. Again also at Creizfeld four fields, at Lindfeld one, and again a field at Eggarten in the corner, at Oberfeld four fields, one harrowed piece of land, and another garden, a field at Arbeitsplint, and a small one, by the testimony of these letters. Given at Innsbruck on the Wednesday after the Sunday Exaudi, after the Nativity of the Lord in the year 1482.
(L.S.) Given by the Lord himself in Council.
The faults of writing which strike the reader at once, especially in the latter part of the charter, I neither correct nor sufficiently perceive how they ought to be corrected. I had at first believed that they should be attributed to the carelessness of the copyists; but the most distinguished Roschmann, being consulted about them, wrote back in these words: I used the charter itself, and I also inspected its register in our archive, and the words sound no otherwise there.
[22] The piety and munificence of the emperor Maximilian toward St. Notburga almost all the writers after Guarinoni celebrate and the emperor Maximilian, who in Tyrol who consigned our Saint's deeds to writing. And first of all Rader in the Life, saying thus: This (church of St. Notburga) was after eighty-one years completed and adorned by Maximilian the first, Augustus of Austria, and by the pro-bishop of Schrofenstein. Brunner in the Annals of Bavaria: There, he says, when Notburgis had received a tomb next to the altar, mortals, judging her not even so to be laid worthily, added a more august church of porphyry stone, to which Maximilian, the emperor first of that name, set the last hand; and the Augustus saluted as Patroness her who was once a Servant. Brunner was followed by Adlzreiter; and the most recent anonymous author of the Italian Life, cited at number 36 of the previous Commentary, collected the statements of each of those already named, writing in this manner in chapter 6: The most august monarch Maximilian I bent his knees to this holy Virgin at the time when his sacred Imperial majesty, together with the most illustrious Christoph Schrofenstein, bishop of Brixen, caused the vault of her church to be built, endowed it with several precious gifts, and chose the Saint as his peculiar patroness and protectress: which example of the pious monarch other princes and magnates imitated, and have always venerated her.
[23] Roschmann in his Notices says it is easy to suspect often refreshed his spirit by hunting, that the most pious prince Maximilian, most munificent toward sacred buildings, was often brought here on occasion of the hunting and fishing, most celebrated at the neighboring lake of Achen. That those parts are most apt for hunting is well enough established; yet let Roschmann be heard again in his academic Dissertation on the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms of Tyrol as regards medicine, published in the year 1738: The animal kingdom too, he says on page 12, is nowhere more fortunate, not only through Germany, but not even through Europe: for as many alpine and woodland animals especially as our Europe brings forth and distributes here and there among its other provinces, Tyrol alone produces all together… This was known very well by the restorer of Germany and of letters, and the preserver of Tyrolese antiquities, Maximilian I Augustus, who left in this our fatherland, as nowhere else, so many monuments of his huntings, and underwent and escaped so many perils, as in the Valley of Hall, in the lower Valley of the Inn, in that of Steinach, at the castle of Tyrol, and lastly at the Rock of St. Martin, most celebrated to this day. This prince was followed by several of our Archdukes: Ferdinand the elder, Ferdinand Charles, and Sigismund Francis, etc. Probably it is some of these Archdukes that Guarinoni meant to designate in the Life, where, after he had mentioned the emperor Maximilian, he presently subjoined that there were never lacking clients of great name, whether in devotion or in gratitude toward St. Notburga; or certainly the anonymous writer praised in the preceding number, when he asserted that other princes imitated Maximilian's example.
[24] pious toward the Saint There would be no need to have recourse to conjectures of this kind if only the Annals were at hand which Guarinoni adduces, or at least if there survived the notable testimonies which were removed from the church some years before he wrote, as we learn from his Fragments, which run thus: There used to be kept in the church a certain kind of (the word has been omitted) whose threads Notburga had made with her own hands while she lived, and it used to be shown piously to those making pilgrimage to her tomb, as several men, venerable for nobility and age, well remember. Yet these were removed, together with other notable testimonies, about forty or fifty years ago, both by those whom the impious and abandoned books brought into this province had perverted, and by priests lukewarm at that time. For it is established that it was adorned with notable and great votive offerings, and almost wholly full
as the church was, as is abundantly clear from the testimony of the noble knight Gözenius. For those notable testimonies and remarkable and great votive offerings doubtless bore certain marks, from which we should have known more nearly and more distinctly both the time and the persons who were so munificent toward the Saint.
[25] and were liberal; Such testimonies of the pious zeal of the emperor Maximilian and of the most illustrious Schrofenstein toward the holy Virgin were preserved there down to our own age, and were seen more than once by Roschmann, as he himself affirms — namely the arms of both painted in the choir of the church with the year 1515. And hence, he subjoins, Guarinoni's assertion is again confirmed, that the first church succeeding the chapel of Rupert, which obtained its name from the holy Notburga, was for eighty years without roof or vault; and on this he observes that it was the custom before Maximilian's age that only plank ceilings should be used, and that he has beheld many such structures of those times throughout Tyrol. Finally, on the same occasion, from the noted year 1515, which is the eighty-first from the building or consecration of the church, he corrects Rader's error in attributing to the most illustrious Schrofenstein only the title of pro-bishop.
[26] But that error, such as it is, proceeded first from Guarinoni, Christoph likewise bishop of Brixen, in whose fuller History, as is manifest from the text recited at number 19, Rader had read that the emperor Maximilian together with the suffragan of Brixen, of Schrofenstein, caused the vault to be raised; nor had the same Rader seen Guarinoni's abridged work, published about twenty years after the edition of Bavaria Sancta, in which the author changed the titles and called Christoph Schrofenstein the most reverend prelate of Brixen. And rightly indeed: for, to say nothing of the catalogues of the bishops of Brixen, in which Schrofenstein is at once substituted for Melchior of Meckau, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, called from this life about the year 1509, there exists in the Spicilegium ecclesiasticum of Germany, part 2, page 1091, a charter from which it is certainly known that he held the bishopric in the year 1511. Wiguleus Hund, a writer of the same sixteenth century, inserted the following elogium of the man in his Metropolis Salisburgensis: Christoph, the first of this name, of Schrofenstein, son of Oswald a golden knight and of Praxedis baroness of Wolkenstein etc., coadjutor of Brixen and provost of the chief church of Trent etc., becomes bishop of Brixen in the year 1510: a man most celebrated for family, erudition, and gravity of character… He presided … over the church of Brixen for twelve years. He died in the year 1521, on the fourth of the Calends of April.
[27] Among the illustrious venerators of our Saint, or promoters of her cult, there might not undeservedly be reckoned here the four Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, and other most illustrious persons: and Albert, bishop of Salona and, according to Guarinoni, pro-bishop of Brixen; but of these we have already treated, and their letters have been produced in the preceding §. Nor indeed are the most pious and likewise most serene Archduchesses of Austria, Maria Christina and Eleanor, sisters of the emperor Ferdinand the second, to be passed over, at whose pious urging Guarinoni set his mind to collecting the Saint's Acts, and, with the favor and help of the most reverend Hieronymus Otto, afterward most exalted prince and bishop of Brixen, happily carried it out, as we read in his own preface. Keeping the order of times, there ought likewise to be mentioned the most illustrious Jesse Perkofer, about the middle of the last century bishop of Belina, suffragan of Brixen; but the discussion of him will recur below in part 2 of the Posthumous Glory, §1.
[28] For the same reason we here pass over the persons of the present century conspicuous either for ecclesiastical dignity today there stands out the piety of Caspar Ignatius, prelate of Brixen, or for nobility of stock, and who have deserved excellently of St. Notburga for the splendor of her cult promoted and increased; among whom there would surely come to be commended beyond the rest both the most exalted and most reverend prince of the Holy Roman Empire, bishop of Brixen, Caspar Ignatius of the counts of Künigl; and the most illustrious count Joseph Ignatius of Tannenberg, lord of the lordships of Rottenburg on the Inn, Tratzberg etc., together with his most illustrious mother Elizabeth Helena, free Baroness of Risenfels, and his most illustrious sisters Maria Anna and Elizabeth of Tannenberg; but their piety and munificence toward the Saint, and that of others, shines out so much in the relation composed by the most distinguished Roschmann and to be printed by us, that to set up a fuller discussion of them here would be to put the sickle into another's harvest.
[29] One thing, however, and that most nearly pertaining to us, we neither wish nor are able to keep silent: and of the most noble house of Tannenberg. namely the kindly and altogether singular care of the most illustrious count just mentioned for the Acts of the holy Handmaid to be inserted in our Work, and his liberality for adorning them; inasmuch as he not only before gave orders to the most distinguished Roschmann (as he himself writes in a letter sent to us from Innsbruck on the third of the Ides of March 1736) to compile the Saint's Acts and to send them to us in his name also, but even caused the chief places and buildings, already mentioned and to be mentioned in the Acts, to be delineated and painted, to be engraved on copper plates, and as many impressions of each as are required for nine hundred copies of volume IV of September to be transmitted, without any expense to our Museum, in the year 1751.
[30] That in the fifteenth century and afterward I have run on rather far, and have somewhat disturbed the order of times, in order that I might complete without interruption whatever came to be noted about the more illustrious venerators of the Saint. I return to the thread of narration left for a while. That the people's zeal toward her flourished throughout the fifteenth century has been proved by arguments sufficiently certain and numerous in §2. To these might have been added the testimony of the often-cited Francis Gezner, asserting that she was famous in his age, chiefly through the miracles which at her church, in which she is reported to have been entombed, have come about for all those who invoke her in their necessities. But that author was so near to the sixteenth century that it has seemed good to begin the said century with him. With Gezner agrees Marcus Sitticus, cited in the previous Commentary at number 21: This holy virgin Notburgis, he says, is famous throughout all Tyrol, both for the holiness of her life and for her beneficence toward the poor, whence also singular prodigies have been and are worked for all who invoke her in their necessities in that church where she is said to have been entombed.
[31] there was a great confluence of pilgrims at Eben Further, just as in the fifteenth century a vast confluence of pilgrims was the cause that a spacious church succeeded the formerly narrow chapel, and a house was appointed and sufficient revenues assigned for a priest who was thereafter and in perpetuity to dwell there and perform the divine offices, so I believe it came about, on account of the same and perhaps a greater frequency of pilgrims, that in the sixteenth century the place itself, gradually increased in the number of houses beside the church and of inhabitants, took on the form of a village; and that at last to that church both the right of burial and other rights proper to parishes were granted. And that these were granted in that same century, and probably about the same time at which the vault of the church was completed through the piety of the emperor Maximilian and of Christoph prelate of Brixen, we learn from an instrument of the year 1516, which Roschmann read in the archive of Eben, and of which he sets forth a summary thus: It is a judgment or arbitration of Leonard, abbot of Mount St. George, of Andreas Gewolff, parish priest at Münster, of Lampert Pagll, and of others likewise stewards of the church of St. Notburga, concerning burial, parochial rights, and other matters which the building of St. Notburga needs, and what on that account must be paid to the provisor, her assistant at Wising. This instrument was drawn up, namely, not long after the aforesaid rights had been annexed to the church, in order to remove and cut off the difficulties which not rarely arise from such changes.
[32] is established by the testimonies of contemporaries The nearer we approach our own times, the more the number of writers grows who attest the cult of their own time. For the seventeenth century, to say nothing of the biographers Guarinoni, Rader, and Platner, we have Burgklehner, who, having cited manuscripts several times, inserted this: St. Notburga is venerated with great devotion in the lordship of Rottenburg on the Inn, on a sufficiently lofty mountain at Eben, in her church there; Brunner, writing thus in the Annals of Bavaria: Even today the zeal of the people is fervent, who demand back from her hand, with prayers never vain, their own health and that of their sick cattle; and finally Adlzreiter, who likewise in the Annals of Bavaria noted this: She is venerated even today by the throng of pilgrims, who commend to her their own health and that of their cattle, not without a conspicuous experience of her beneficence. To this also pertains, and it much confirms the words of the writers already reported, what Roschmann notes in his Notices: namely that he inspected in the archive of Eben three quite large volumes in folio (as they call it), continued from the year 1610 to our times, in which an account is rendered of the offerings perpetually made; he adds moreover that there exists a fourth volume of this kind older than the rest, but that it was not seen by him, since it had then been sent to Brixen when the cause of the elevation of St. Notburga's body was being handled.
[33] For the rest, the offerings entered in those volumes consist, and by other documents. to use his own words, of mineral stones, calves, lambs, kids, calfskins, flax, and especially butter, of which he notes that more than four hundredweight were offered every year. I add nothing to these about the votive tablets hung in the church, nothing about the statues and like monuments of benefits obtained, nothing about the supplicatory processions constantly instituted thither from various and even more distant parts; nothing, finally, about the splendor of the present cult, about the solemnity of the annual festival, about the church with its altars lately built; because these and other such things have been sufficiently illustrated in the relation which the most distinguished Roschmann composed, an eyewitness, and in the cause of the finding and elevation of the sacred bones the Apostolic notary.
A RELATION of the sacred body found, examined, solemnly translated, and publicly exposed in this eighteenth century, and of some prodigies.
By the most distinguished man Anton Roschmann, Apostolic notary in the same cause.
Notburga, handmaid and virgin, in the castle of Rottenburg in the county of Tyrol. (S.)
By Anton Roschmann.
CHAPTER I.
The bones of St. Notburga are raised from the earth in the year 1718.
Leave having been received from the prelate of Brixen, Hitherto, from the holy departure of the sacred Virgin, through four whole centuries, the bones of that same sacred Virgin lay hidden, buried deep within the compass of the Rupertine chapel; until the community of Eben, together with the lord of the place, the most illustrious and generous lord Joseph, free Baron of Tannenberg, made supplication to Caspar Ignatius of the counts of Künigl, prince of the Holy Roman Empire and bishop of Brixen, their ordinary, that by the power granted to him as the chief pastor of these places he would impart license, in the sight of those to whom it belongs, the tomb being opened, to exhume the virginal body venerated from the very death of God's Handmaid, which might then by the proper rites be delivered up, adorned, and thus (merely continuing the ancient veneration) be exposed to the sight of all for the great desires of the faithful.
[2] before suitable witnesses The most exalted prince assented to the pious prayers of the petitioners, and appointed in a matter so weighty as commissary the most reverend and illustrious lord Joseph Anton Piazza of the counts, dean of these places, as they call it, rural or district,
who took as witnesses the very reverend lord Johann Sebastian Azwanger, parish priest at Münster, and the reverend lord Franz Xaver Sprong, curate at Eben.
[3] the place of burial is opened A beginning therefore is made by three diggers (one of whom had been designated by the most exalted prince himself); the walls of the ancient chapel are sought, and, their circuit having been surveyed on every side and uncovered on every part, at last the inner space of the ancient chapel was found, wholly and perfectly enclosed on four sides, and separated by a notable distance from the walls of the present church itself, three and a half fathoms broad and seven and a half long: the wall toward the East took its beginning under the very altar which survives even today, and here the diggers' labor was fruitless, since in the ancient chapel the altar with its step and railings must necessarily have occupied this place; and the sacred body, as the History testifies, was prodigiously set down before the step, and was there laid to rest.
[4] the sacred bones The earth, compacted and altogether solid, made much trouble for the diggers (as afterward this and all the rest was established on oath), so that everywhere it seemed to all untouched from any age, and never penetrated by any tool; the walls too appeared painted on every side, yet were so covered with blackness that nothing further could be discerned. When therefore the soil had been dug out so deeply that it easily surpassed the height of a man and a half, and the whole space had been thus entirely surveyed, on the seventh day at length, after the midday meal, in the presence of those whom I named above, the most reverend commissary and the witnesses described, there was found a single body, entire, lying somewhat on the Epistle side near the men's benches, and about twelve feet distant from the beginning of the wall, girded in the middle with a slender woman's leather belt (which afterward at a touch fell into the smallest fragments), together with a fragment of a woman's garment, folded after the custom in three plaits.
[5] are found with great joy All rightly exulted at this treasure found, and part turning to shouts of joy, part to prayers and thanksgivings, they most piously venerated these sacred relics as the very body of the holy virgin Notburga, moved also by this reason: that from immemorial and constant tradition, from a cult continued since her death and nowhere else in use, from the very frequent coming even of the most distant pilgrims, from common report, and from the very earth in which she was believed to be buried being taken from this place as a medicine in the diseases of animals, it had always been said and believed and confirmed by the common consent of historians and documents that this holy Handmaid was buried within its compass; and moreover that in this place, namely in the space of the ancient chapel, no other limb, nay not even little bones, besides this female body had been found, nay could not be found; since it is known by sure testimonies that there was no cemetery, no sepulchral stone, no memorial and no document that anyone else had been buried there but our holy Notburga. That all these things were so, the records afterward fortified with an oath, which I have at hand, abundantly testify.
[6] These relics of the sacred body, therefore, left in their place, found lest, the earth being thrown back over them, they should be confused or even damaged, were guarded by a firm plank laid over them; and, the soil that had been dug out being now thrown back, by order of the most reverend lord commissary they were again covered over with earth until, after a short interval, the most reverend and most exalted prince and bishop of the Holy Roman Empire himself should honor this place with his presence and should confirm everything by his authority.
[7] For on the twenty-first of September 1718, being brought to this place Eben with a great retinue, they are examined by the bishop himself, and, enclosed in a chest, among whom was also the most reverend lord commissary Piazza, and having taken with him a surgeon of no mean sort, the Reverend brother Vitalis Wagner, professed of the Order of St. Benedict in the most ancient monastery of Mount St. George, he ordered the tomb itself to be opened again, diligently examined the bones and the fragment of garment, and then, having first reverently kissed the sacred head, placed all the bones, wrapped in a clean linen cloth, in a wooden chest made for this purpose, closed with three locks and six seals, and ordered it to be committed to the earth again.
[8] But when after some time it was feared that the wooden chest, thus laid away in the ground, might take harm from damp and rot, are laid up in a safe place. by order of the same most reverend lord commissary the tomb was opened a third time, and the little chest, found with its seals unharmed, was raised and placed in an ancient empty tabernacle built into the right side of the wall and well fortified with iron gratings.
CHAPTER II.
After repeated examinations concerning the antiquity of the cult, the identity of the body, and the benefits obtained, a public exposition of the relics is decreed.
In the examination concerning the Saint and her relics When therefore the remains of the venerable holy Virgin had been enclosed in the fitting custody which we have described, and examinations concerning their identity had been instituted and sent with the other Acts to Brixen, the very reverend and most distinguished Father Anton Söll S.J., doctor of sacred Theology and of the sacred canons, formerly professor of sacred Theology and of the sacred canons in the universities of Innsbruck, Ingolstadt, and Dillingen, appointed procurator by the community of Eben and by its most illustrious lord, took upon himself three chief things to be examined and proved — which he performed excellently in a separate writing. 1. Whether the immemorial cult of this blessed Virgin is established. 2. Whether the identity of the body is established. 3. If both are established, by what authority and with what legal solemnity the aforesaid bones that were found may be exposed to public cult.
[10] To the first he proved at length, from the authors who treat this subject professedly, that a public cult is proved by spontaneous concourse, by free veneration with the offering of votive tablets, by the celebration of a Mass of the Blessed man or woman, the immemorial cult is proved, by the cult of images publicly exposed with a nimbus from time immemorial, by the fame of sanctity, by the name, etc. But he presently showed that none of these is lacking here for the immemorial cult of St. Notburga: for this is established from the keeping of such votive tablets from time immemorial, concerning the sight and certain knowledge of which from the time of their own recollection, and concerning hearsay from their forefathers and elders, there are witnesses beyond every exception.
[11] Likewise from epitaphs and inscriptions, from the immemorial and assiduous concourse to the tomb, from the celebration of Mass, from the common and public voice and fame of sanctity and of miracles, arisen in her life and continued immediately from her death. And that all these things are moreover proved from the consecrated church, from the title of Saint added in authentic letters more than two hundred years ago and in the books of offerings; from the celebration of Mass both in the choir and in the open, and indeed under a double rite of the first class with the transfer of the feast of the Exaltation of the holy Cross falling on that day; likewise in the chapel of Stilfes near Sterzing, though on another day a; from the testimonies of the historians Gözner, Guarinoni, Mancini, Raffler, etc. And thus he completed the first point.
[12] the identity of the body, As to the second point he wrote thus, among other things: That our Saint is buried here we have by constant tradition, continued through four hundred years and more; there is no other place, church, or cemetery in which the ashes of this Virgin are celebrated; there is no people that has ever called this into doubt or asserted that her body was buried elsewhere or is kept elsewhere; there is no church or cemetery or place that has claimed her relics for itself: whence the earlier tradition has always remained and remains in its never disturbed possession.
[13] Let there be added moreover the consent of the historians, the concourse to the tomb, the finding of the bones of a woman alone — most probably so — in the enclosed space of the ancient chapel, which was dug through entirely. There is no suspicion or memory of bones having been translated: which also could not have been done either secretly or against the people's will. All these things being confirmed by witnesses on oath, he concluded again, by the authorities of doctors and the declarations of the congregations of the Council of Trent (in all three points that most learned man used these allegations), that it seemed to him sufficiently proved that the bishop, from arguments so many, so solid, and tending to the same end, could pronounce in favor of the identity of this sacred body.
[14] and it is shown that a public exposition of the relics To the third he concludes from the sacred Council of Trent, Session XXV, on the invocation, veneration, and relics of the Saints, which enacts: "No new miracles are to be admitted, nor new relics received, except with the same bishop recognizing and approving them; who, as soon as he shall have ascertained anything about them, having taken theologians and other pious men into counsel, shall do those things which he shall judge consonant with truth and piety." He adds the common doctrine of the canonists, who teach even after Trent that relics of some Saint newly found may by the bishop's authority be exposed to public veneration.
[15] The bishop will therefore be able, he says, a fortiori to place the relics of St. Notburga, venerated with a frequent concourse of people, for greater devotion toward her, in a higher and more convenient place in the same church; since the authority of translating the relics of Saints even from one place to another has been granted to the bishop. can be permitted. For in this our case and question it is not a matter of any form of canonization or beatification, but precisely of the bones of a certain Blessed woman, venerated in the same place from time immemorial, being set forth there and honored with the ancient cult; concerning which matter no fixed form is prescribed either in the authors or in the law. And so ends this renowned jurist, famous for his published canonical Works.
[16] On occasion of this controversy raised, the thrice-desired lot fell to me too of rendering my useless labor for the honor of our Saint. The author, as Apostolic notary, For an Apostolic notary was sought, who should inquire into the following. 1. Into the tablets containing the miracles of the holy Virgin, and the other votive tablets hung in her church. 2. Into the tradition of her cult and burial, to be proved by witnesses. 3. As to the old tabernacle, whether penetration into it is impossible with the seals unharmed, and with how many seals it is fortified.
[17] Being required therefore by the most reverend, most noble, and most excellent lord Peter Joseph Ramblmayr of Goldental, doctor of sacred Theology, duly appointed to this, the church of Eben actual ecclesiastical councillor of the most reverend and most exalted prince and bishop of Brixen, canon of the notable collegiate church of Innichen, and also dean and parish priest at Fügen (inasmuch as by the order of the most exalted prince he had succeeded, in the office of commissary in this cause as also in his own office, the most reverend lord dean de Piazza who had died not long before), I betook myself to this most reverend lord, and then on the twenty-first and twenty-second of April, in the church of the holy Notburga in the place Eben and at Schwaz, I accomplished the thing desired and drew up an instrument upon it, from which I shall add here what I have not yet reported in these Acts.
[18] And first, that the tablets containing the miracles
are concerned, he visits it, examines the monuments of the cult, I found one of the year 1587, on which, besides other prodigies, that had been painted — how the oxen drew across the river Inn the coffin on which was inscribed S. NOTBURG; and two like paintings on sacred banners of the year 1630 and 1652. There too I found that tablet which I have prefixed to these Acts and have called the tablet of Eben. And I counted twenty-six votive tablets, whose age however does not go back a century and a half; two wooden statues; figures in the likeness of bulls, oxen, and calves, and one of a horse — sixteen of them of iron, nineteen of wood, and twenty of wax; likewise two very large candles; twenty pieces of mineral stones; and at the window and on the Epistle side the real horns of a young ox drawn to the church and offered six years before; and finally seven baptismal cloths, the little shirts, as they call them, of the sacred Chrism.
[19] To the second. The witnesses employed affirmed this: The first, of eighty years, deposed on oath the testimonies of old men about the antiquity of the cult, that earth carried off from the tomb of the holy Virgin for seventy years had been healthful for cattle and for men; that in a single year fourteen hundredweight of butter were offered; that the young ox mentioned above was offered by the village of Vomp; that very many pilgrims come even from Bavaria. The second, seventy-four years old, asserted that he had heard from his father, a man of sixty, and from his grandfather (for his other forefathers too had dwelt in this place for more than two centuries and a half) that she had been perpetually venerated here: he confirmed also the statements of the first witness about the ox brought and about the Bavarian pilgrims.
[20] The third, of sixty-two years, repeated those things about the healing earth, its continuance, the great concourse of pilgrims, and that it had brought a sudden remedy to himself when suffering from a fever, and that he had never afterward been afflicted with this malady. That he had once been steward of this church, and that in one year thirteen public supplicatory processions with sacred banners were made hither; that the people of Kundl, distant almost a day's journey, repeat this every three years; that the people of the Pinzgau also come frequently on pilgrimage hither; and that the servants of Brandenberg, enrolled for the cutting of timber, cause a solemn Mass to be made every year on the eve of the Nativity of the Virgin.
[21] and the benefits obtained he receives; That a Bavarian too had openly confessed in his presence that he had experienced the most present help of the holy Virgin in a plague of cattle, which had already carried off three animals of his neighbor's, while his own remained safe and untouched; and that this had often been done at other times, and that he and his father knew it so: in a word, that this their Saint had been a common refuge to all and in all things. This same witness brought at the same time from the church a pair of shoes, one of wood, the other of leather, adding that he had learned from the sacristan that a certain little child with twisted feet had, after prayers poured out there, been heard and restored, and had afterward walked straight, and that these shoes had been left as a votive offering. The fourth witness confirmed almost everything that the first had reported about the processions and the offerings.
[22] he surveys the seals of the reliquary, As to the third point, I found that penetration is impossible with the seals unharmed. Where I found the seals of the most exalted prince and the rest impressed not only entire and unharmed, but ascertained by evident demonstration that they were the very same which had formerly been impressed; for I asked that the proper seals of two of those present be handed over to me, and in their presence and sight I set the seals upon the sealings previously impressed on the chest by these very men, and showed to all that they matched to every point.
[23] and reports on each to the bishop; This instrument was delivered on the third of June 1735 by the most reverend lord dean of Fügen to the most reverend and most exalted prince and bishop of Brixen himself. Then on the fifth of this month the said most reverend lord reported to me that the most exalted prince had promised him that he would settle this whole matter after his return. The most exalted prince therefore, returning to Brixen and taking up the cause, at the prayers of the procurator mentioned above appointed first a fiscal promoter, and three cathedral canons, men illustrious in virtue, family, and learning, as arbiters, with his own recorder, who should accurately weigh the matter and duly examine it.
[24] a public exposition of the relics is decreed. At length on the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth of July 1735, in two sessions held before the bishop himself, the same most exalted prince decreed that the said relics should be publicly exposed in the church at Eben, and permitted that they might be honored with the same cult with which the blessed virgin Notburga herself had hitherto been honored there — as the decree drawn up thereupon on the twenty-ninth of the same month and year, confirmed by the seal and subscription of the bishop himself, contains everything more fully; which accordingly we bring forward here from the autograph itself under number VII b.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER III.
The decrees by which the prelate of Brixen permits the relics to be publicly exposed, and previously to be translated to Schwaz, to be adorned in the house of the most illustrious count of Tannenberg.
The decree by which the prelate of Brixen, To the perpetual memory of the matter. We Caspar Ignatius, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop and prince of the Holy Roman Empire of Brixen etc., to each and all who shall see and read these our letters, greeting from the Lord and our favor. Be it known to all that whereas the community of the place at Eben, of our diocese of Brixen, together with its lord of the manor, the most illustrious Joseph Anton Ignatius, free Baron a of Tannenberg, councillor of the chamber of Upper Austria, has with ardent and continual prayers desired that the bones of the holy virgin Notburga be exposed to public cult, and has offered most humble petitions to us through the venerable and religious father Anton Söll S.J., doctor of sacred Theology and of the sacred Canons, appointed by them as procurator to this end:
[26] We, wishing to favor their pious prayers and desires, and to promote the cult of the said blessed Virgin, yet in a matter so holy and of the greatest moment to proceed with due caution (as is fitting), the reasons being set forth first appointed the venerable and noble Franz Georg Peintner, licentiate of both Laws, canon of the collegiate church of Innichen, our ecclesiastical councillor and parish priest at Albeins, as fiscal promoter for this cause, who diligently surveyed the Acts; then three other God-fearing and learned men, namely the most illustrious and reverend Johann Philipp Karl count Fieger, canon of the cathedral church of Brixen and chief penitentiary; the illustrious and reverend Johann Jakob Karl of Recordin and Nein, canon of the cathedral church of Regensburg, vice-president of our ecclesiastical court and dean and parish priest of Stilfes; and also the most noble and reverend lord Johann Sebastian Benedikt of Pach in Hansenheim, canon of the cathedral church of Chur and parish priest of Brixen, our ecclesiastical councillors, as arbiters of this weighty cause; and we appointed as recorder the venerable Johann Georg Spillmann, secretary of our ecclesiastical court.
[27] Before us therefore, and before these present, in our residence here at Brixen, which moved him thereto, on the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth days of the month of July in the year 1735, there appeared the aforesaid promoter of the cause, and demonstrated the immemorial cult constantly flourishing for three hundred b years and more, from the documents of ancient and recent histories, from continued fame, from tradition, from the testimony of old men, from the concourse of the people, from the celebration c, from authentic instruments; and at the same time the identity of the blessed body from the sworn and solemn testimony both of the diggers and of the physicians and of several priests and of the public notary himself; and moreover dissolved, in the judgment of us and of our aforesaid councillors, more than sufficiently the objections of the fiscal procurator.
[28] We, since it was not a matter of a public canonization or of her universal cult in the Church, and since this cause has never been laid before the Apostolic See; and since moreover an immemorial cult before the decrees of Urban VIII published on this matter has been demonstrated, grants the public exposition of the relics. having heard the opinions of our aforesaid councillors and of other pious men versed in Theology and in canon law, by our episcopal power granted to us by the force of the sacred Council of Trent, by the tenor of these presents, permit, and have judged that it should be permitted in the Lord, that the said relics be publicly exposed in the church at Eben, and be honored with the same cult with which the blessed virgin Notburga herself has hitherto been honored there; not doubting that this cult will turn to the honor of God and to the manifold solace of those who supplicate; in faith whereof etc. Given in our episcopal residence at Brixen, on the twenty-ninth day of the month of July in the year 1735. Casp. Ig., bishop of Brixen. By the proper mandate of the most exalted and most reverend lord bishop and prince of Brixen: Johann Georg Spillmann, secretary of the consistory.
[29] The lady of Tannenberg offering herself Cheered by this most joyful news, both the community of Eben and all the neighborhood round about, and the whole house of the most illustrious lord, now thought of nothing else than of adorning the sacred remains. These pious prayers of those desiring it the most illustrious and generous lady Maria Anna Elizabeth Helena, free baroness of Tannenberg, widow, born free baroness of Risenfels, fulfilled, nay anticipated, and offered herself to cleanse these sacred bones, to arrange them in anatomical order, and to adorn them elegantly at her own expense.
[30] to adorn the relics, This accordingly the often-mentioned procurator and postulator in the cause, the very reverend father Söll, reported to the most reverend ordinary on the first of October of the year already named; who, moved by her notable liberality, then on the tenth of the same month and year deigned to commit this matter to the most reverend and most illustrious lord, lord Ferdinand Gabriel count of Sarnthein, pro-bishop of Brixen and his vicar general in spirituals etc. d
[31] the same prelate by another decree Caspar Ignatius, by the Grace of God bishop and prince of the Holy Roman Empire of Brixen. Greeting premised. Very reverend, most illustrious, and most beloved friend. Whereas, at the humble petitions of the Reverend father in Christ Anton Söll S.J., priest, as postulator appointed in the cause by our authority, those bones which in the church of St. Notburga in the place Eben were, by our disposition and respectively in our presence, raised from the earth, and have until now been kept, closed, and preserved in the ancient tabernacle of the aforesaid church under our seal also — after a most accurate investigation and examination of the documents brought forward in manifold ways, and no less after mature deliberation with men skilled in Theology and conscientious, trusting in that power and authority granted to us by the sacred Council of Trent, we have acknowledged and declared them to be those very bones in which the blessed soul of this pious virgin Notburgis, God's handmaid, dwelt while she lived — she who for more than four centuries has been celebrated and venerated as a holy and great Patroness both by the Tyrolese and by foreigners — and consequently that exposition and cult ought to be granted to the great fervor, devotion, and confidence of the faithful of Christ:
[32] commits the care to his pro-bishop Therefore the aforesaid father postulator to us, under
the first of this current month, further signified obsequiously how far the most illustrious Maria Elizabeth Helena, free Baroness of Tannenberg, born free Baroness of Risenfels, has offered herself to this end and has resolved to cleanse the aforesaid bones, to wrap them, and to adorn them elegantly at her own expense. Since therefore this pious offer greatly pleases us, we do not fear to entrust this precious treasure to her.
[33] But since that order also which is prescribed by the sacred Canons, and the due caution, must be observed, of translating them to Schwaz to the house of Tannenberg, and this lies upon us the more since the omission of them would in time bring irreparable damage to the honor of this holy Virgin: we have wished in this matter to place our confidence in your friendship and to lay the labor upon you, that you may betake yourself in person to the aforesaid place Eben as soon as it can be done, and, together with some priests as witnesses, take the holy relics from the tabernacle (for opening which we deliver the key), and before all things carefully recognize our seals; and if in them no injury or violation worthy of consideration appear, that you may translate them to Schwaz into a clean chamber, free at least for the time from other profane uses, in the house of the free Baron of Tannenberg, and may take care that the same most illustrious free baroness of Tannenberg, in view of the greater glory of God and of the Saints here concerned, do not refuse, together with her two most illustrious young ladies her daughters e, and with one or another helper to be employed with the approval of your friendship, to take an oath in her presence.
[34] Namely: 1. that she will withdraw none of the aforesaid bones; and what must be observed concerning them, 2. that she will mingle no other, that is, no foreign bone with them; 3. that she will carefully guard those same bones also from withdrawal or irreverence by others; 4. and finally, that after so praiseworthy a labor has been accomplished, she will restore them for our further ordering and disposition, that they may be carried back again to their own place. Besides these things it would further be our mind that in that chamber, where and so long as the holy relics are kept there, a lamp should burn perpetually, and that besides the ordinary lock one or two padlocks besides should be used, whose keys, at that time when no one stays in that chamber, are to be deposited in the hands of the priest dwelling otherwise in that house, Scalfus f; who likewise will not refuse to bind himself by oath as to the articles just recounted.
[35] We therefore await from your friendship a relation, as soon as it can be done at your convenience, he proposes. together with a record to be drawn up on each and all these matters, leaving to your prudence and discretion to order, as the case may arise, one thing or another not inserted here, toward the intended end: and we remain rightly devoted to you with a friendly and benevolent mind. Given in our residence at Brixen, the tenth of October 1735. Caspar Ignatius, bishop.
ANNOTATIONS.
f. See number 50.
CHAPTER IV.
The sacred bones, carried from the church of Eben to Schwaz, are committed to the good faith of the most illustrious family of Tannenberg.
The pro-bishop or vicar of Brixen, in the church of Eben, To this end therefore this same most reverend lord pro-bishop with his retinue betook himself on the eighteenth of the month of October to Schwaz a, and on the following day, the nineteenth, to the place Eben b, in which he was most becomingly received by the greater part of the venerable clergy of this whole deanery of Fügen, and presently betook himself into the sacred building of the holy Notburga: he himself offered the sacred rite at the high altar dedicated to this holy Virgin, and then duly girded himself for this act, which was performed in this manner.
[37] at the request of the procurator appointed thereto, The same most reverend lord occupied a chair placed at the altar and on the Gospel side, and before all things exhibited the most clement episcopal decree concerning the commission entrusted to him etc., of which it was spoken before, and whose tenor is to be read here under number VI at the end c. Then there appeared the very Reverend Father Söll as procurator legitimated to the Acts in the cause, and most humbly urged that the seals d of the chest in which the relics of the Blessed Virgin Notburga are enclosed should be recognized, and that witnesses thereupon should be employed, an oath having been premised and the things to be observed being observed; and finally that proceeding should be made to the actual delivering up, and to all the rest that should seem necessary and opportune to this end and act.
[38] with assessors, an Apostolic notary, This petition having been received, and two assessors having been chosen — the most reverend, most illustrious, and most ample lord, lord Lambert, Prelate and mitred abbot of the most ancient monastery of St. George e, and the already above-named most reverend lord dean Ramblmayr — an oath was imposed on me, Anton Roschmann, as Apostolic notary specially required for this act, that I would faithfully note everything as it was done and insert it in the record; which also I performed before the altar on bended knees upon the holy Gospels, having kissed the same.
[39] and illustrious witnesses The same oath in the same manner was then taken, as witnesses asked and employed, by the most reverend and most illustrious lord, lord Joseph Leopold, count of the Holy Roman Empire of Sarnthein, lord in Kellerburg, Rottenburg, and Kranzlstein, feudatory in Reinegg etc., canon of the cathedral church of Brixen; the most illustrious lord, lord Gottfried, count of the Holy Roman Empire of Sarnthein, lord in Kellerburg, Rottenburg, Kranzlstein, feudatory lord of the lordship of Reinegg, actual chamberlain of his sacred Imperial and Royal Catholic Majesty, and vice-president of the exalted chamber of Upper Austria.
[40] bound by oath, The most illustrious and generous lord, lord Johann Georg, free Baron of Sternbach in Stock, Angerburg, and Windeck, lord of the lordships of upper Falkenstein and Groppenstein, likewise of Grafendorf and Rosenberg and Meltheur, actual councillor of the exalted chamber of Upper Austria of his sacred Imperial and Royal Catholic Majesty. The very Reverend Lord Franz Fluri, parish priest at Münster in the lower Valley of the Inn. The very Reverend Lord Johann Pezer, chaplain of the most reverend lord pro-bishop. The illustrious Lord Felix Jakob von Graben in Stein, secretary of the Tyrolese provincial exalted chamber in military affairs.
[41] Then the ancient tabernacle f was opened, for the opening of which the most reverend and most exalted bishop himself had sent the key. he transfers the relics from the old casket into a new one, From it the chest was brought and, for the better recognizing of the seals, set on a little table at the altar: and when the seals had been recognized and found unharmed on every side, the most reverend pro-bishop opened the chest and reverently and carefully laid the sacred bones in another chest, elegantly constructed for this purpose, and closed it with his own seal, that of the aforesaid lords assessors, and my own as notary, and took the key to himself.
[42] Then after the midday meal, when all was ready for the journey, and, with many of every rank accompanying this chest, most becomingly adorned on every side, was carried under a canopy, sacred banners going before, for half an hour as far as the royal road at the torrent Kasbach g, the most reverend pro-bishop and a numerous clergy and the notable nobility present accompanying with burning tapers amid the sound of bells. Then we all proceeded with the sacred burden on foot as far as that linden well known in the Notburgan History h; where some little time was given to rest. Here the illustrious persons with the most reverend pro-bishop went on before, that everything might be the more splendidly and conveniently prepared for the bringing in of this treasure at Schwaz. For the rest, through the greater part of the road the shoulders of the reverend lords priests, and of the most reverend prelate too, had gone beneath this sacred burden.
[43] Then, when the chest had been removed from the linden, the sacred banners of the people of Jenbach i and the sound of the bronze bells received it again, and with people of every rank running up, and accompanied it for almost more than an hour. When these fell silent, the other bells of the church of the provostship of the castle of Tratzberg k rang out, until to these too there succeeded the bronze sound of the village of Stans l, with whose banners and whole populace the Reverend Lord Prior of St. George accompanied the sacred pledge as far as Schwaz.
[44] And now, as the sacred remains drew near Schwaz, the bells of larger form and number of the famous monastery of St. George, solemnly as far as Schwaz now Viecht m, situated opposite Schwaz, announced them, to which the people of Schwaz answered with their bell, the greatest especially, renowned among the chief ones of the region. Then in our way we came to the church of the hospital of Schwaz, where we rested a little, until a beginning should be given to the more solemn bringing in. There went before therefore the guilds and all the confraternities with tapers in their hands; these were followed by the Reverend Fathers Franciscans of this place, likewise furnished with tapers, as also by all the exceedingly numerous clergy of the neighborhood, by whom also the sacred body was carried under a canopy amid torches.
[45] There followed the pro-bishop, and with a great throng of most illustrious nobility the lords of the mines and the prefects with the mining officials and the other superiors, among some thousands of spectators running up, he places them when brought from whom, through the whole space of the journey, the novelty of the spectacle, the long-established piety toward this Saint, and the prayers of four centuries at last fulfilled, drew forth amid pious sighs and the tenderest affections of devotion tears of joy from very many as well.
[46] Then, brought into the parish church (which in its amplitude and majesty scarcely yields to any in the whole province, and is wholly covered with copper) amid the noise of trumpets and drums, the Virgin's pledge was placed at the altar of the holy Cross beneath a baldachin, the pro-bishop himself in pontificals beginning the Ambrosian hymn. in the chief church; a solemn Office having been premised, Then on the next day, namely the twentieth of October, from earliest morning and with a most crowded number of suppliants, these sacred relics were venerated with fervent piety amid the sacrifices of Masses. Then there was sung by the most reverend and most illustrious lord canon of Sarnthein a solemn office of the most holy Eucharist (for it was Thursday, a festival for the sodality of the most holy Sacrament famous there); which being finished, the most reverend lord pro-bishop girded himself for delivering up the sacred body with the due solemnities.
[47] he examines anew the seals of the casket, First of all therefore the same most reverend lord called the most reverend and most ample lord prelate of Mount St. George, likewise the most reverend and most excellent lord dean of Fügen, and me the Apostolic notary, to recognize our seals impressed the day before; and when all had been found untouched and entire, the most reverend lord commissary ordered me to insert all these things in the record.
[48] from the lord of Tannenberg, Then, occupying a chair at the altar as on the day before, he awaited the coming to him of the most illustrious and generous lord Joseph Anton Ignatius, free Baron of Tannenberg, lord of the lordships of Rottenburg on the Inn, Tratzberg, Campan, Liebeneich, Grienburg, and Schönwörth,
lord and provincial of Upper Austria above the Enns, lord in Freundsberg, Schwaz, and Neuhaus, actual councillor of the exalted chamber of Upper Austria of his sacred Imperial and Royal Catholic Majesty.
[49] from his most illustrious mother and sisters, and from others He, repeating the oath read out by me the notary — namely that he would reverently guard these sacred bones in his house, would deliver the key of the heated chamber to be guarded to none but sworn persons, and would restore these same sacred bones in due time to their own place, etc. — promised on oath with the Gospels touched, and kissed the same. A like oath also, though with its tenor somewhat changed, was taken by the most illustrious and generous lady Maria Anna Elizabeth Helena, free Baroness of Tannenberg, widow, born free Baroness of Risenfels, in Oberaichet, Engelsegg, and Grienau, lady of the lordships of Risenegg, Rhorbach, Klingenbrunn, Schwend, and Reilling etc., with her two illustrious daughters, lady Maria Anna and lady Elizabeth, free baronesses of Tannenberg, as also by the most noble lady Maria Anna, married Burgklehner, born Sayler: namely that all these would withdraw none of these sacred bones, would mingle no foreign one with them, and would diligently guard them also from withdrawal by others and from irreverence.
[50] he receives the oath, and, the casket being opened, And finally also the very reverend, noble, and most distinguished lord Joseph Scalfi, licentiate of sacred Theology and domestic chaplain of the same most illustrious lord baron of Tannenberg; and, in case of his absence or hindrance, the very reverend lord Maximilian Wagner, parish priest of Schwaz, were likewise bound by oath that they would faithfully keep with themselves the key of the heated chamber containing these sacred bones, would deliver it to no one, and would carefully lock that chamber daily. These things being thus performed, the sacred relics were lifted from the altar, and from the parish church, through the choir and the domestic passage, with those who had been present yesterday and today accompanying with lighted tapers in their hands, they were carried into the palace of Tannenberg and into the heated chamber appointed for this purpose.
[51] Where, the sealed bindings on the chest having been loosened by the most reverend pro-bishop, he commits the relics to their good faith. the key to it was entrusted to the very reverend lord Scalfi as keeper; and certain smaller and scarcely notable particles of the sacred bones were given by the most reverend lord, having first been fortified with his episcopal seal after the custom: a notable one to the most exalted lord ordinary, less notable ones to the councillors and promoters of the cause; a larger one to the most illustrious house of Tannenberg; and finally a remarkable one, most kindly granted to the most reverend and most ample lord prelate Lambert at Mount St. George, at his earnest prayers, both because our holy Notburga in her lifetime was on familiar terms with these as with spiritual fathers and curates of her parish, to which Rottenburg was subject n, and that he with his whole monastery might be able to celebrate the Office and hours of this holy Virgin. And thus, with all congratulating the most illustrious house on so great a treasure of so holy a Housekeeper committed to its good faith, piety, liberality, and custody, this act was finished.
ANNOTATIONS.
e. See below, letter m.
CHAPTER V.
The church of Eben is built anew and munificently decorated; the bishop and prince of Brixen institutes an examination at Schwaz concerning the custody and adornment of the relics.
The church of Eben having been munificently decorated, The sacred relics therefore having been handed over to the most illustrious family of Tannenberg, the same most illustrious lord count thought, with both the church's steward or the treasury of the church and the neighborhood of Eben assenting and contributing, of a place to be built worthy of so great a Guest: the nave being enlarged in length by twenty-five paces, in breadth by nine. The chief part of the expense, therefore, the same most illustrious lord contributed for the whole nave of the church to be raised from the foundations: to these he added three altars, and caused the whole church within to be most becomingly adorned with fretwork of plaster and with paintings, as the copy shows a. The vestments, as they call them, for these three altars, and the gilt and silver sacred vessels, were supplied by his most illustrious lady mother, born free baroness of Risenfels — that same lady who adorned the sacred body.
[53] and the sacred remains of Notburga. While these things were being done in the church of Eben, meanwhile at Schwaz they labored strenuously at setting up the whole sacred body of the holy Virgin according to the rules of osteology; all this that same most illustrious lady mother mentioned above performed chiefly at her own expense, together with her two most illustrious daughters, namely the full sisters of the same most illustrious lord count, the ladies Maria Anna and Maria Elizabeth. The sacred bones were most elegantly covered with most precious garments such as befit a citizen maiden, as the holy Notburga was, with netted work, that they might be seen through, and with pearls and gems on every side b.
[54] Meanwhile, the church being built as we have said, and lit with the brightest windows, The bishop and prince of Brixen comes to Schwaz, and adorned with paintings and three most elegant altars, and the sacred remains most becomingly arranged, it seemed good to invite the most reverend and most exalted prince of the Holy Roman Empire and bishop of Brixen himself, out of the singular veneration with which he was borne toward this sacred Virgin, to the solemn pomp of restoring the sacred relics to the church of Eben. Nor was this most pious prince wanting to these most ardent prayers, but in the year 1738, on the thirteenth day of the month of September, together with the most illustrious and most reverend lord Franz Christoph Franzin of Mareit and Zinnenberg, capitular canon of the cathedral church of Brixen, dean and parish priest at St. Lawrence in the Puster Valley, as also with the most reverend and most illustrious lord Anton Felix count Troyer etc. of Gisbach, Strassfried, and Troyenstein, capitular canon of the cathedral church of Brixen, dean and parish priest at Imst in the upper Valley of the Inn, brother of the Most Eminent Cardinal bishop of Olmütz today, and with other officials, being brought to Schwaz, that evening diligently inquired whether all was duly prepared.
[55] And these things having been examined according to the gravity of the matter, on the next Sunday, and in the chief church, whether everything concerning the relics, namely the fourteenth of September, after the adorned sacred body had been duly and solemnly conducted from the house of Tannenberg into the neighboring parish church and placed on the high altar — in the same public parish church, next to the altar of the holy Cross, in the sight of the whole most crowded choice of guests from all the neighborhood and of the whole people, before the same most reverend and most exalted prince of the Holy Roman Empire and bishop of Brixen, and the two most reverend and most illustrious lords cathedral canons first mentioned, with as assessors the most reverend and most illustrious lord Lambert, mitred prelate of Mount St. George etc., as also the very reverend, most noble, and most excellent lord Peter Joseph Ramblmayr of Goldbach, rural dean and parish priest at Fügen; with as witnesses asked and required the most illustrious and generous lord Johann Georg, free Baron of Sternbach, actual councillor of the exalted chamber of Upper Austria, and the most noble lord Felix Jakob von Graben, secretary of the exalted chamber of Upper Austria in military affairs; myself, Anton Roschmann, licentiate of both Laws, notary of the university of Innsbruck, acting as clerk, asked and required for the former acts and for this one as Apostolic notary —
[56] Then the very reverend and most distinguished father promoter Anton Söll S.J. made his proposition, referring himself to what had gone before, are to be brought back to Eben, and relating at greater length what had thus far been done in this matter, returning the greatest thanks to the same most exalted prince for the notable labors which the same most reverend bishop had hitherto bestowed in bringing to light, examining, and exposing the sacred remains of the holy virgin Notburga, and most humbly asking that these be restored to her church at Eben.
[57] These things being performed, the most reverend and most exalted lord prince bishop exacted from the lords assessors, have been duly observed, from the persons the witnesses, and the notary an oath with clasped hand, namely that all had been faithfully done and would now be faithfully performed: which, being publicly rendered by all
and by each into the hands of the same most exalted prince, as also by the procurator of the most illustrious family of Tannenberg, the most noble and most excellent lord Leopold of Eyperg in Wertenegg, Schwarzenhorn, and Aichperg, prefect of the lordship of Schwaz.
[58] He therefore, first of all, both in the name of the most illustrious lord count Ignatius of Tannenberg, of his most illustrious mother Elizabeth, born free Baroness of Risenfels, and of his most illustrious sisters Maria Anna and Maria Elizabeth, and of the most noble lady Maria Anna Burgklehner, bound by oath he inquires, and born Sayler, by mandates subscribed with their own hand and confirmed each with its proper seal, gave assurance to the same most exalted prince that all and each of them had duly performed everything according to the oaths taken on the nineteenth of October 1735, had withdrawn nothing from the sacred bones, had religiously guarded them, and had substituted no other, etc.; which assurance concerning the keys delivered to them and kept by them the very reverend and most distinguished lord Scalfi and the very reverend lord Maximilian Wagner had already before given to the most exalted and most reverend lord bishop. confirms the license of further cult.
[59] These things therefore being premised and performed in the prescribed order, the same very Reverend Father promoter asked the same most exalted and most reverend lord bishop that he would deign to impart license for exposing the sacred bones to the public and ancient cult; which the same most reverend and most exalted prince of the Holy Roman Empire and bishop most kindly granted, as also that all those mentioned above should subscribe themselves with their own hand to the record; which also was done on the spot.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER VI.
The Saint's bones, honored at Schwaz with the utmost splendor, are brought back to the church of Eben.
The sacred remains A beginning therefore was given in this order to the solemn conducting or procession through the most ample village of Schwaz, and the same was happily performed. Trumpets and drums going before, therefore, amid the continual crashing of bells and mortars, first came a troop of mailed horsemen, which presented the likeness of Henry a, the knight of Rottenburg. Presently marched the several bodies of craftsmen, to each of which its own figure from the sacred history of the old Testament suited to our matter, and a litter, as they call it, had been assigned; after whose number there followed eleven exhibiting the life of the holy virgin Notburga.
[61] with a triumphal Worthy of sight beyond the rest was the body of the metal-miners with their staves and the insignia of their guild and their peculiar mountain dress. Before the triumphal chariot again there led a troop of light horsemen, which represented the emperor Maximilian I b. The chariot was preceded by eight genii, bearing on cushions the emblems of the holy Notburga: namely a maiden's garland, a lily, a sickle, a small wine-vessel, a rosary, keys, and bread. Six horses drew the chariot, on which, surrounded with heavenly light and glory, sat the holy Notburga; and beside her stood as suppliants the four Estates of the province of Tyrol, choosing her as patroness of the fatherland.
[62] Finally on four other litters were carried the three bodies of SS. Protus and Æmilius, pomp as also of St. Illuminata, belonging to the Reverend Fathers Reformed brethren of the Order of St. Francis of the stricter observance; and then various famous relics of Saints, most becomingly adorned, from the Reverend Fathers of the Order of St. Benedict of the neighboring monastery of Fiecht c. These were accompanied, first by the aforesaid Reverend Fathers Franciscans, then by the musicians clad in surplices, and by the whole venerable clergy furnished with lighted tapers, whose column was closed by the most reverend and most illustrious lord cathedral canon mentioned above, Franz Christoph of Franzin etc. Before the sacred body there walked the sacred tribunal, the Apostolic notary as clerk, the lords witnesses mentioned above, the very Reverend Father promoter of the cause, etc.
[63] The sacred body itself of the holy Virgin, standing upright, is conducted and clothed in a most splendid and translucent garb of very many pearls, gems, and the finest threads of gold and silver — so that everywhere the anatomical structure of the holy bones could be discerned — and adorned with precious rings, with a sickle and a small vessel wrought of silver d, enclosed in an elegant chest transparent on every side and fortified with huge panes of glass, was carried by eight or ten priests: boys clad in the Spanish fashion and holding lighted torches accompanying it on every side. After the sacred body walked guests of illustrious families, several brought even from Innsbruck e, and an innumerable throng of every rank.
[64] This sacred pomp, or rather triumph, was led through the village of Schwaz; by a long route through the ample village of Schwaz (which most writers deservedly prefer to many cities, inasmuch as it is notable enough for its very remarkable extent, the multitude of its elegant houses, its two monasteries and its parish church, the greatest in all Tyrol). Amid innumerable spectators from every quarter too, far spread over many miles, whether near or distant; and it was brought back again into the church, and restored to its place on the high altar as before.
[65] Then the most reverend, most illustrious, and most ample lord prelate Lambert, abbot of Mount St. George, then the abbot speaks to the people, and the bishop celebrates: mentioned hitherto among the assistants in our account, ascended the pulpit, and to the most crowded assembly alike of guests and of the people of Schwaz made an address most fitting to the solemn act which we have described, and received with unanimous applause. This sacred sermon being finished, the most reverend and most exalted prince of the Holy Roman Empire and bishop of Brixen himself performed the most solemn office of a pontifical Mass, the most reverend and most illustrious lord canon of Franzin reading the Gospel, and the most reverend and most illustrious lord count Troyer, mentioned a little before, the Epistle. After the midday meal, the whole parish church being lit almost until evening, the solemn Litanies of Loreto chanted made an end of this most festive day.
[66] On the second day likewise, namely Monday, the most reverend and most illustrious lord count and canon Troyer acted as sacred orator with great emotion of minds; pious and festive ceremonies of this kind and the office of officiant at the high altar before the sacred relics was discharged by the most reverend, most illustrious, and most ample lord prelate of Mount St. George. After the midday meal theatrical plays were watched, by the most reverend and most exalted prince of the Holy Roman Empire and prelate of Brixen and by the most illustrious and most reverend guests and innumerable other men of every rank and condition, in the theater proper to this place of Schwaz, and built for a century or two now for these uses alone. The theme was: "The holy Notburga in the castle of Rottenburg, the holy maidservant, mother of the poor, mistress of noble youth, helper of all, and exemplar of those who are in service; in grateful memory of her three years' stay at Schwaz." The pious playwright certainly brought the Acts of the holy Notburga upon the stage not without emotion and applause of the spectators, and aptly expressed by musical strains the grief with which Schwaz, refreshed by the stay of so great a Guest, was hardly suffering so great a treasure to be torn from it to the place Eben: these sacred plays were continued on the following Tuesday and Wednesday.
[67] are continued for some days. On the sixteenth of this month the most reverend and most illustrious lord canon of Franzin performed the solemn rite; and the address to the people was made by the very reverend father preacher of the royal convent of Hall f of the Society of Jesus. On the following day, the seventeenth, the most reverend and most illustrious lord count of Troyer performed the sacred rites at the high altar; and from the pulpit spoke the very Reverend Father Theophilus Perckhofer, Guardian of the convent of the Reverend Fathers Franciscans of this place.
[68] The sacred bones are brought back to the church On the last day at length, the eighteenth, the often-praised most reverend, most illustrious, and most ample lord prelate, abbot of Mount St. George, performed the sacred rite at the high altar; who, the sacred rite being finished, adorned with his mitre and pastoral staff, conducted the sacred relics, together with the venerable clergy, all the most illustrious persons, and a most crowded people, to the banks of the Inn. Here again the sacred remains were committed to the Inn, and, borne downstream, with the bells of the churches on either bank sounding together, with the thunder of mortars, with sacred hymns and prayers, were carried to Jenbach.
[69] of Eben, and placed on the chief altar, The ship being unloaded of this sacred pledge and of its most devout escort, there was at hand a troop of light horsemen, who, under the leading of the most illustrious lord count of Starnberg, conducted these mortal remains of the Saint as far as the place Eben. And now we were near the church of Eben, which on the same day, together with its three altars, the same most reverend and most exalted bishop of Brixen deigned to consecrate; when the same most exalted prince came forth to meet them for a notable space of the way, and, with him and the rest accompanying, they were carried into the newly built and most becomingly adorned church of Eben, and were placed on the high altar (as the figure shows) g, to be visible from either side for all perpetual time to come.
[70] and the festival is closed with an exhortation. In perpetually enduring memory of this matter, an exhortation having first been made by the very reverend and most distinguished father promoter Anton Söll S.J. (in which he most earnestly gave thanks to the same most exalted prince for so many efforts expended, to the most illustrious family of Tannenberg for so many expenses and cares, and to all the rest), he asked at the same time those present — the most reverend lord prelate of St. George, the most reverend and most illustrious lords canons, and the very reverend, most noble, and most excellent lord dean at Fügen, Peter Joseph Ramblmayr, doctor of sacred Theology, as assessors; as also the witnesses required, the most illustrious and generous lord Johann Georg, free Baron of Sternbach, and the very Reverend Lord Franz Fluri, parish priest at Münster — to subscribe my record, in which all these things performed were inserted: and he urgently repeated that a public instrument should be drawn up thereon.
ANNOTATIONS.
which has borne so many heroes for the August House.
CHAPTER VII.
The remarkable liberality of princely and other persons toward the new church of St. Notburga; her munificence also toward her clients proved by benefits.
The remarkable liberality of the bishop and prince of Brixen, and But now we must speak of the benefits conferred by this holy Virgin after her translation, and at the same time of certain notable gifts offered to her by her venerators in memory of a grateful mind. Among the gifts one of the chief is that which the often-mentioned most exalted prince himself offered to our Wonder-worker on that very day of the translation which we have described first: namely two thousand Rhenish florins, deposited with the treasury of the province, so that besides the reverend lord curate of the place another priest might be maintained in perpetuity.
[72] The treasury of the church too, although it also contributed not a little to the fabric, the liberality of others toward the church of Eben. was in a short time so increased that an elegant canonical house, capable of holding at least three priests, could be raised from the foundations. So too the pavement of the church will shortly be elegantly laid with black and white marble at no small expense. The sacred furniture of the church itself too has been wonderfully increased since this time; for there was sent as a gift a silver lamp, a silver censer, and an elegant chasuble or cross-marked vestment from the most serene duchess of Holstein; a richly gilded chalice brought from Salzburg by the most excellent free Baron of Firmian; and also from several other illustrious persons several chalices and elegantly made chasubles.
[73] Various benefits But our St. Notburga shows herself especially favorable with every kind of benefit; and above all in the perils of a difficult childbirth, and in the goods of fortune, so that she has even rescued some who had been reduced to extreme poverty. And she has hitherto also bestowed very many benefits in anxieties of mind, so far (as some have ingenuously confessed in sacred Confession) that at times they are stirred up for a long while and do not remain at rest until they present themselves before this holy Virgin at Eben.
[74] proved even by authentic instruments; For the rest, that it may be plain what credit is to be given to these benefits, I shall bring forward the instruments which the very reverend lord curate sent me, in the same language which those attesting used, and I shall only translate them from the vernacular into the Latin tongue; if seals have been affixed to them, I shall add their marks; if he sent copies, I shall render them without the mark of a seal; if the lord curate himself attested certain things to me, I shall note it again, adding only the chronological order, which alone, besides the translation, is my own labor.
[75] sick George Goriub of the village of Damschall, when a contagious disease of his cattle was increasing daily and natural remedies had been applied in vain, makes supplication to the holy Notburga at Ebensfeld a, and in testimony of his devotion offers a gift as well; and his cattle, all danger being removed, were restored to health. Jacob Gregoritsch, or Bollar, was struggling with the same misfortune, and, one infected ox having already been buried, another was very near danger; but the holy Notburga brought a remedy, a Mass having been read in her honor and firm confidence invoked, and all the cattle were again freed from this epidemic disease.
[76] cattle Michael Vaupetschick, or Mobasser, had already lost two cows, and the rest of his cattle had for two days refused to take food. Then in the evening before sleep he invokes the holy Notburga; and when in the morning he visits the herd, he finds it entire and unhurt, and sees all the fodder, set before them some days earlier, consumed; glad at which benefit, he causes a Mass to be performed in thanksgiving, and offers a gift to the holy Virgin at Ebensfeld.
[77] are healed; A copy of the attestation of certain benefits which the undersigned received through the intercession of the holy Notburga (who first became known in Carniola), and concerning which, being rigorously examined by the lord assistant of the place subscribed at the end, they faithfully deposed also with witnesses. "In this year 1737 the divine Godhead sent upon us a contagious plague of cattle, by which evil our parish of Mannsburg b too was vehemently afflicted. The parishioners as suppliants implored help not without the singular aid of St. Notburga, especially in the filial church of SS. Hermagoras and Fortunatus at Ebensfeld, a place belonging to the most illustrious lord Franz Bernard count of Lamberg. To say nothing of other and numerous favors, I shall bring forward three only c, which are authentically confirmed by witnesses, namely by Caspar Kherschetsch and Franz Klebnig. Given at Mannsburg, the first of December 1737, Raymund Dietrich, assistant of the place.
[78] An instrument of the year one thousand seven hundred and thirty-six. Earth from her tomb Whereas in the year 1736 I lay dangerously, even to death, for fully twenty-one weeks, and the art of medicine could bring no help at all, the evil at length so increased that, amid the most violent gripings of the stomach, no one could bring counsel or help. At last my most illustrious lady mother took refuge with full confidence in St. Notburga, mixed some earth from her tomb with water, and gave it to me without my knowledge. Scarcely had I taken the drink when the pains began to abate, etc. And when my lady mother had revealed what she had mixed in for me, being myself kindled with great confidence, I took the drink a second time, and when I had rested a little, all the pains so abated that I breathed freely all at once — so much so indeed that the very languor contracted from this long illness ceased hour by hour, and I was restored to entire health.
[79] Which immense benefit, after God thrice Best and Greatest, I can and ought to ascribe to none other brings health to a most noble man, than this great Benefactress. Wherefore, to show the utmost gratitude which I owe her, and for the further increase of the divine honor and glory in each of his Saints, I have resolved to make this known by this instrument, and in faith of all these things have subscribed it with my own hand and affixed my family seal. Given at Innsbruck, the first of May 1739. Chamberlain of his Sacred Imperial and Catholic Majesty, councillor of the exalted chamber of Upper Austria, free Baron in Kelburg and Aufhofen, lord in Singen and Megdberg etc.
(L.S.) Franz Karl, free Baron of Rost.
[80] and of cattle I the undersigned testify by the force of these presents that, whereas last year in the place Zechowitz, and in the Royal Bohemian chamber herds, there clung a cattle plague which had already put many of them to death; and whereas I had received from the noble man Kilian Joseph Kaliwoda, royal prefect of the forests at Brandeis d, a very little earth from the tomb of the holy Notburga, I and others, full of hope, applied it in drink, and at once experienced the helping hand of the holy Virgin. Given in the royal posting house at Zechowitz e, the twenty-seventh of March 1744.
(L.S.) Johann Buren, Prefect of Posts.
[81] Concerning this sepulchral earth of St. Notburga applied to my cattle I testify the same. the plague From the parochial canonical house of Zechowitz, the twenty-seventh of March 1744. (L.S.) Father Samuel Ignatius Vodhlon, curate of Zechowitz. The same befell me also, my fold being already emptied down to the last beast, and it escaped safe. Zechowitz, the twenty-seventh of March 1744.
(L.S.) Johann Ignatius Sladerk, citizen in Zechowitz.
[82] she extinguishes. I the undersigned testify in conscience that, whereas an epidemic plague raging far and wide in these places had destroyed most of the animals, and I, to bring a remedy to this evil, had given the animals in drink earth from the tomb of the holy Notburga, sent to me from Tyrol by my lord kinsman the very Reverend Father Franz Timotheus Ramblmayr, through the intercession of this Saint (to God be the greatest praise) they were all preserved safe and untouched: which happened also to my friends with their cattle, with whom I shared this earth. Done in the royal hunting house of Alt-Bunzlau near Brandeis on the Elbe, the twenty-seventh of March 1744.
(L.S.) Kilian Joseph Kaliwoda, royal prefect of the forests.
[83] A lame man recovers the use of his feet at the Saint's altar. I the undersigned by the tenor of these presents give assurance that Jacob Schmosteck, born at Pilstein in Styria, not only in the past year 1745 in this church of the blessed Virgin on the island called Werth or the Lake of Mary, but also in this present year 1746 on the nineteenth of this month of June, namely the third Sunday after Pentecost, coming again to perform his pilgrimage and devotion, presented himself wholly lame and wretched, with one foot useless, supported on crutches; where, having poured himself out in prayers and on his knees, during the sacred rite, before the altar of the holy Notburga, through the intercession of the most blessed Virgin and of St. Notburga, with many of those present looking on and astonished, and with a sufficiently numerous concourse of pilgrims, at the last blessing of the Mass the crutches fell from the man, broken with an unusual crash; and he departed from the church safe, sound, and upright, no trace or hindrance remaining, after he had first, thanks having been rendered to both his Helpers, left the aforesaid crutches there in perpetual memory of the matter. In faith I have affixed my seal. Given at Mariasee in Upper Carniola, the twentieth of June 1746. Thomas Wallock, chaplain of the place." That this prodigy is most true, noble men who had heard it from those present very lately testified to me at Brixen (to which church that place in Carniola belongs), as a matter very well known to the most exalted prince himself now deceased, and to the present ruling most exalted prince, and to several officials: nor did they doubt that a more solemn instrument, if necessary, would be forthcoming from the aulic council of Brixen.
[84] A polyp From a letter of the very reverend lord curate of Eben, Andreas Mantinger. "For lady Josepha Veldner, wife of the chief secretary of Rastatt f, a polyp began to grow in her nose, and was indeed seven times bound off with a silken thread at the nostrils and removed: but at last it so filled the nose that cutting was unavoidable; and the day of the operation had already been named, when on the preceding evening a friend advised that the help of the holy Notburga should be implored; the relics of this sacred Virgin were laid on her head, and the nose was moistened with water into which earth from the Saint's tomb had been cast: on the next day the polyp so receded that it could easily be bound off. But when at the physicians' advice preservative measures were again applied, she felt the danger growing: leaving all these aside, therefore, the wretched woman placed all her hope in the holy Notburga alone; she took the drink mixed with the sepulchral earth again, sprinkled her nose, and at last, the polyp vanishing, recovered entirely. After half a year, namely on the twenty-fourth day of September in the year 1749, she came as a pilgrim to the place Eben, offered with a most grateful mind a silver nose as witness of so great a benefit, and disclosed by word of mouth the whole course of the matter.
[85] The maiden Catharina Jellin, an Austrian of Vienna, lay so dangerously with an abscess in her neck and an abscess are cured. that the physicians pronounced her life at an end. The Elizabethan nuns were caring for the sick woman, and had advised a devotion of nine days to the holy Notburga before her image. On the ninth day, as she rose before this image, the abscess happily broke. Hence in gratitude she sent a silver votive offering.
[86] The neighborhood of Scheffau in the lower Valley of the Inn on the ninth of May 1750 attested with a grateful mind
Frequent hailstorms cease; that for ten years, although it had before been continually afflicted with incredible loss by hailstorms, from the time namely when every year at least once, a vow having been made, some from the neighborhood had gone on pilgrimage and had caused a Mass to be sung, no hail had any longer afflicted their fields.
[87] A copy of an autograph attestation very lately sent to me. cattle are preserved when a plague rages. Praise the Lord in his Saints. When not many years ago a dreadful plague of animals raged in our neighborhood round about, for averting so great an evil from our borders we placed our only hope and confidence, after God, in the patronage of the holy virgin Notburga. On that account by vow, besides what was expended in honor of this Wonder-worker, a notable painting exhibiting her was exposed by us in the church to public veneration, and before it for eight days ardent prayers were poured out. And not with a frustrated but with the desired effect; since, as we piously believe, through the powerful intercession of this Helper we were freed from the imminent danger, and our animals, all to a single one (God being favorable), were preserved sound and safe from all contagion. In faith whereof, and for the due honor of the holy Notburga and the spreading of devotion to her, I affix my hand and my own abbatial seal. From the provostship of the college of Neustift of Canons Regular of the Lateran of St. Augustine, of the diocese of Brixen, of the county of Tyrol, the first day of November 1750.
(L.S.) Anton, Lateran abbot, mitred provost, commissioner of taxes, and privy deputy of the estates.
[88] All to the greater Glory of God. Whereas in the year 1729 one of the sisters professed in our convent at Vienna (whose name is kept silent out of humility of mind), probably on account of the service rendered to a certain sick woman A nun is freed from a violent pain of the head. who lay ill of a disease not much unlike elephantiasis, had contracted a great corruption in the mass of her blood — which was more like putrid matter than blood — and thus a continual pain of the head; and whereas this evil had lasted from the year 1729 to the year 1733, all the aids of physicians, and vows and pilgrimages undertaken by other persons, being altogether vain, the physicians with the sick woman's consent wished to proceed to trepanning, the superior of the convent alone at that time resisting. The sick woman, set in this crisis, with filial confidence implores the help of the holy Tyrolese handmaid, the holy Notburga — deliverance either from the evil or from the body. It then seemed good to the physicians to begin a new course of treatment, as they call it; and when she had taken the second dose on the nineteenth of November, the feast of the holy Elizabeth, patroness of the holy Order, an intolerable pain of the head again tortured the wretched woman for some hours; but afterward it wholly ceased and returned no more — although eleven doses still remained to be consumed: so that the physician was compelled to confess that he must ascribe so prompt a recovery by no means to drugs, but to a greater and supernatural power. This sister afterward confessed the confidence she had placed in the holy Notburga, and to this day ascribes to her the health she recovered, which she now, however advanced in age, enjoys entire. These things in faith, to the greater honor and glory of God and of his handmaid the holy Notburga, and in most humble thanksgiving, I was bound to testify. Vienna, the fifth of June 1752.
(L.S.) Maria Aloysia Blum, of the Third Rule of St. Francis, of the Order of St. Elizabeth, superior for the time being g."
ANNOTATIONS.
OF THE POSTHUMOUS GLORY
PART TWO.
Her cult spread into other regions.
Notburga, handmaid and virgin, in the castle of Rottenburg in the county of Tyrol. (S.)
BY J. P.
§ I. Altars built to the Saint in Tyrol, Istria, and Carniola, in which and in other regions she is specially venerated.
The Saint's special cult in various places. The prodigies by which God adorned his Handmaid at Eben, and the benefits which she bestowed on those invoking her, were the cause not only that the name of this Saint became famous throughout all Tyrol and the neighboring regions, and that a great abundance of pious pilgrims flowed together to the said place, as has been clear from what has been related; but also — as is wont to happen while some Saint shows himself beneficent toward his clients — that both in Tyrol and in other parts of Germany she obtained a special cult, was chosen as patroness, and that chapels and sacred buildings were built or devoted to her protection, altars erected, effigies exposed to public veneration and in private houses kept and venerated with the highest honor; and not without immense profit to men struggling with infirmities or adversities. We do not indeed have documents, whether printed or manuscript, by which we might prove the particulars specially and at length for each of the regions through which her cult has been spread far and wide — Austria, Bavaria, Bohemia, Carinthia, Croatia, Gorizia, Styria, Swabia; yet concerning some of them these things could already now be gathered from the relation of benefits drawn up by the most distinguished Roschmann; and concerning the rest the same will be able to be gathered from the relations and documents which have been sent to us from Tyrol, Istria, and especially Carniola.
[2] What we know specially about Tyrol we again report as received from the praised Roschmann, At Stilfes, a place of the county of Tyrol who in his notes on the Life of St. Notburga collected by Guarinoni writes in these words: For the rest, not only in Gezner's time but also in the times of Guarinoni, Rader, and Brunner, our Blessed one was not only excellently venerated but also beneficent; nay, her veneration became so famous that even to her honor a most elegant chapel was built not far from Sterzing in the parish of Stilfes, a place distant not much more than four hours from Brixen, on whose altar the image of St. Notburga, and on all the surrounding walls the Saint's deeds, have been painted with so skillful a brush by a certain man excellent in this art, that nowhere else have I seen anything more elegant concerning this Saint. The chapel itself the pro-bishop of Brixen in the year 1651 duly consecrated to the honors of our holy Wonder-worker, as the autograph letters, inspected by me and afterward sent to me authenticated in 1737, relate at greater length. The said letters he had himself cast at the end of his Notices; we append them here.
[3] Jesse Perkofer, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Belina, suffragan of Brixen etc., to each and all the faithful of Christ, present and to come, everlasting salvation in the Lord. an altar is consecrated to her name, We acknowledge by these presents that in the year from the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand six hundred and fifty-one, and on the eighteenth day of the month of July, in the chapel standing in the cemetery near the parish church of the holy apostles Peter and Paul of the place Stilfes, of the diocese of Brixen, we consecrated and dedicated an altar to the name and honor of St. Notburga the virgin, and in it enclosed, laid up, and covered the relics of SS. John the Baptist, Simon and Jude the apostles, Fortis the martyr, Celsus the martyr, one martyr from the cemetery of Callistus, one martyr from the cemetery of Prætextatus, Pirminius the confessor, Tertula the martyr from the cemetery of Callistus, and Vincentia the martyr from the cemetery of Prætextatus.
[4] and a yearly feast of the dedication is prescribed: Instituting an anniversary feast of this dedication and consecration, to be celebrated every year and in all perpetual time to come on the Sunday before the feast of St. Cassian bishop and martyr, and desiring moreover that the said altar be venerated with due honors and continually and devoutly frequented by the Christian people, to each and all the faithful of Christ who on the aforesaid Sunday before the feast of St. Cassian bishop and martyr shall have visited the same chapel and altar for devotion's sake, and shall have piously poured out prayers to God in it for the exaltation of holy mother Church, for the extirpation of heresies, and for other necessities both public and private, their own or their neighbor's, or as devotion shall have suggested to them, trusting in the mercy of Almighty God and in the suffrages of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, we have mercifully granted and relaxed in the Lord forty days of true indulgence, in the form accustomed in the Church, even as by the testimony of these letters, fortified with the subscription of our hand and the appending of our pontifical seal, we grant and relax. Given at Stilfes on the eighteenth day of the month of July in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and fifty-one. Jesse, bishop, as above.
[5] her special feast is celebrated there on the twenty-second of October. Besides the feast of the dedication prescribed in the letters, they have there also a special feast of our Saint on the twenty-second day of the month of October, as we learn from a twofold testimony which, on Roschmann's report, was added to the letters from the ecclesiastical Calendar there by two very reverend lords rural deans, as they call them, and which we here transcribe. The first runs thus: After the feast of St. Ursula, on the day immediately following, the feast of St. Notburga is celebrated with an office from the Common of Virgins in her chapel. The other thus: After the feast of St. Ursula, on the day immediately following, the feast of St. Notburga is celebrated with an office from the Common of Virgins in her chapel; and commonly too a sermon has been delivered before the altar of St. Notburga, as the singular patroness of this parish, a great pilgrim people also flowing together. Hence we proceed into Carniola.
[6] A notable cult in Carniola, especially at Ebensfeld, Great is our Saint's cult in all parts of this province; but nowhere greater than
at Ebensfeld, which place is subject to the parish of Mannsburg not far from the river Save. Of the benefits obtained there some things have been touched on beforehand in the collection of the most distinguished Roschmann, chapter 7; but there was moreover communicated to us at length a manuscript historical Relation, in which the occasion and manner of the cult begun in the year 1736, its progress and present splendor, the building of the altar, the translation of relics, and an immense number of benefits are so fully set forth that it is not necessary to add anything to it. But the said History was written and transmitted hither in the German tongue, and accordingly, in order that it might be committed to the press, had to be turned into Latin.
[7] But, to confess the truth, no small trouble was created first by the obscure and involved German script, about which a Historical relation will be given; then by words occurring here and there and doubtless in use in those parts, but unknown to us and to the German Lexicons themselves, so that for the interpretation of some we had to have recourse to others more skilled in that language; and, since these too did not know their determinate signification, some had to be omitted, as will be seen in the notes, where we shall everywhere indicate if anything has been either omitted or set down doubtfully. Yet the substance of the things narrated has suffered nothing thereby, to which, as will also be seen, the words omitted or expressed under doubt make almost nothing. After our custom we have divided the History into chapters and numbers, and have affixed their own titles to each; but in the rest we have adhered, so far as was permitted, both to the manner of narration and to the German style, and have not much cared for Latin polish, that we might be found more faithful. For the rest, since the said historical Relation is very prolix, we have placed it at the end of this second part of the Posthumous Glory: but it was necessary to touch briefly on these things in this place, because the splendor of the cult at Ebensfeld and the abundance of benefits obtained there seems to have been the chief incitement to promoting the glory of St. Notburga in other places also, of which it remains to treat.
[8] There came forth in the year 1744 from the presses of Laibach in Carniola a little book At Pisino likewise in Istria, written in Italian by an anonymous venerator of St. Notburga, under this title: A Compendium of the prodigious life and death of St. Notburga, the Tyrolese virgin, the most lucid mirror and exemplar of serving girls, who, lately famous for the fame of her sanctity and miracles throughout Tyrol, Bavaria, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, illustrious for the splendor of her benefits, and honored as the peculiar patroness and favorer of the poor and of cattle, today grows famous through new favors bestowed on her clients in the county of Pisino in the church of the Reverend Fathers Franciscans reformed. The author divided his little work into eight chapters, in the first six of which he embraced the course of her life, her death and its circumstances, and the other things which we have thus far brought forward from various documents. Then in the seventh chapter he sets forth the cult which the Saint has in the church of the said Franciscan fathers at Pisino, a city of Istria on the river Nauportus (il Quieto), called by the ancients Pucinum, and by Blaeu and others Pisin novo.
[9] He begins from the reasons by which those fathers were moved to judge that the honor of St. Notburga should be promoted in Istria. where after the example of other places The first, he signifies, was the example given at Ebensfeld, where, as soon as her fame had come into Carniola as of a peculiar patroness of the poor and of cattle appointed by God and adorned with various benefits, an altar was built to the Saint and an altogether singular honor exhibited. The second likewise, he indicates, was the example of the Reverend Fathers Augustinians Discalced near Laibach, which is an episcopal city of Carniola belonging to the Most August House of Austria, to the Italians Lubiana, to the Germans Laubach: which, because mention of it does not recur elsewhere, I set forth here in the author's own words rendered into Latin: The same that had been done at Ebensfeld the Reverend Fathers Augustinians Discalced did also in their church dedicated to St. Joseph outside the city of Laibach, where by the consent of the most illustrious prince and prelate of the diocese a chapel was built and an altar consecrated in honor of the Saint: in that place God through the merits of his Handmaid daily confers benefits on those who in their calamities implore her help with true confidence.
[10] an altar of St. Notburga To these he appends as a third reason, confirming the first two, certain benefits conferred on those who had invoked the patronage of St. Notburga at Ebensfeld; these I do not transcribe, because they have already been partly given by the most distinguished Roschmann and will partly be given in the History of Ebensfeld. After these things the author continues thus in Italian: For these causes the Reverend Fathers Franciscans reformed, desiring to promote the cult of the Servant of God most high in their church of the blessed Mary of the gold-mine, called of the Visitation, which is joined to the monastery and took its beginnings in the year of the Lord 1481, Sixtus IV being Supreme Pontiff and Frederick IV emperor, erected an altar painted in fresco, and in the middle was set the pala of the Saint. In the Italian it stands: al mezzo la pala della Sancta. Now pala among the Italians as among the Latins is a rustic implement; if of iron, intended for digging the earth; if of wood, for turning grain or for cleaning out stables.
[11] is erected with the greatest display. This was done, the author's words are, rendered into Latin, on the fourth day of June in the year 1743, the Tuesday of Pentecost. Beforehand, however, there had been invited to the solemn ceremonies the reverend lords parish priests of the neighboring places, who with their usual ardor and zeal, as true pastors, incited the sheep committed to them to devotion toward St. Notburga. An immense multitude of men was present. But most of all there shone out the ardor of the Reverend Lord Andreas Mattich, rector of the church of Vermo (Vermo is marked on the maps on the river Nauportus praised above, not far from Pisino), who appeared with two other venerable priests accompanying him, and a numerous people walking in the manner of a supplicatory procession. And that more splendor might be added to the solemnities, about noon of the preceding day a signal was given from the tower by the sound of the bronze bell, in that rite in which it is wont to be given at the canonization or beatification of Saints of the Order. Thus, the people's veneration toward Notburga — whom they there call by the title of the New Saint — being the more kindled, so great was the concourse on the following day that it seemed a second feast day of the consecration of the church of the blessed Mary of the Portiuncula; the said fathers rejoicing exceedingly and praising God in his Saint, because they beheld the foundations of her cult laid before so great a multitude of men: whose devotion was further kindled after they had heard a panegyric oration recited in the Illyrian tongue by a religious man of the same monastery, a propagator of the cult of St. Notburga, at whose altar the sacred office of the Mass was sung with solemn music.
§ II. Benefits ascribed to St. Notburga honored at Pisino in Istria.
Two brothers, The author praised in the preceding § asserts in chapter 8 that soon after the altar was erected benefits were conferred on those who with firm confidence had invoked the help of St. Notburga, and proves his assertion by the narration of the following. On the third day after the altar had been erected, the seventh of the month of June, a sudden pleurisy with continual fever seized Joachim, son of the lord Anton Pucich of the county of Pisino (the Italian name of the office, contrascrivano, I have not translated, because it was hidden from me how it should be rendered in Latin), and brought him to such a state that his recovery was in doubt. His anxious parents, to whom the boy was very dear on account of the uprightness of his disposition, used human remedies: a vein therefore was opened for him three times. But when the physician warned that the danger was imminent, and that it seemed to him that the fourth day would be the boy's last, they had recourse to heavenly medicine — to the help, I say, of St. Notburga, and ordered a Mass to be celebrated at her altar on the ninth of the same month.
[13] Yet the Saint deferred the benefit, that it might be clear that the health was granted by divine agency. of whom the one, from pleurisy, And so on the tenth of the month, which was the fourth of his illness and by the prognosis fatal, the sick boy was so far overwhelmed by the violence of the disease that, deprived of his senses, he seemed to be wrestling with death. The pious father did not lay aside the hope placed in St. Notburga; he betook himself in haste to the sacred building of the Reverend Fathers Franciscans reformed, and there, prostrate before the Saint's altar with firm confidence, begged for the boy's health; nor did she any longer defer to hear his humble prayers: she granted the favor. For returning home he found his son in a better state and free from all danger; who afterward came to give thanks to his Deliverer, and wished a Mass to be celebrated at her altar.
[14] On the fourteenth of September in the year 1743, the aforesaid lord (Anton Pucich) obtained no less a benefit for his other son Joseph. the other from a grave fever, are healed. He at the beginning of the said month was afflicted with illness at Trieste (a city of Istria, to the inhabitants Trieste), and, although both the opening of a vein and other remedies had been applied, was brought by an acute fever into such a state that the other youths who were pursuing their studies there, when the time came for revisiting their native place, did not recognize in him his former features. This sad news they brought to his parents on reaching Pisino, affirming that they believed he was by then already dead. To the parents, stricken with the gravest grief, there returned to mind the benefit lately conferred by the Saint on their other son; and so on the fourteenth of the said month they caused a Mass to be made at her altar, firmly trusting that they would receive him back sound as well. Nor were they frustrated in their hope: for a few days afterward news was brought that the son was better; he was therefore recalled home by them, came sound to Pisino, and, being asked on what day he had begun to feel better, answered that it had happened on the feast day between the Nativity of the blessed Virgin Mary and the next following Sunday, which was that very day sacred to the Exaltation of the holy Cross, when the festive memory of the Saint is celebrated. And he himself, with the rest of his brothers accompanying him, appeared here to render thanks to his Patroness, and ordered the sacrifice of the Mass to be made.
[15] At the beginning of the month of July in the same year, Lawrence Ivula of the parish of Lindaro (a place likewise of Istria not far from Vermo, A mute man receives health and speech from a grave illness; of which above) had been reduced by illness to so wretched a state that he was like a dead man; and now, fortified with the most holy Sacraments, he not only struggled with a long-lasting malady, but had moreover wholly lost his speech, though most present in his mind. Wherefore, turning to St. Notburga, he promised that he would visit her altar at Pisino and would procure a Mass. The vow being made, he obtained health, yet not at the same time speech. Hoping nevertheless that he would obtain this also, having taken a companion as interpreter of the signs by which he was compelled to indicate the thoughts of his mind, he hastened to Pisino, where to the priest to whom he pointed out the monastery by signs he opened his desire, now with hands joined, now with hands stretched out, that a Mass should be made there. He was present at it most devoutly, but without the faculty of speaking. But when the Mass was finished, going out of the church he began to speak with the aforesaid priest. Which prodigy, obtained through the notable merits of St. Notburga, when it was made known, greatly increased the veneration toward the Saint,
especially among those who had known him mute before, but afterward heard him speaking.
[16] [a pregnant woman is freed from the danger of miscarriage and from a difficult birth;] Gasparina, wife of Andrew Petkovich, on the fifth day of the month of July in the year 1743, being now six months with child, by an unhappy chance fell from the topmost step of a stairway to the floor, and was set in danger of miscarriage. Being advised by the matron who had run there to her help to commend herself to St. Notburga, she made a vow to recite, so long as she lived, once every day the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic Salutation, if she should carry the child to the usual time. To this she added that she would train the offspring which she should bring forth to pay a like tribute to the Saint. The vow being uttered, she was rid of the danger. Then, when the time of bearing came, she was in labor for three days, and, the remedies applied by the midwife availing nothing, she confirmed the vow uttered before and added another, of procuring a Mass at the Saint's altar, if only she might bring into the world a living child that could be washed in the saving waters of Baptism. Forthwith she bore happily on the twenty-first of September, and the infant lives to this day, while she herself has fulfilled her vow.
[17] dying men John Vodopia, an inhabitant of the city of Pisino, suffering now for seven days from a threefold disease — namely a burning fever, dysentery, and pleurisy — had on the twenty-sixth day of the month of July been brought to the last period of his life; fortified therefore with the most holy Sacraments of the Catholic Church, he was preparing himself for the passage from this life to the other. His wretched wife, having heard of the favors which the Almighty grants through the great merits of St. Notburga to all who have recourse to her with true confidence, sent someone on the said day to the Sacristy, that without delay the divine Office should be performed at the altar of St. Notburga for a person set in her agony; at which time she herself, attending her dying husband, with fervent sighs invoked the Saint's patronage: at that very moment he began to grow better, and recovered health.
[18] are suddenly healed, Lawrence Aisner was so seized by a burning fever that after the third and fourth day he laid aside all hope of longer life: at last on the eighth of August in the year 1743 the lower part of his breast grew cold like ice, while the upper part burned like fire. Wherefore, when he had taken care to be fortified with the holy Sacraments of the Church, observing that human medicines availed nothing at all, he fled to heavenly ones; and so, turning to an image of St. Notburga which he kept by him, and imploring her patronage, he prayed that she would have pity on himself, on his wife, and on his little children. He added a vow of reciting for nine continuous days, daily, nine times in her honor the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic Salutation, and moreover of procuring the sacrosanct sacrifice of the Mass at her altar. The kindly patroness of the wretched, Notburga, heard her client, conferred on him the health he desired, and on the next day, his strength being recovered, he began the performance of his vow.
[19] a woman in hard labor is helped. Catharina, wife of Joseph Ivich, ascribes to the distinguished merits of St. Notburga the happy issue of her childbirth, which happened in the year 1743 on the eighth day of the month of November, as follows. She was struggling with the most bitter pains of childbirth from the morning until the evening, human remedies supplied by the midwife availing nothing. The author here interposes some things from which we learn that sacred things too were applied to her — holy water and some powder, I know not what; but by a fault of the press some words have been omitted or mutilated, so that it was not possible to transcribe them entire; and thus he continues: When her husband saw this, and knew not whither to turn to relieve his wife, it came into his mind that he had by him an image of St. Notburga, which, applying it to the woman's breast with firm confidence, he invoked the Saint's help. And behold a prodigy! Scarcely had the Saint's image touched the breast of the laboring woman when at once, without any sense of pain, the child was brought forth into the light.
[20] Here, interrupting for a little the course of his narration, the author hints to the reader Mothers praying for sick offspring that our Saint, who in her life had imitated Christ the Lord saying in Mark the Evangelist, chapter 10, Suffer the little children to come unto me, is a peculiar Patroness of little children, and shows this by the example of two mothers who had sought her help for their infants. The first, he says, is the most noble lady Catharina Millosich of Mildenhof, who obtained two favors for her little daughter by the Saint's help: one in the month of October, when, that same little daughter, eight months old, being in a swoon, and she not knowing what help to bring, she called St. Notburga to her aid and applied her effigy to the infant's mouth; and when this was done, the child opened her little eyes, breathed, and uttered cries. The other in the month of March of the year 1744 now running: when the same infant suffered from a pain of the throat and a swelling of the gums; for the mother, commending her to the Saint, ordered a Mass to be celebrated at her altar, and by prayer obtained for the infant the desired benefit of healing.
[21] The second is lady Margaret, wife of Simon Durinich, are heard. who, devoting her child, twice afflicted with deadly symptoms, to the Saint's patronage, and on each occasion causing the divine Office to be made at her altar, obtained from our Patroness whatever she sought; as she herself related to the compiler of this Work on the twenty-ninth of September in the year 1743. Here, putting an end to the narration of benefits, the author says that more remain which he has passed over because he had not obtained full knowledge of them with all their circumstances, and which are kept for the press at a suitable time. Then, having premised a brief exhortation in which he stirs up the faithful to venerate St. Notburga, the new patroness of Istria, and to invoke her in their calamities, he closes the eighth and last chapter of his little book with these verses, which he signifies are sung by a choir of the Saint.
[22] O virgin Notburga, hail, worthy to be venerated with every praise, A hymn in honor of the Saint. the help of the poor. Rejoice, glory of Tyrol, refuge of Pisino, protectress of animals.
To thy command the air and the fire in prodigies and signs render obedience; light is restored to the blind, life is given to the dead by thy patronage.
For thee the Hennus laid a path, because thy hand fed the poor past numbering: the oxen, with no driver, upheld by thy bright light, draw the wagon up to the highlands.
Be thou the Advocate of the needy and the Helper of the peace of Christians now: hear therefore our prayers, O Notburga, and grant the vows of those who supplicate thee.
Receive now the Historical relation, of which we gave a preliminary notice in §1, number 6. The title prefixed to it belongs to its author, but those that are affixed to the numbers and chapters have been added by us, as I noted in the place just cited.
A LUCID HISTORY
Of the origin and progress of the cult of St. Notburga, the Tyrolese handmaid, in the filial church of SS. Hermagoras and Fortunatus at Ebensfeld near the bridge of the river Feistritz, under the parish of Mannsburg, with an annexed relation of certain distinguished and declared benefits.
Rendered into Latin from a German Manuscript.
Notburga, handmaid and virgin, in the castle of Rottenburg in the county of Tyrol. (S.)
From a Manuscript.
CHAPTER I.
The Saint becomes known at Ebensfeld; an altar is erected to her; relics are exposed; pilgrims flow together from everywhere; the cult is spread widely through all Carniola and the neighboring regions.
Of the Saint, before unknown in Carniola, If ever any of the Saints, as soon as he was known in a foreign region, was eagerly taken as patron and his cult advanced far and wide, all this certainly happened lately in the duchy of Carniola to St. Notburga, the Tyrolese handmaid, before wholly unknown. So much so that there before this nothing at all was ascertained about her piously ordered life, nor could an image of this Tyrolese Saint easily be found throughout the whole region. But a few years ago her outstanding sanctity became so far known that in the whole province of Carniola scarcely even little boys are found who do not know how to relate accurately the whole course of her Life, or to sing it in the German tongue of their country. And how eagerly the Saint was adopted as patroness throughout all Carniola shines out from the following narration.
[2] An outstanding venerator of St. Notburga, who had before had no knowledge of her, an image is placed in the church at Ebensfeld, received as a gift a painted image of this holy Handmaid, depicted in the dress proper to Tyrolese country folk, and surrounded with beggars and with various kinds of cattle and herds, with this Latin inscription: SAINT NOTBURGA, PATRONESS OF THE POOR AND OF ANIMALS. This effigy, enclosed within borders overlaid with purest gold, he caused to be first exposed and hung from a bare wall at Ebensfeld in the above-mentioned filial church of SS. Hermagoras and Fortunatus, the ecclesiastical superiors assenting, in the year 1736.
[3] Not long after, the most kindly God, who is always celebrated as wonderful in his works, even in the writings of the holy Fathers, [and the inhabitants and neighbors experience her protection, with a great concourse] perhaps to this end, that he might render that Saint known and famous here among the nations, permitted that a cattle plague should rage cruelly through Carniola, and especially through the territory lying around Ebensfeld; while in the very place Eben, as it were in the midst, the horned cattle at that same time were preserved entire and sound with their lately exposed Patroness. And when meanwhile a description of the Life of that same St. Notburga had come to hand, it was handed to the reverend lords curates to be read through, and by them was related to the whole community. Hence in so urgent a necessity they began to flee to the patronage of the same St. Notburga, and to be affected with pious ardor and confidence toward her: so much so that whole communities of villages with their deputed clerics flowed together to Ebensfeld, and caused the sacrosanct sacrifices of the Mass for averting the evil to be celebrated in honor of St. Notburga at the nearest altar (for at the beginning, as was said above, her effigy had been hung only on a bare wall in the aforesaid filial church, and had not been placed above an altar). But through the intervention of St. Notburga those prayers of the pilgrims were heard by God, and, refreshed with solace, they returned home.
[4] But when afterward sacrifices of the Mass in an immense number were offered to be celebrated there, of pilgrims thither. An altar is erected to her; and no one could fail to notice the remarkable piety of the country people toward this Saint, in the next following year, leave having first been received from the ecclesiastical superiors, work was done so that, as the opportunity of place and site allowed, a small altar should be erected in the aforesaid filial church of Ebensfeld in the same place where before the effigy had hung from the bare wall. From that time piety and affection toward this holy Tyrolese Handmaid took such increase that priests enough could not be had and obtained to fulfill the number of the Masses bespoken, and that within the space of a single year more than eight hundred sacrifices of the Mass were counted which were celebrated at the newly built altar; which number indeed ought not to be reckoned small in a remote rural filial church.
[5] For this reason there were also obtained without difficulty from Rome two Pontifical Bulls, indulgences are obtained from Rome, by one of which plenary indulgences are granted on the festival of St. Notburga falling on the fourteenth day of September, sacred also to the Exaltation of the holy Cross,
but by the other a privilege is annexed to the above-mentioned altar of St. Notburga at Ebensfeld for delivering the souls detained in the fire of purgatory on every Friday of the week throughout the whole course of the year, and on every day within the octave of the Commemoration of all the faithful departed.
[6] And when from Brixen some relics of the sacred bones of St. Notburga had been transmitted with the annexed authentic letters of the ordinary, and relics from Brixen, which are solemnly exposed. and had been examined and approved by our ordinary, these same were translated from our parish of Mannsburg by its lord rector, with its curates assisting and with all the inhabitants of the place, and the communities of four neighboring parishes in a long order, accompanying in the manner of a supplicatory procession, to the often-mentioned filial church at Ebensfeld, and were there first publicly exposed. And then at a raised altar, erected on account of the multitude of the people at the doors of the church, and on which an effigy of St. Notburga had been set, a solemn Office was sung. Then by a parish priest from outside an oration elegantly composed in honor of St. Notburga was recited; and last the sacred relics, to be venerated with a pious kiss, were held out to the devout people; and thus with altogether great solemnity an end was set to this act.
[7] The cult increases and is widely extended Not only at that time, but also before and after the translation narrated, whole communities of parishes with their priests often went on pilgrimage from distant parts to St. Notburga at Ebensfeld, in a column marshaled in the manner of a supplicatory procession, whether for averting a cattle plague, or for obtaining by prayer a fruitful rain, or for asking help in other calamities of that kind; and their prayers were always heard. But what increases the cult of St. Notburga afterward took, none ought to attest but our craftsmen, painters and statuaries; since for several continuous years now their strength has scarcely sufficed for fashioning images and building altars. Hence if anyone should survey the several parts of Carniola, he would find none in which elegant altars, splendidly adorned here and there, had not been erected, and magnificent chapels built, in honor of St. Notburga.
[8] through Carniola and all the neighboring regions. To such a degree throughout all Carniola have piety, devotion, and confidence toward St. Notburga risen, that whether in the cities or in the country there scarcely occurs any church, dwelling, or little hut where one may not at least see an effigy of the holy Notburga printed on paper. Whence already now indeed many thousands of images of this kind have been distributed at Ebensfeld; yet there is no end or measure to the distributing. Nor could so great a devotion toward St. Notburga be contained within the borders of our Carniola alone; but it has also poured itself out through whole neighboring regions — Carinthia, Styria, the county of Mitterburg \*, Gorizia, and Croatia — where her cult has been promoted in emulation, several altars of St. Notburga have already now been built, and the great Saint herself has grown famous by very many benefits.
[9] Very many benefits are obtained. But at Ebensfeld, as at the fountain-head, where, as was said above, St. Notburga was first exposed, in various necessities, whether sicknesses of men or of cattle, men of whatever state, condition, or age — religious and secular, rich and poor, older and younger — who with firm confidence implored heavenly help there, have obtained from God through the powerful intercession of this wonderful Saint many and immense benefits; with which by now many volumes could have been filled, if only they had been collected with vigilant care, or if a religious man had been at hand who might have examined each and diligently noted them down; but both have often been neglected. For which reason there follow here only those benefits obtained which, from the very beginning of the cult and in some following years, as occasion was given, were reported and entrusted to the lords curates, and especially to a certain exceedingly zealous venerator of the same Saint, out of whose written records of benefits these few have been excerpted.
Annotata\* in Istria
CHAPTER II.
A fever, pain of the head and sides, and epilepsy removed; a woman in childbed relieved of a dangerous birth, cattle withdrawn from the peril of destruction.
A feverish woman is healed, The year 1738. Alenka a Moschinkha of the village of Demschall was seized for fourteen whole continuous days by a strong fever; and since she had heard much about the holy Notburga in public sermons, she turned her mind to her, and resolved to fast in her honor on one Friday on bread and water alone. Without delay the fever wholly left her, and she herself on the second day of November in the year 1738 — on which, namely, the customary yearly ecclesiastical offices are also performed at Ebensfeld, with a sermon delivered to the people — paid her thanksgiving before the same Saint, and asked that the benefit obtained by her should be published from the pulpit; and she was ready also, whenever it should be demanded, to testify on oath that for averting the fever she had used absolutely no aids of human medicine.
[11] The sixteenth of June 1739. Margaret Kertschaukha, a midwife of Laibach b, made a pilgrimage hither, a dead child is restored to life and baptized, and narrated the following story. A certain pregnant woman, a weaver in the suburb of Laibach, Maria Anna Merlakin by name, had for fully fourteen days been vexed with acute pains of the sides and a violent fever, until at length on the second day of June toward evening, amid the gravest pains, and indeed in the twelfth week before the day, she brought forth a dead child, which the midwife just named received; and she first, as is wont to be done in a like case, explored the state of the premature infant by breathing into it a second and a third time; but no sign of life appeared. At last the midwife remembered the holy Notburga, offered and devoted the child to her, and breathed gently into it; and the child so moved that it could presently be carried to the parish of St. Peter to be washed with the saving waters, and only on the third day departed from life.
[12] Andreas Oclea of the convent of Münkendorf … c of the parish of Stermizwatsher was tortured by a violent pain of the head of the head so far that he utterly failed; and moreover a lawsuit pressed him in which he was entangled. Wherefore his wife advised him to commit himself to the new Saint who is venerated in the parish of Mannsburg: obeying this counsel, he vowed that he would go on pilgrimage hither and would cause the sacrosanct sacrifice of the Mass to be said. Upon this he fell into a placid sleep, and (as he himself related, not without tears, to the reverend lord curate of Mannsburg) was suffused with a sweetly cooling breeze. Waking afterward, he found himself safe and unharmed and plainly vigorous, so far indeed that on the day immediately following he could depart without inconvenience or danger to Locopolis d on account of the aforesaid suit — because his presence there had not only been necessary before, but also that day had dawned as the last and decisive one.
[13] and pains of the sides are wholly healed; Finally the case, in which a hundred florins were at issue, was also happily adjudged to him. It is to be noted that the said Oclea by his prayers so far prevailed with the reverend rector of the parish of Mannsburg that he himself celebrated the sacrosanct sacrifice of the Mass in thanksgiving. A few days afterward his wife too was seized with illness, and for three days struggled with sharp stitches in the sides; but after a Mass had been promised to be celebrated here, she likewise began to recover.
[14] epilepsy In the year 1738, at the end of the month of October, there came by chance from the village of Tepallah to this church Achatius Fingrot, a young countryman about twenty years old, who had before suffered for two whole years from epilepsy; for which cause he had been dismissed by a furrier of Laibach to whom he had been committed for learning the trade. But at Carnioburg e he fell in with a man who drove off the disease, and he was free from it for one year; but when this had elapsed, he returned to his former malady, by which for another two years he was thrown down once and again every day. When therefore, as has been said, he had entered this church, and his wretched condition had become known, he was admonished and urged to flee to this Saint's patronage, which he, plainly stupefied and disturbed in mind, promised to do. He was then present at a Mass which Father Wolfgang Oetl, a religious of the Order of St. Francis at Stein f, was opportunely offering at the altar of the holy Notburga; but presently, after the conversion of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, the wretched man fell to the ground in the church before that very altar so wretchedly that all who were present were struck with terror, and some, moved by compassion, commended the wretched man the more fervently to the Saint, sacrifices of Masses being promised as well.
[15] is driven off, Nor without a happy issue: for, as though the Almighty had permitted this fall in order to indicate by it and to testify before the Saint herself that he wished it known to everyone that she had undertaken the protection of the wretched man, the outcome proved that on this occasion he suffered the last assault of the malady, and that the stupefaction and disturbance of his mind gradually vanished, so that a little time afterward, wholly sound and cheerful, he professed that on the next day he had strength enough for threshing grain, and that he had in fact done it. And about Christmas day he entered service with a carter in the village of Tshernuts. And he daily recalls with a short little prayer the memory of the Virgin who deserved so well of him, and frequently in the winter season comes hither glad and eager to be present at the divine Office. It seemed moreover worth the labor to hang that notable benefit, painted on a votive tablet, from the wall beside the altar.
[16] a cow's disease removed: In the year 1739, on the third day of June, the very learned man lord doctor Weinizer wrote hither that he had received from Graffenweg, his estate, a letter from his wife, conceived in these words: "Three hours after your departure hence, when the larger cow had swallowed I know not what, she suddenly fell to the ground, and within a quarter of an hour swelled beyond measure; I applied indeed whatever I knew to be useful, but nothing at all was of help: yet as soon as I promised that I would cause a Mass to be said in honor of St. Notburga, at once all the swelling subsided. She truly preserved this cow alive for me." The sacrifice of the Mass sought in thanksgiving was also presently performed.
[17] On the twenty-fourth of June in the year 1739, Jera Rodetin of Demschall, in the year just past, on the festival of All Saints, in the early morning fell into the pains of childbirth, a happy delivery granted to a woman in childbed in peril. and could not bring forth through that whole day. All believed that no hope remained; that it was all over with the life of mother and child. Her maidservant had by chance set an image of St. Notburga on the table, which the woman in labor beheld, took in her hands, most piously kissed again and again, and at the same time, commending herself with a loud voice to St. Notburga, promised her a taper as a gift: and when her husband, waiting before the doors of the chamber, heard this, he exhorted her through the window as effectually as he could to persevere in this confidence, and, to the same end, said that he too would add his prayers to St. Notburga;
he promised. After this, praying, he entered the orchard: but as he returned thence homeward (for it was then the eleventh hour of the night) he heard an infant's cry. For his wife had meanwhile, by an altogether easy and happy delivery, brought forth a sturdy little boy; and after the birth the mother with her child enjoyed full and prosperous health, and on the aforesaid day, bringing the promised gift, paid her thanks.
[18] The twenty-third of June 1739. Alexius Clemen of the village of Demschall had, as country folk often do, given his cow cubed turnips up to the time of the Lenten fast; To a woman who, after her cow was delivered from the peril of death, but by these she was already almost choking: all run up together, each supplies to the animal what remedies and aids he could and knew, her jaws are pulled apart, that the morsel choking her might be dragged out. But neither could this be accomplished: the cow, unable to breathe, was already swelling immensely, nor was there hope that she would escape. The countryman's wife, greatly disturbed and saddened by this mischance, began to consider with herself that God is often wont to hear the prayers of little children. Wherefore she called to her the two she had, and addressed them in these words: Behold, my little ones, last year the Almighty took from us a beloved beast, and now the same danger of losing our cow is before our eyes.
[19] For which cause do you, my children, invoke St. Notburga with me, deferring the fulfillment of her vow, the Saint appears. that through her intercession God may preserve the cow for us. Presently, together with them, she threw herself on her knees in her chamber before the Saint's image and began to pray. Amid the prayers the cow's lowing was heard; the mother looked out through the window, beheld the cow going out of the stall, left the chamber with a swift step, called the neighbors together, and all, rejoicing, found by experience that the cow, of whose life they had before despaired, was wholly unharmed and vigorous. But since the woman had promised that she would either bring a votive tablet to St. Notburga in thanksgiving or would cause a sacrifice of the Mass to be celebrated, it often seemed to her, when in the evening she went to bed, that she beheld St. Notburga standing by in human form; which always struck a sacred fear into her as she considered that it was not right to defer so long the discharge of her vow: until at length on the twenty-third of June she caused a Mass to be made here and offered a votive taper.
[20] The reverend lord Johann Pauluscha, domestic chaplain with the most illustrious lord Charles of Hochenwarth in Gerlachstein, Health is restored to a priest lying dangerously ill. lay sick there for some time: the most illustrious lady of the castle once visited him toward evening, but found him deprived of his senses and his tongue bloodied with frequent bites. Whereupon the most illustrious matron, out of a feeling of compassion, vowed a pilgrimage hither in the name of the senseless and wretched man; and not without a happy outcome, since the sick man on the very next day returned to such a state that he cleansed his soul by holy confession, and after eight more days was restored to his former health; and presently, riding on horseback, he religiously hastened hither even through the thickest rains, and most devoutly paid his due thanks to St. Notburga by a sacrifice of the Mass.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER III.
Draft animals snatched from present danger, a madman restored to reason; various persons freed from various pains, diseases, and defects.
A countryman, having invoked St. Notburga, receives back two horses The twenty-fourth of June 1739. Michael Zegan of Demschall, three weeks before, had gone with two wagons each furnished with a horse across the Feistritz (river) to the mountains, had there loaded the wagons with straw, and was now returning home with them so laden. But at the very summit of the mountain he fell upon a narrow path, beside which a great and very deep precipice hung: and it happened meanwhile that by an unforeseen jolt the carts were driven out of the track, and one of them, overturned together with its horse, went headlong into the leafy valley below, whose depth may be matched with the height of the tower of Ebensfeld. The other horse, terrified perhaps by the jolt, wholly freed itself from the side traces and plunged down without its cart. The countryman, beholding this, believed that it was certainly all over with his horses; wherefore he was struck with the utmost grief. Yet, remembering the holy Notburga, he commended the matter to God and to the Saint with fervent devotion, and added a vow that if that mischance, of which he had despaired, should turn out without disaster, he would come hither and would bring a gift of a taper in thanksgiving.
[22] unharmed from the most present peril, This done, he at once girds himself to find a safe way among the steeps and explore what fate had at last befallen the horses. And behold, he finds one of them hanging by its halter from the bushes, like a bird caught in a snare; and astonished at this he reckoned it certainly strangled: yet he crept up, tried to extricate it, and happily got it out. The other horse lay much deeper among the thickets, with its feet so entangled that he did not doubt its legs were at the least broken; but not without amazement he raised this one likewise unharmed; and both beasts, without hurt or loss, and not without immense joy, he brought home sound and entire: and today he rendered thanks with the promised votive offering.
[23] The twenty-fifth of June in the year 1739. George Gariup of Demschall some days before had his cow reduced to such sickness another obtains his cow's health. that she began to suffer from difficulty of breathing; that evil had taken its origin from her milk: for this, which she gave even very sparingly, was neither pure nor savory; and when it was set on the fire it presently turned to whey. And the neighbors forbade her being led with the rest of the sound cattle to the pastures, believing namely that through her the extinguished cattle plague would revive; which afflicted the countryman and his wife with no slight grief: but as soon as they bound themselves, as they had done the year before too, by a vow of procuring a sacrifice of the Mass in honor of the holy Notburga, the cow began to recover.
[24] The fourth of July 1739. Joseph Killer of Bruckla under the parish of Commenda A madman returns to the use of reason. had for four days begun to be alienated in mind, which was noticed from this, that he looked on men with a grim and savage countenance. When meanwhile on a certain day he had reaped vetch with his servant, he wove himself a noose from it, and, furnished with it, ran off into the wood, meaning to seek an end of life by hanging. But those who were present followed him, and, having caught him, brought him home. Presently his father carried him off to Stein, where five veins at once were opened for him: namely the two median ones, in the forehead, under the tongue, and in the feet. Besides this the father vowed a pilgrimage hither to St. Notburga with his son; and to that end, having hired the priest of that place, lord Mathias Reshen, he came hither with his helpless son, and on the first of July was present at the sacred sacrifice of the Mass; which being finished, the son, after his father's example, creeping over the ground on bare knees and with the utmost piety, completed the circuit of the altar; and on the aforesaid day the above-named priest again offered at the altar, and declared that the said Joseph Killer found himself fully restored; who himself also testified that during the Mass, soon after the consecration of the sacred Host, he seemed to be breathed upon by a gentle and pleasant wind, and that afterward a freer and clearer sense returned to him.
[25] The twelfth of July 1739. Anton Tremesh of Vodiz, A mare's health is restored. on the day sacred to SS. Peter and Paul, in the morning, before he had betaken himself to his parish to be present at Mass, had left his mare in the stall in full health; but returning from Mass he found her cast on the ground from sickness. He remained ignorant whence so sudden a change had arisen; but not lingering long on these thoughts, he at once sent his wife hither with a gift of money, at that very time when a supplicatory procession had been instituted hither from the parish of Mannsburg. When the woman, her prayers to St. Notburga being performed, had returned home, she found the mare wholly sound. Wherefore on the aforesaid day her husband hastened hither and ordered a sacrifice of the Mass to be made in thanksgiving.
[26] When on the twenty-eighth of June in the year 1739 the whole community of the parish of Zirklach had come hither in supplication to St. Notburga toward evening, Pains of the feet, with lord Urban Hieronymo, its assistant, leading the column, there was among very many penitents a person who accused herself before him in sacred Confession that on that same day — it was, namely, a Sunday — she had not been present at the sacrosanct sacrifice of the Mass, because, seized with violent pains of the feet, she had been unable to rise from her bed. But when after midday the signal for the appointed procession had been given by the bronze bell, a vehement affection and a burning desire came upon her of going on pilgrimage with the others to St. Notburga. Upon this she rose from her bed, felt the pains of her feet grow small, presently joined herself to the rest of the parish community, and without any inconvenience, difficulty, or further sense of pain completed the pilgrimage and at the same time her thanks for the benefit received.
[27] diseases The twelfth of July in the year 1739. The aforesaid lord Urban Hieronymo, assistant at Zirklach, came hither to St. Notburga to perform the divine Office, and that for a well-born young girl of his parish, seventeen years old, who had been afflicted with a long-lasting languor, and at last, by a graver illness, was fastened to her bed; so much so that the priest himself, as the evil grew worse, thought she could not survive. On the tenth day of the same month the said priest, visiting her out of Christian charity, refreshed her with spiritual solace, and persuaded her to place her hope in St. Notburga. She, as one who even before had venerated the Saint with great devotion, bound herself by a vow of coming hither and of taking care that a sacrifice of the Mass should be celebrated — which the said priest promised that he would perform on the said twelfth of July; and presently she began to be well, so much so that on that very day she was able, as she also desired, to fulfill the pilgrimage hither on foot, had he not opposed it and advised her to defer such a pilgrimage to another time, when she should have gathered a little more strength;
and so the same priest took the journey hither without her, and celebrated the votive Mass at St. Notburga's.
[28] dangerous The sixth of July in the year 1739. John Cosou … a of the monastery at Michelstetten b lay sick with a grave illness. Wherefore his wife had made vows to St. Jodocus and to other Saints of these parts. At length he began to be so weakened in strength that his eyes were already breaking and growing stiff, and therefore the blessed taper was put into his hands, and no doubt remained that he was about to breathe out his soul on the spot. Meanwhile the nuns of Michelstetten took care that his wife should be advised to have recourse to the help of St. Notburga and to vow a pilgrimage hither. Not only did the counsel please her, but she at once, together with her children — of whom she had several — being called in, invoked the help of St. Notburga and poured out prayers in her honor. While the woman and the children were praying with raised voice, the husband moved his eyes, before stiff, looked about him, raised himself, and thereafter grew better day by day. For this cause he himself with his wife came hither on the day written above to give thanks.
[29] and other The sixth of July in the year 1739. The venerable lady Maria Theresa, born of Pettenegg, professed in the distinguished convent at Michelstetten, had first contracted on her left hand a red spot like a chin-tetter, which, spreading and growing more and more, at last became a huge abscess, and that black, livid, and horrible to see. The surgeon left nothing untried, applied plasters, made incisions; he accomplished nothing: the evil grew so much worse that, casting away all hope, he believed that shortly her hand would have to be cut off. She meanwhile conceived a vow of procuring the celebration of a Mass here (which the Reverend Lord Joseph Schuffrer, formerly chaplain of the same convent, also performed at once); the vow being uttered, the evil ceased to creep further, the surgeon laid aside the plan of amputating the arm, the hand grew better from day to day, and at length full health happily followed. And the very venerable lady Theresa in thanksgiving made with her own hands a new Corporal c and sent it as a gift to St. Notburga by the baker d of that same convent.
[30] The twenty-ninth of June 1739. Anton Prodnig of Nodgoritz under the parish of Mannsburg had a little daughter of three years, troubles on whose throat a distinct and notable swelling was growing; wherefore he promised a sacrifice of the Mass here to St. Notburga; which being finished, the girl's swelling was diminished, nay wholly vanished. The votive Mass the Reverend Lord Raymund Dietrich, the assistant, had celebrated long before; but the said Prodnig first declared the benefit obtained on the day already noted.
[31] The fourteenth of July in the year 1739. Anton Jermon of St. Lucy at Koruzhene under the parish of Vodiz, are removed. a carpenter by condition, four weeks now past, while bestowing his labor on the provincial works not far from Laibach, had met with a misfortune; for a heavy beam had fallen on his left hand and had injured his little finger in a wretched manner. Besides this his hand swelled high, so that he could neither continue his work nor, for the pain, rest or take sleep. Until yesterday a woman known to him from Vodiz persuaded him to vow a pilgrimage hither. He did not neglect the counsel: for falling at once on his knees he recited three times the Lord's Prayer and as often the Angelic Salutation. This done, he passed the next night in a most placid sleep; and this morning he found that all the swelling of his hand had gone; and, though his finger was still injured, he completed the pilgrimage with firm confidence that through the intercession of the great St. Notburga, known to him only very lately, he would shortly resume his former labors.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER IV.
Various benefits conferred on the young and on infants; diseases driven from cattle.
An eye ill affected The twenty-fourth of August. A girl of nineteen years named Ursula, daughter of Mark Grum of the village of Heruschze not far from Laibach at the Holy Sepulcher, besides other infirmities had suffered most acute pains in her left eye from the beginning of the Lenten fast until the last feast of St. James; and now a little membrane drawn over the eye prevented her sight. Her mother Maruscha \* exhorted her to conceive firm confidence in the new Saint of Ebensfeld, and at the same time vowed a pilgrimage thither and a sacrifice of the Mass. On the fifteenth of July therefore she procured at Laibach for that end a waxen eye to be offered for her daughter: and forthwith the eye began to be better and better, so far indeed that on the nineteenth of July Ursula herself with her parent came hither on pilgrimage with sound eyes, took care that the promised Mass should be appointed, and piously offered the gift in thanksgiving.
[33] is restored once and again; On the twenty-seventh of the same month of July the said girl had gone out to reap wheat; but by an unhappy chance it came about that a sharp ear of wheat was driven by the wind into her eyes, which so tore the pupil of the left eye, formerly ill affected, that blood flowed out drop by drop, and the wretched girl bewailed with many laments the eye now lost, as she supposed. The mother, having consoled her in the best way she could, advised her to flee again to the patronage of St. Notburga; and so, mindful of the benefit lately received, she renewed the vow of coming hither, and on the third day after, having obtained her eye whole and sound, undertook the journey hither with the same mother.
[34] diseases The twenty-fourth of August in the year 1739. Ursula Weslaika, a widow of Stepana-Vass at the Holy Sepulcher not far from Laibach, had unhappily lost three cows; a fourth likewise had already contracted the disease, and a fifth at the same time had begun to refuse its food. But the aforenamed Maruscha Grumauka advised Ursula Weslaika to place her hope in St. Notburga. Meanwhile the neighbors, coming up, diligently advised her to lead out of the byre the cow that had sickened earlier and to tie it to a tree beside the water; lest at least (as one of whose health no hope remained) the rest should perish, or the evil spread more widely. The afflicted woman obeyed their words and led the sick animal to the water; but meanwhile she vowed to St. Notburga a pilgrimage hither and a sacrifice of the Mass, as she had been persuaded by the aforesaid woman.
[35] of cattle Toward evening, as the servants were returning home from the field-work, amid the familiar voices of her people she heard at the same time the lowing of a cow, and without delay, leaping out of doors, she found with great wonder that the lowing had been uttered by the cow which a little before she had tied, sick, to the tree beside the water, that it might die there; but she could not make out how it had been loosed. Refreshed in mind, she at once held out fresh grass to it, which the cow snatched with greedy mouth and ate. Wherefore she drove it into the stall, and likewise offered fresh grass to the other, before languishing, and this one too devoured it no less greedily. She therefore undertook the promised pilgrimage, and fulfilled the pledge of her vow with thanksgiving. This benefit, when published abroad, moved several of the neighborhood to go on pilgrimage hither in their turn for the preservation of their cattle.
[36] The twenty-first of September in the year 1739. It unhappily befell Alenka Stebin of Terstein and troubles are removed. that a colt, hastening toward a mare, leapt over a stake or fence; but under its breast, at both forelegs, it bruised itself so grievously that the wretched animal, unable to stand on its feet, fell to the ground. But when the woman had uttered for it a vow of coming hither, within two days it recovered, and therefore she gave thanks today with the promised gift.
[37] The twenty-seventh of September in the year 1739. Marietha Vastersa of the parish and village of Mannsburg had a little son of nine years, Infants freed from pains of the feet and loathing of food, fastened to his bed by sickness for a whole week; for he was held by such pains in both feet and by such weakness that he could neither use them nor raise himself from the bed; to which there had been added a complete distaste for all nourishment. But as soon as the mother, with a vow added, commended the little boy to St. Notburga, he began to be hungry, asked for food, and ate with immense greediness, to the utmost astonishment of all the bystanders. Then he sprang from his little bed, restored also to the former use of his feet; for which sudden recovery she performed here the due thanksgivings.
[38] The third of December in the year 1739. Ansche Wida of Jarsche under the parish of Mannsburg had an infant and from the peril of choking; to whom, not yet beyond the eighteenth month of its age and still sucking at the breast, this misfortune befell. A girl of seven years, left in charge of the infant (whose name was Mizeka), was playing before it with a fragment of a ring, which the infant, grasping with its tender hands, at last put to its mouth and sent down to its throat; by which the unhappy infant began to choke, to draw a black lividness over its whole body, and to lose the power of crying; so that the girl ran to the mother, who was outside the doors, and called her to help. When the mother, wholly dismayed, found that the infant had not even the power of weeping left, she at once threw herself on bare knees to the ground, poured out most fervent and most devout prayers to St. Notburga, and added a vow that, if through her powerful intercession with God the child were snatched from this present peril of life, she would go on pilgrimage hither with it when the cold should have somewhat abated, and would at the same time bring a living gift. Scarcely was the vow uttered when the infant, the ring having gone down to its stomach, began to utter cries, and she with cheerful mind offered the breast, whence full health returned to it, especially since a little after it happily passed the ring with its excrement. The matter was worthy that its whole course should be neatly represented on a tablet and hung, together with the ring itself, beside the altar for the public wonder of all.
[39] The fourth of January 1740. Alenka Mekethouka, otherwise called from her husband's name another also Zeganka, of Damschall, on the day noted above related the two following benefits obtained by her. On the feast day of St. Alexius of the last past year 1739 she had at home a cow which for two days had refused all its milk; but after she had, being present here at a sacrifice of the Mass, most devoutly commended it to St. Notburga, on the same day at the accustomed time of milking she tried to draw milk from it too, and not without astonishment obtained at a single time as much as if the cow had never lacked anything.
[40] driven from infants On the Sunday after the festival of Mary the Virgin assumed into heaven of the same past year, her little son of seven years was for fourteen unbroken days so grievously troubled with dysentery that at last, laid low by it together with a burning fever, he took no food at all, but incessantly asked for drink. But when a certain woman of the neighborhood, pitying him, had prepared food suitable for the sick, the boy would not touch it, continually and impatiently repeating his call for drink. Meanwhile the mother came hither to Mass, and at the same time directed prayers to St. Notburga for her son's safety. After the Mass was finished, on the mother's return home the boy with a glad mouth relates that, while she had been away, the food which he had before refused to touch had tasted so good to him that nothing was left over. His burning thirst too had left him, and so he grew better day by day.
[41] and from draft animals The eleventh of November 1739. It unhappily befell the reverend lord von Isenhausen, rector of the parish of Mannsburg, that his cow, the most beautiful and choicest of all, fell upon a heap of gathered herbs and filled herself with them abundantly; but in the throat of the greedily eating beast there stuck an oblong stalk, which she could neither send down to her stomach nor cast out; and presently every passage of breathing was so closed to her that she fell to the ground, nor did anyone doubt that it was all over with the cow, which would certainly be choked so. Nonetheless every effort was applied to thrust the stalk down through her throat: but in vain. But as soon as a sacrosanct sacrifice of the Mass was again promised, the cow broke into a violent cough, and the stalk sprang far out of her throat. Thus the cow escaped the evil, and on the next day the above-mentioned reverend lord parish priest celebrated a Mass here in thanksgiving.
[42] infirmities, and perils driven off, The second of August 1739. Hither came on pilgrimage Maria Anna Merlakin, a citizen and weaver of Laibach, and that to give thanks for a twofold benefit received: and first indeed for the benefit which befell her on the last past feast days of Pentecost, when, being sick with a burning fever, she had brought forth a dead child in the tenth a week before the time, and to that unripe fruit (after the midwife — who herself too came hither on pilgrimage on the sixteenth of June and gave thanks — had committed it to the patronage of St. Notburga) life had at length been granted, so that it could be duly baptized in the parish church of St. Peter, and did not die before the following day b.
[43] Secondly, for what happened to her little daughter of six years, who, having grievously struggled with a long-lasting illness, had at last toward the end of the month of July been brought to extremity, so that slight signs of life remained and the blessed taper had to be placed in the hands of one now at the point of death. But as soon as the mother had most ardently commended her daughter to God and to St. Notburga, she began to be better, and within a few days was wholly restored to herself; and on the ninth of August c noted above she was able to fulfill the pilgrimage in thanksgiving.
[44] sight restored to a boy. The second of September in the year 1739. Maria Anna Mekuscherin, a citizen of Laibach, came hither on pilgrimage with her little son of seven, whose name was Francis; because by the intervention of St. Notburga her aforesaid little son had recovered the sight he had lost in smallpox.
ANNOTATIONS.
\* perhaps Maria Ursula
CHAPTER V.
A plague of herds driven off; soundness obtained for eyes, ears, and other members of men very badly affected.
A plague The first of December in the year 1737. The reverend lord Raymund Dietrich, assistant at Mannsburg, noted down the three benefits subjoined, duly examined before the undersigned witnesses the men who declared the benefits obtained, and then communicated the same with the utmost fidelity in these words: This a year 1737 the Almighty visited us with a most cruel plague of cattle, which raged not a little through the parish of Mannsburg; for which cause the community of the parish fled with great fruit to the peculiar patroness in such a calamity, the holy Notburga, who is venerated at Ebensfeld in the filial church of SS. Hermagoras and Fortunatus. To pass over several benefits, I the undersigned have resolved to bring forward only the three following, and those duly attested by witnesses, namely by Caspar Kherseth and Francis Shlebing b. Raymund Dietrich, assistant of the place. With my own hand c.
[46] George Gariub of the village of Demschall (where the same plague had grown cruelly strong), perceiving that the evil was relieved by no remedies, from herds used heavenly medicine, and through my colleague, lord Michael Wreng, caused a Mass to be celebrated in honor of St. Michael the archangel. But when even so he had accomplished nothing, laying aside thereafter every other remedy, he placed all his hope in St. Notburga, and with the utmost devotion brought a gift hither: whereupon the sick beast at once came out sound and unharmed, and was snatched from danger. This happened on the feast day of St. Giles. The same man, an honest one indeed, afterward testified that, so far as he knew, nothing had been of help to him save only the powerful patronage of St. Notburga.
[47] Likewise Jacob Gregoritsch or Dollar d was in like manner bewailing the calamity even at the point of death which his horned cattle had already begun to experience, one of which had already been buried under thrown earth, another very near the peril of destruction. Set in these straits, the great helper St. Notburga came into his mind. Wherefore with full confidence he ordered a Mass to be celebrated in her honor, and at once the sick beast returned to health; and all the rest were preserved from the most present danger. Let anyone who will ask him who brought him help: St. Notburga (he will answer), the patroness of the poor and of cattle.
[48] is driven off. Likewise Michael Vaupetsch, otherwise called Klobassar e, suffered the same misfortune: for two cows had already perished for him; when he began thus to think in his mind: If this matter goes on further so, I must seek intercessors for myself with God. It happened meanwhile that his whole stock took no nourishment for two continuous days, and so was in the most evident danger of perishing like the two former cows. But — what may make you wonder — the wretched countryman, withdrawing to bed toward evening, first conceived firm confidence in St. Notburga, invoked her with fervent prayer, and most devoutly commended his cattle to her. In the morning, not a little anxious, he went to the stall, and not only found the whole herd sound, but also (which indeed as I heard it I could not restrain my tears for joy) beyond all hope found the fodder, which for some days set before them they had not eaten, then plainly consumed. He at once, in gratitude, wished a Mass to be made here, and with immense joy offered a gift. These three benefits, as was said above, were examined before the witnesses named.
[49] Hearing is restored to a deaf man. The twenty-eighth of September in the year 1739. The reverend Lord Johann Sigismund Reych had lost the sense of hearing; for which cause he diligently applied various remedies, as had been advised him, but none profited him. Thus he had patiently to endure for eight whole weeks in deafness of hearing: until, remembering the holy Notburga, he vowed her a sacred sacrifice of the Mass; which done, he at once received back the use of his ears, and on the day noted performed the votive Mass here.
[50] Breasts very badly affected are cured. The eleventh of June in the year 1740. Meta Korshka, joined in marriage to a citizen of Laibach, declared that from the very beginning of her pregnancy she had been afflicted with grave and constant pains in both breasts; and that when on the third day of April she had brought a little daughter into the world, not even then had the former pains abated, but had grown continually stronger with greater cruelty, so that six hollow ulcers in all showed themselves, which created for her such sharp gnawings of pain that from their violence she had very little milk, and that she could give it to the infant at first very rarely, and afterward never without immense torture; nor yet could she bear to refuse it to the needy child. Until at last from her inmost heart she promised that she would make a pilgrimage hither: for at once all pain ceased, the ulcers were healed, with one only excepted, which however was itself already beginning to heal.
[51] A woman's eyes are healed; but she, neglecting to give thanks, The twenty-sixth of June in the year 1740. There came to Ebensfeld to pay her thanks for benefits obtained Margaret Wisiagkhin of the parish of Moraitsch, village of Ribitsch (of the neighborhood of St. Nicholas the bishop) f. For her, in the year last past, about the festival of St. Michael, at the harvest [ ] g, her eyes ached so wretchedly and grievously that she could distinguish no color nor any crops of the fields; but when opportunely some flax-merchants of Mannsburg had passed the night with her and had persuaded her in that calamity to flee to St. Notburga — of whom, as patroness of the wretched, she had hitherto heard nothing — she vowed a Mass, and presently indeed the benefit followed; but the vow was not so quickly fulfilled; she neglected to show herself grateful in that case.
[52] But afterward Martin, her son of fifteen years, was stricken and her sons pay the penalties, which cease when St. Notburga is invoked. with so horrible a malady in and about the private parts that they rotted on every side and turned to carbuncles. There returned to the mother's memory the benefit formerly bestowed on her through St. Notburga; she uttered a vow for him; he recovered a second time. Another son, Matthew, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, began h to rave, experiencing also almost punishments driving him to despair; but when a vow had been made to St. Notburga, on the very next day he stood forth vigorous; wherefore, having received these favors, she appeared on the day noted above with her children to give thanks. Raymund Dietrich celebrated the votive Mass.
[53] The ninth of July in the year 1740. Miza Pernethin of Lagkh under the parish of Mannsburg had a cow in the past year A sick cow suddenly recovers; which at the beginning of the month of August, being suddenly seized with disease, loathed all nourishment, gave less milk day by day, and at last was wholly failing. Her husband had often advised her to order the cow, in the judgment of all certain to die, to be slaughtered; that thus at least meat might be got from her to be dried in smoke. But the aforesaid Pernethin refused to have any talk of slaughtering the cow; but, placing her hope in St. Notburga, she vowed a sacrifice of the Mass. And when she had gone to Mannsburg to ask a priest to say the Mass, and had obtained the Reverend Lord Joseph Schüffrer, as she returned the cowherd met her bringing the glad news that the cow was already better, and that she had begun to eat; and within three days after the Mass was celebrated the cow was so restored as if she had not been sick before.
[54] The ninth of July in the year 1740. For the aforesaid Miza Pernethin, at the last past Christmas, her right arm was suddenly enfeebled. a woman recovers the use of her arm; It was altogether heavy, and her hand, which was always cold, could neither be stretched out for working nor brought to her lips for eating.
Thus wretchedly afflicted, she sought counsel and help from others. She was advised by all that, since it was believed to be a paralysis, she should anoint the arm with burnt wine; but that profited nothing. Until again she vowed a pilgrimage and a Mass, which was celebrated on the feast day of St. Achatius. For at once the weakness departed, and on that very day it was possible for her to raise her arm above her head.
[55] The ninth of July 1740. Valentine Gouz of Lagkh under the parish of Mannsburg, a man is freed from a grave malady of the eye. for three days felt such acute torments in his right eye as if someone had cut him with little knives. There came on shortly after a pterygium and a white membrane, which took from him the use of sight. But since many advised him in so wretched a state to place his hope in St. Notburga and to seek help here, yesterday, being even then deprived of his eye, he resolved to undertake a pilgrimage hither on the day noted above; and on that same day the pterygium with the membrane disappeared, his sight returned to him, and there remained only a certain redness with a tolerable pain. So today he performed the pilgrimage, and, a waxen gift having been offered, paid his thanks.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER VI.
Health granted to men and beasts brought to extremity; pains of the feet and wounds cured.
A bull seized by a sudden disease, The twelfth of July in the year 1740. Mathias Merkhun of Lagkh under the parish of Mannsburg had on this day in the morning driven his bull to the pastures; but it suddenly fell to the ground; it was at once raised up, and freshly pulled grass was held out to it, which it did not even smell, and a second and a third time it went down to the ground. The unhappy man judged that it was all over with the beast's life, and that a butcher must be fetched to slaughter it without delay. At last his wife came up, who, perceiving this, assailed her husband with words of this kind: Foolish man, why do you distress yourself so much here about the beast? Could not a sacrifice of the Mass have been vowed at Ebensfeld? He, taking this up in words conceived with no less courtesy, says: Foolish woman, since such thoughts occur to you, why do you not in my place put it into execution at once? At last, his mind being somewhat calmed, since he had also before resolved to go to Ebensfeld for Mass, he added on the spot a vow of going thither and of procuring a sacred sacrifice of the Mass at St. Notburga's; and scarcely had he made this vow known to the bystanders when the bull raised itself upon its feet and, as if it had experienced no evil before, cropped the grass. And he, as he had promised, at once betook himself hither and procured the Mass.
[57] a man brought to extremity; The twelfth of July in the year 1740. In the past year, on the festival of St. Bartholomew, illness attacked Thomas Hunzl, the regular gardener with the Fathers Franciscans at Stein, and its violence grew so much worse day by day for seven continuous weeks that at last, fortified with the last Sacraments of the Church, he lost the use of reason, and, as the opinion of all held, would not escape the danger; although, with various remedies and aids taken from the apothecary's shop of the Fathers Franciscans and sent thither by the venerable ladies at Münkendorf, and applied to him by the public physician at Stein, very much was done for his health. While he lay in this manner, and nothing but death was expected, the thought came to his wife of commending him to St. Notburga; wherefore, leaving his care to another woman, she hastened hither; where, having according to her mind at the same time obtained the opportunity of hearing a Mass, she wisely prayed that through the intercession of St. Notburga the matter might within a short time have an issue conformable to the divine will. Returning swiftly home after this, she found, not without astonishment, her husband, whom she had left deprived of the use of reason and half dead, sitting up in bed, and refreshed a little before with great relish by broth; who afterward, growing better day by day, and not long after being fully restored, together with her on the day written above fulfilled here the pilgrimage and thanksgiving.
[58] The twentieth of July in the year 1740. Marjetha Starbekouka of the village of Depallach had a little daughter of five years named Mizeka, a girl's foot twice crushed by a wagon who a year ago, at the time of the wheat harvest, when her brother in the evening was carrying home the reaped wheat on a wagon so heavily laden that a strong horse scarcely sufficed to draw it, was running about the field beside the wagon; nor was misfortune wanting. For when that overloaded cart, now led out of the field, had to be turned at a certain furrow, the unhappy child, not moved away from there in time, was thrown to the ground, her brother not noticing, who was holding the other side. Thus the right foot of the fallen girl was crushed by the loaded cart so wretchedly that from the intolerable torment she was not only unable to lean upon it — and her father, being summoned, had to take her in his arms and carry her home — but also in that part which the wheel had passed over a black mark to the breadth of three fingers was found, and all judged that the child would never be restored to the entire use of her feet.
[59] Seeing the misfortune, the mother, unable through the whole following night, from her feeling of compassion, to fit her eyes to sleep, are restored to soundness. amid constant sighs and lamentations poured out most earnest and most devout prayers, and, commending the wretched girl to St. Notburga, promised that in her honor she would next morning procure a sacrifice of the Mass at Ebensfeld. When the time of rising had come, the mother went to her little daughter, and addresses her, still sunk in sweet sleep, and calls to her with lowered voice: Mizeka, do you not wish to rise from your little bed? And she, waking at that very moment, answered: Yes, my mother, I shall rise presently: and in fact at once, to her mother's astonishment, she not only rose with her foot firm, but the black mark too could no longer be discerned in any way. But when the mother had too long deferred the promised Mass, it happened again that an empty cart, on which the things necessary for cultivating millet this year had been carried into the field, crushed the same foot of the girl and tore it somewhat. But as soon as the mother had again vowed a pilgrimage hither and a sacrifice of the Mass, forthwith the foot was so healed as if no harm had befallen it. On the day noted before, the mother coming hither with her little daughter then caused one Mass to be made according to her vow, and appointed the other to be made at another time.
[60] The twenty-fifth of July 1740. Marjetha Reparza of Demschall declared A cow very near death, that she had obtained four benefits through the intercession of St. Notburga at Ebensfeld. And first indeed her cow this year, before the festival of Pentecost, returned home one day from the pastures immensely swollen, and, the swelling increasing day by day, refused all fodder, began to let its head down to the ground and to send out a foul liquid from its nostrils, and seemed about presently to burst. When therefore its life had been utterly despaired of, the others going away, the woman was left alone at home with the cow in so anxious a business; yet she by no means laid aside all hope, but with firm confidence made a vow of going on pilgrimage hither to St. Notburga and of procuring a sacrifice of the Mass in her honor. The swelling at once subsided, the cow began to seek its fodder, the woman herself meanwhile flew hither to Mass, and returning home found the cow in the stall fully healed.
[61] a woman whose foot was infirm, Secondly. Her husband's mother, whose name was Nescha Reparza, was afflicted with a great malady in her left foot, so that from the feast of the Purification of Mary the Virgin until the day sacred to St. Mark she could not attend church; until at length she, with her aforesaid daughter-in-law Marjetha Reparza, promised that she would set out hither to St. Notburga and would procure a sacrifice of the Mass. On the spot the malady, of whose cure the wretched woman had before despaired, began to be healed, only a light scar remaining.
[62] a beast of whose life they despaired, Thirdly. When her husband was plowing the land (which happened in the week just past), his mare fell once and again in the field, so that he was compelled to desist from his labors and could scarcely lead her home. Yet at his wife's advice he twice made the circuit with the mare of the great Cross which is outside Demschall; but when the mare had been led into the stall, a third time she fell backward so suddenly and so heavily, as if she had been struck by lightning, and thereafter gave no sign of life. Hence the man, thinking it was now all over with the mare, rushed out of the house for grief. But the woman, conceiving firm hope in St. Notburga's help, promised a journey hither and a Mass. Upon this the mare stirred her body somewhat; and the woman, running out at once, called her husband back home, who beheld her again stirring her body. A little after she set to her fodder and was restored to entire vigor.
[63] a woman reduced to extremity, Fourthly. Nine weeks ago her sister Ursula Dimka of Stude, in the second week after childbirth, was seized for fourteen whole days with pleurisy and with a colic pain so violent that in the judgment of all she was not equal to enduring any longer the gripings and the sharpest torments. And although various medicines had been sought in great number from various quarters, they brought no help; but on the contrary the gripings took increase, so that often from the violence of the pain she threw herself headlong from the bed and rolled on the ground like a worm. The children meanwhile ran about in the utmost perturbation of mind without order, crying out, wailing, and repeating, "Mother is dying, mother is dying." And in truth the wretched woman had begun to be so weakened in strength that she herself despaired of recovery. Wherefore she begged as earnestly as she could of her aforesaid sister Marjetha that after her death she would undertake the care of her children: and she, having consoled her as best she might, brought in talk of St. Notburga as a powerful and wonderful patroness with God; by which her mind was so moved that with firm confidence she vowed a journey hither and a sacrifice of the Mass: and without delay all the pain departed, and within four days she wholly recovered.
[64] and a cow now on the very point of death from disease The twenty-sixth of July in the year 1740. Anthony related
Wrinouz of Demschall, that on the Friday before the festival of Pentecost, when together with his servant he was preparing the ground in the field for sowing millet, about the second hour after midday he was suddenly called to the common pastures near the river Feistritz, where with great feeling of mind he found his cow lying on the ground, so swollen that he professed he had never beheld anything like it. Without delay he ordered a skinner to be summoned, who presently cut her ears and applied all the remedies he knew; but nothing at all was accomplished. The cow lay lifeless, without breath or motion. And so the afflicted man at last handed her over to him to be stripped of her hide, on this condition that he should bring the hide when drawn off to his house; and, drawing the rope from her neck, he went away very anxious and sad. But on the road there came to him the remembrance of the holy Notburga; and cleaving to her he came to the castle of Ebensfeld, where the road runs straight to the church: presently, before the castle itself, kneeling toward the church in the open air, he set forth his calamity to St. Notburga, and, imploring her help with inmost prayers, vowed here a sacred sacrifice of the Mass.
[65] Upon this the thought came into his mind of returning to the pastures; about to be slaughtered are healed. but there he found the cow, with a great multitude of men standing around, wholly lifeless as before. Yet in one of her veins he noticed some sign of life, and a little after the movement of her drawing up her left foot; seeing which, he came nearer and changed the position of her head a little; when again she drew up her foot, and after a short interval of time, not without the utmost astonishment of the bystanders, she raised herself of her own accord and ran eagerly to the other cows grazing there. The man followed her, his grief now turned to joy, and, overtaking her shortly, granted her better pastures; for, having led her to the meadow which he had behind his house at Demschall, he gave her the chance of sating her hunger with fresh grass. And in this way the cow, by the former opinion lost, was brought back wholly entire and sound into the stall, and on the next morning gave milk in no way spoiled, as always before.
CHAPTER VII.
Pains of the eyes, head, and teeth; ulcers, corruption of the mouth, and fevers healed; sick cattle preserved.
A woman's violent pain of the eyes, The tenth of August in the year 1740. Jerne Premek of Perau … near Stein came hither today on pilgrimage with his wife, Spela by name, and paid his thanks at St. Notburga's for the benefit obtained for his said wife Spela, who last winter had very often experienced pain in her eyes; and after Easter for four weeks had been almost blind and had endured violent torments of head and eyes. Her eyelids, much swollen, were red, and over each pupil a little membrane was drawn, so that the wretched woman and her sad husband firmly believed that her sight would never be restored. At last, remembering St. Notburga and turning to her, they promised a journey hither and a Mass: which done, at once not only was the pain soothed, the membrane, redness, and swelling vanished, and the faculty of seeing rightly returned, but moreover there disappeared a wart which had grown on her above the nose in the middle between both eyes while she was driven by the continual pains of her eyes — of which even now only a light trace can be seen.
[67] The fourteenth of August in the year 1740. George Pogatzar of the village of Depallach, and a mare's incurable malady is cured. in the previous year in the autumn season grieved at the misfortune of his mare, for her hip had begun to suppurate: for which cause a farrier, being summoned, had by various incisions removed the infected flesh so far that the bare bone and sinews lay open to the eye. The mare, thus cut up, had to lie in the stall; for she had not the power of standing on her feet, nor was there much hope left to anyone that she would be cured. At last the countryman's wife took the resolution of having recourse to spiritual medicine. She undertook therefore the journey hither, and on the way by repeated prayers induced the reverend lord rector of the parish to celebrate a Mass, on that very day on which a supplicatory procession was made hither from the parish of St. Vitus near Laibach. After the Mass had been finished on the said day, the woman, returning home with great confidence, asked her husband to lead the mare out of the stall to the orchard. And in truth the beast, to the great astonishment of both, had already received back the full power of walking; and when she had sated herself abundantly with fresh grass, on the third day after she could, plainly vigorous, be applied to the heavier labors of the field.
[68] A maiden from cruel torment and foul ulcers The second of September 1740. Ursula Dolnizherin, a maiden of Nagdoritz, had for a long time now suffered every month from a most grievous pain of the head, which nevertheless at the invocation of St. Notburga was presently diminished, or rather wholly extinguished. But in the following year about the feast of St. Andrew the malady betrayed itself openly with an intolerable torment of the head. Her head began to swell violently; a little after, on one side of the neck an abscess appeared, and when at length it had burst, another showed itself on the other side, and so often one succeeded another. That infirmity persevered from the feast of St. Andrew until the Tuesday of the following Easter; at which time for a whole week now she had been unable even to sip warm water, much less to take anything else within, nor likewise for a whole month, from the violence of the pain, either to close an eye or to take rest. Besides this, the abscesses, burst open in a horrible manner on every side both within and without, exhaled so foul an odor that she was abandoned by all. She was at last brought to such miseries that she herself could not explain them in words composed enough for compassion.
[69] is freed, and snatched from the peril of death. Her being fortified beforehand with the last sacraments of the Church, the reverend lord assistant anxiously exhorted her, since no hope shone out, both to bear her calamity patiently and to prepare herself for her approaching departure from life. But she, with willing mind subjecting herself wholly to the divine will, directed most pious and often-repeated sighs to God. She also prayed most fervently to St. Notburga that, if it were expedient for the salvation of her soul, she would obtain health for her from God. And thus, turned to the Saint, she obtained greater strength for bearing pains of whatever kind with a brave and even mind. On a certain occasion — for her thought was always fixed on St. Notburga — she seemed to behold her present in human form in a dream, and admonishing her to seek help here. Nor was the dream empty, since in a short time she so recovered that within fourteen days all the pains and all the abscesses departed, and on the Tuesday of Easter noted above she was first permitted to attend church. Thenceforth she was endowed with better health than she remembered ever having had before: and afterward she was kindled with such piety and such love toward the holy Notburga that she wished and desired nothing so much as that her honor and cult should be extended more and more. Wherefore she especially asked that the present benefit should be publicly announced.
[70] The third of September 1740. Ansche Strassar of Goldenfeld, To sick a village belonging to Aich, had two cows laid low at once by the same disease, so far that within a few days one of them actually died. Upon this there came thither by chance a seller of chickens, to find out whether there was anything to his purpose, and asked him how he did. He, rather sad, complained of the loss of one cow, and set forth that the other would shortly likewise die. The seller of chickens, having consoled him, advised him to turn hither. The counsel pleased the wretched man; and presently, a brief prayer having been poured out to St. Notburga, he promised a journey hither and a sacrifice of the Mass. At the same time the cow, before despaired of, was better; on the next day it began to eat, and, recovering day by day, within eight days attained full health. And he by his prayers induced the reverend lord Johann Baptist Wromati, priest in the principal castle of Egkh near Potpetsch, to perform a Mass here in thanksgiving; which was done on the seventh of July, and the same priest bound himself to attest the truth of the matter at any time.
[71] The fourth of September in the year 1740. Ursula Rosmantza of the neighborhood of St. Stephen under the parish of Vodiz, cattle kindled with notable piety toward this Saint, could no longer keep in silence what had happened the day before yesterday, namely on Friday. Her cow, which before had lacked nothing at all, in the morning, scarcely led out to the pastures, suddenly began to abstain from feeding and to make a noise: therefore, being led back home to the stall, she fell to the ground likewise suddenly, just as if she were on the very point of expiring. The woman meanwhile sprinkled her with holy water, and, having pronounced this prayer, "Be thou committed to God and to St. Notburga," shut the stall and sadly returned to the field and to her workers. Coming home about midday, she beheld her boy carrying fresh hay, and, addressing him, asked in what state the cow was: he answered that he was now bringing fodder to her for the second time as she ate; and when she found this to be true, she seemed to herself unequal to rendering worthy thanks to God and to St. Notburga for the cow restored to her former health. And since in the field, before the workers, she had bound herself by a vow of going on pilgrimage hither if the cow should recover — to which she would gladly have added either a Mass or a gift of a taper, if only her means had permitted it — she came on the day noted before to give thanks.
[72] The twenty-first of September in the year 1740. On the past Saturday, health the seventeenth of the said month, a horse belonging to Ansche Meruez, dwelling in the parish of lower Vodiz, was in the evening after watering led home vigorous and put in the stall. But there he remained standing, refused his fodder, and at last could not be moved from that position, in which accordingly he was left through the whole night, and was found in the same in the morning of the following Sunday. Hence the good old man, much saddened, at length, at the counsel of others, vowed a sacrifice of the Mass here: then, for the sake of an experiment, a boy was ordered to lead the horse about a little. And in truth he suffered himself to be led, but slowly and step by step, as far as the nearest sign of the Cross; but here he began to seek his fodder, and on the following Monday was restored to entire health. Further, on the day named above, sacred to St. Matthew, the old man led him hither, ordered the promised Mass to be made, and rendered due thanks to the Saint.
[73] returns. The twentieth of September in the year 1740. Nesha Gregorizhin of Demschall confessed that three years before, when St. Notburga had first become known here, and her image had not yet been set on an altar, but only exposed on the aforesaid wall, she had a cow which for fourteen days had been so sick that its most certain death was the only expectation: hence, being separated from the rest of the cattle, it was shut in a distant and empty stall. And that it might not be necessary on the Sunday to give attention to servile works, her husband on Saturday evening had prepared a pit for burying it on the next day; for he firmly believed that it would die that night: in so wretched a
state was the cow set. Meanwhile the woman groaned continually over the imminent loss: at last she turned to our holy Notburga, whom she did not yet know by name, and heartily vowed here a sacrifice of the Mass. And in fact on that very night the cow began to eat, and cast great astonishment upon all who thought they would find it dead. Thus it went on growing better and better, and within three days full health returned. But since at that time an altar had not yet been erected in the Saint's honor, as was hinted above, the promised Mass was celebrated at the nearest one dedicated to St. Andrew.
[74] A woman's huge ulcer is of itself diminished and disappears. The year 1740. This year after the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary the aforesaid Nesha Gregorizhin contracted a swelling on the left side of her neck, which, growing greater and greater, afflicted her with cruel pains, so that it was not possible for her either to move her head or by night to take rest, for the violence of them. Hence, greatly saddened, she feared lest, when the ulcer should burst, or if on the contrary the putrid matter should ripen too slowly, she should be cast into graver troubles, nay into a present peril of life; especially because a seed which, at the advice of certain persons, had been applied to her neck and the ulcer, produced no effect. And so she at last resolved to apply a heavenly remedy, and promised here to St. Notburga a gift of a taper. On that very night she slept most placidly and quietly, which so relieved her that, waking in the morning, she told it to the others with joy, and at the same time longed for the time when the ulcer should be inspected; since she felt the pains much more tolerable than before. And indeed not without wonder it was then found that the ulcer was notably diminished; and — what is more worthy of wonder — the whole swelling, neither burst nor brought to ripeness, shortly disappeared, and she within two days came out unharmed.
[75] A pain of the teeth and a corruption of the mouth cease. The year 1740. Not long after, in that same year, on the fourteenth day before the Lenten fast, her son named George, sixteen years of age, was tormented with grievous pains of the teeth and of the head, so that his face swelled immensely; remedies had been sought from every side, and counsel asked of the chief men. But with great grief of mind it was observed that putrefaction of the mouth had by then prevailed, and that there was great danger lest, as had happened the year before to a boy of the neighborhood, all the young man's gum should rot, his tongue be eaten as if by a canker, and so he should go wretchedly to his death. His mother, the often-mentioned Nesha Gregorizhin, weighing that misery, commended him to St. Notburga, a sacrifice of the Mass being again promised, and admonished him to conceive firm confidence in this holy Wonder-worker. Which done, within a few days he began to be better and shortly was wholly healed; except that from the malady he lost two teeth, whose loss he himself, considering the pains, anxiety, and danger he had had, bore with a willing mind. And hence the aforesaid Gregorizhin has whereof to congratulate herself and rejoice over a threefold benefit obtained through St. Notburga.
[76] The twenty-second of September in the year 1740. John Schos, A fever is extinguished a nail-smith of the town of Stein, on the past day consecrated to the Exaltation of the holy Cross fell into an illness, together with his daughter of fourteen years named Alenka. On alternate days a strong fever attacked him, joined with an intolerable pain of the head; and what made him admit no consolation was the great number of his children, for whom he could not provide by his labor and earn a livelihood. He had already endured three violent paroxysms, by which he and his daughter alike were so weakened that they were compelled to keep their bed. But as soon as, at the counsel of his neighbors, he had promised here a sacrifice of the Mass to St. Notburga, and, falling on his knees with his daughter before the image of St. Notburga, had poured out a fervent prayer, being made stronger he was able to sup. And on that same night all weakness and pain of the head left them both, so much so that about the second hour of that night, plainly vigorous, he was able to betake himself to his workshop and to resume heavy labor with the ponderous hammer. But since otherwise a great weakness and languor always remains after a fever, and he nevertheless was so quickly restored to his whole vigor after the vow was uttered, the good man (John) Schos cannot wonder at it enough, nor sufficiently bestow praises on St. Notburga and render thanks.
CHAPTER VIII.
The use of her eyes restored to a blind woman and of his ears to a deaf man; beasts, whether lost or carried off by theft, found; life granted to a dead infant, and other benefits to others.
A blind woman The twenty-fifth of September in the year 1740. Jera Musseshka of Terstein, in the past year on the Saturday within the week of Pentecost, being wholly sound, had cleared a field of darnel, when so great a blindness suddenly struck her that on the following Monday she was compelled to abstain from work. The evil persevered for eight continuous weeks, in which space of time her eyes were overspread with such a mist that she could not distinguish night from day, and nothing seemed to be before her but a white wall. But when a year before, on the vigil of SS. Peter and Paul, the community of the parish of Zirklach had come hither in supplication to St. Notburga, this was afterward set forth to her at home, and among other things it was related that in the sermon delivered to the assembly St. Notburga had been proposed as a peculiar patroness in various calamities, and that this had been confirmed by the relation of certain wonderful benefits. The said Jera Musseshka resolved therefore to seek help here also, and conceived the purpose of reciting daily for six days the Rosary of Mary in honor of St. Notburga, that through her intercession, if it did not stand in the way of her soul's salvation, she might recover the former use of her eyes.
[78] is restored to the use of her eyes; This done, she wished to be led hither to the church by a boy. And while she was returning home she received back something of her former light, and within a few days was able to make the journey hither with no guide. Having therefore obtained after eight weeks some use of her eyes, and being affected with immense joy, she set herself to one or another household task. But when once she had split wood and through carelessness had laid the axe aside in a place afterward unknown, she was hooted at by the others as blind, not without great feeling of mind; she resolved therefore for eight days to recite daily in honor of St. Notburga five times the Lord's Prayer and as often the Angelic Salutation, both that she might get back the axe and that thereafter she might not be assailed with like reproaches. That devotion profited her so much that the axe was at last found in the barn — which she ascribed to St. Notburga alone.
[79] a horse carried off by theft The twenty-ninth of September in the year 1740. This year on the fifth of September, falling on a Monday, Nicholas Urm, born at Lagkh, had lost a horse toward evening in the public pastures; and when, contrary to custom, the beast had not returned home after a whole day, he began to search every stall of the whole village, but neither found it nor could be informed where it was. Wherefore he himself was affected with the utmost grief, and likewise his wife, whom he ordered to go to Ebensfeld and there to procure a sacrifice of the Mass in honor of St. Notburga. But since no priest was left on that day to celebrate it, she was ordered to return on the next Thursday about the seventh hour of the morning. But when, with her two little children accompanying her, she had returned again only about the ninth hour and accordingly later, she (who was now less anxious and sad about the horse than about her husband; for he had afterward run far away from home, and not whither he had signified) was persuaded to pour out meanwhile devout prayers with her innocent little children to St. Notburga, and it was promised that on the morrow, Friday, according to her intention, a Mass would beyond all doubt be made about the seventh hour, whether she were present or absent. Besides this she was expressly admonished that, noting accurately the hour and day on which the Mass was to be celebrated, she should observe whether perhaps the horse might not be found at the same. And so indeed it came about.
[80] is wonderfully found. For the good man, after he had now long been searching and had always gone further on, at last found the horse grazing in the orchard of a certain countryman, many miles distant from his house, namely at Wohain far beyond Locopolis. Wherefore, accosting the man, he learned that the horse had been carried off by theft from the pastures and sold to him for twelve coins. But he, avoiding lawsuits, preferred, six coins being repaid, to settle the matter amicably with the countryman. When therefore he had brought the horse thus recovered home, to his wife's great joy, from the talk held on both sides it appeared that at that very time at which the Mass had been celebrated here for the said intention, the horse had been found there. This he ascribes to St. Notburga alone, as also that he had been led to that place. But after a short time that same horse fell sick in such a way that it could not be moved from its place. In this case too they again implore the help of St. Notburga, and shortly it recovers health.
[81] The sixteenth of October 1740. Alenka, wife of Michael Zierer of Terstein, To a dead infant by a most difficult birth about the tenth hour of the morning had brought into the world a dead child, in such a position of body that, contrary to the natural order of those being born, both its feet were twisted up to its head. There had come thither Ursula Ershaika the midwife, who, mindful of the benefit conferred on her husband at the intercession of St. Notburga, thought to succor the woman in labor with a heavenly remedy also. To her therefore, already before she was delivered, as she lay in open peril of life with livid lips, she cried aloud into her ear that she should conceive firm confidence in St. Notburga and should vow a sacrifice of the Mass in her honor. She took courage, and by a bending of her head signified that the vow was ratified by her.
[82] A little after the child came forth, as was said before, life with the utmost danger; and when they wished to lift it, the feet of the dead infant at once sank down. There had come also her mother (the mother of the woman in childbed), Nesha Shupanka, to be a witness of the dead little boy brought forth. After an hour had elapsed, when the navel of the boy, now washed for the third time, was being tied, the aforementioned Ursula Ershaika perceived some motion at the infant's sides; hence she urged that all together should direct prayers to St. Notburga; and presently the boy truly began to live and to move, so that immediately after midday he was carried to the saving waters of Baptism and was called Luke. Now, the vow being fulfilled and the sacred sacrifice of the Mass performed, the woman in childbed with her infant is very well; and the aforesaid Ursula Ershaika shows herself ready reverently to take an oath in confirmation of the truth whenever she should be required.
[83] The seventeenth of July in the year 1741. Alesch Reshey, a seller of chickens, and hearing is granted to a deaf old man. an old man of seventy years from Terstein, declared that for eight years he had been so destitute of the faculty of hearing that, although standing beside a church he perceived with his eyes the motion of the bronze bell and of its clapper, yet he caught no sound with his ears.
Two years ago he vowed that he would set out hither on the feast day of SS. Hermagoras and Fortunatus, on which namely the solemnity of their patronage recurs here, and prayed God ardently that through the intercession of St. Notburga and of the two martyrs he might receive back the gift of hearing. And indeed the good man obtained the favor, since, the sacrifice of the Mass being finished, he was able at least to some extent to understand the sermon delivered to the assembly; and after the exercises of piety were completed, returning home with his neighbors, he distinctly heard the words both of one of his companions asking a neighbor woman where she had thrown out or where she had buried her formerly sick cow, and of her answering that the cow, as all supposed, had by no means died, but that after she had uttered a vow of procuring a Mass in honor of St. Notburga it had recovered, and that now it was feeding at her house plainly vigorous. At these things the said Reshey marveled, and so aptly took up the conversation that those present easily judged that the old man had heard and at the same time grasped what was narrated. Hence, looking at one another, they said: See, see, our deaf old man has received his hearing. He himself confirmed what they said; and so that company went home amid many thanksgivings and proclamations of this Saint's praises.
[84] The twenty-first of July in the year 1741. Michael Schorman, Lost oxen are found, a butcher near St. Peter de Commenda, had at Laibach at the fair on the day consecrated to the commemoration of the conversion of St. Paul bought a pair of oxen, with the intention of slaughtering them. Meaning to lead them home after midday, he could find them nowhere, they having been carried off by another. For which cause, full of cares, he did not know what counsel to take. At last the thought of St. Notburga came upon him; he vowed a sacrifice of the Mass, and, by his own testimony, his mind became calmer, returned to him, and much of his anxiety departed. And so, having sent off someone to take the road toward Krainburg, he himself hastened to the bridge of the Save, meanwhile persisting in ardent prayers to St. Notburga. Scarcely had he reached the bridge when the man sent off on the Krainburg road was driving toward him the oxen before lost, which he had caught at Schischka near Laibach. Wherefore he today paid his thanks here, and caused the promised Mass to be made.
[85] an injured eye is healed; The twenty-second of July in the year 1741. On the past feast day of St. Alexius about midday Jera Poushouka of Stop had come hither to the church to be present at Mass; because at that time an appointed Mass was made about midday on each day before the most noble lords of the place. But since on that very day the most noble lords were absent, and in the morning, on account of a half-feast b, a great multitude of men had flowed hither to Mass, for their sake the lord's domestic priest celebrated at the eighth hour, so that, that Mass being finished, each might return to his labors. Nor did any other priest come afterward, and so the aforesaid Poushouka could not obtain a Mass here. Hence, somewhat angry, she asks her neighbor woman what counsel had been given her of coming hither to Mass, when no opportunity of hearing one remained. Yet she suffered herself to be brought to enter the church and to pray for some while before St. Notburga. After this, returning home, she at once hastened to the field to reap wheat. But by an unhappy chance an ear of wheat flew into her right eye, which brought her as much pain as if the pupil were being tortured with burning coals and razors. Wherefore, lamenting with a rather loud voice, she supposed the eye lost. But, remembering better counsel, she broke out with a louder sound into these words: O St. Notburga, free me from this calamity. Having said this, she asked her companion in the work, who stood by, to pull out the ear; which she carried out so easily and happily that not only did all the pain withdraw far from her, but also no blemish clung to the eye, and she used it as rightly as if it had not been injured before.
[86] a small bone sticking in the throat falls away of itself; The twenty-third of July in the year 1741. Frances Kushnerza, a maiden born at Stein, on the past Thursday evening was carrying in her arms a little infant playing with a small bone which it held in its hands: and she did not know whether she herself had drawn the bone to her by her own breath, or whether it had been thrust into her mouth by the infant; certainly it stuck in her throat with great pain until this present day. Further, she made a vow of going on pilgrimage hither to St. Notburga as soon as an opportunity should offer; she came today, and poured out a fervent prayer to St. Notburga; when presently the little bone passed through her throat and she was better. Wherefore, for a grateful mind's sake, she presently declared this openly too, devoutly wiped away the stains of her conscience by confession, and approached the heavenly Banquet. The same woman, fourteen days before the last past Lenten fast, had suffered from a dangerous malady for three weeks, from which she was likewise freed by the intercession of St. Notburga alone.
[87] The twenty-third of July in the year 1741. Ursula Dollnitscherza, cruel pains of the bowels and head are extinguished. a maiden of Nadgoritz, on the last Friday about midday had felt such violent torments of the bowels and pains of the head that she fell in spirit, especially because her parents were broken in age and body, and she in that state was by no means fit for accomplishing the necessary labors of the household. Yet on the said day and on the following Saturday, forcing herself, she completed the necessary work, though with much difficulty. But on Sunday, on account of the festive commemoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, she betook herself to Laibach to receive the most holy Sacraments. But when she had returned home, the pains of her bowels and head so increased that from their violence she could not rise from her bed on the next Monday. Hence, suffused with grief, she thought thus with herself: Good God, are these things perhaps befalling me for the sake of admonition, because toward St. Notburga — through whom I, though liable to many sins and deserving nothing of the kind, have been heaped with so many benefits, especially in the past year c — I have hitherto not shown myself grateful enough? I wish therefore, O St. Notburga, henceforth to honor thee more diligently, as is fitting, and never to give thy benevolence toward me to forgetfulness. With sighs of this kind she fell asleep toward evening; and on the following Tuesday morning at the first dawn there appeared to her as she dreamed a matron who gently anointed her forehead, and whom she seemed to herself to address in this manner: Let me be, and do not disturb my head with that troublesome anointing, which torments me so much. To whom the matron in reply: Fear not, daughter, for this anointing is excellent and healthful. Waking after this, she felt that all the pains of her bowels and head had so withdrawn as if her head had never ached before. Therefore today, truly repentant, she made confession of her faults here, and at the same time renewed her purpose of venerating this holy Patroness henceforth more diligently and without intermission.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER IX.
Diseases of cattle driven off; injuries, frenzy, the stone, fevers, abscesses healed; an infant supposed dead restored to life, and a man near death to health.
A cow with its calf is snatched from danger; The twenty-third of July in the year 1741. Jacob Mukolitsch of lesser Mannsburg had a cow heavy with calf, which about the lately past feast of St. George was sick, and, when the time had come, was unable to bring forth the calf. (He first alone, then with another man called in thither, tried by applying force to draw it out; his wife too was present, who, sad and anxious lest by the violence of the remedy she should lose both calf and cow, calling upon the patronage of St. Notburga, vowed a Mass; and the matter succeeded according to their mind: the cow with the calf was preserved a.) This the woman herself declared here today, to the greater veneration and honor of the Saint; but she had long before caused the promised Mass to be paid.
[89] an infant wretchedly burned is cured, The seventh of August in the year 1740. In the previous year, on the day assigned, there came hither on pilgrimage Gregory Goriantz of the neighborhood of St. Stephen under the parish of Vodiz. In the past autumn, when his wife had set a very large pot full of boiling water in the corner of the hearth for immediate use, Metha their little daughter of four years, running to her mother in the morning while the darkness was not yet dispersed, unwittingly struck against the pot; and, drenched wretchedly on every side by the water of the overturned vessel, was burned in so horrible a manner that not only did many and huge blisters rise on her skin, but also, when these were broken, a foul discharge followed, and from it worms were presently bred. All believed that the life of the infant, set in so wretched a state, was utterly despaired of. Yet when the parents had uttered a vow of coming hither with the girl, she at once began to recover; and, as they had vowed, on the day mentioned above both fulfilled the pilgrimage with their daughter accompanying them.
[90] a maiden, The twenty-fifth of July in the year 1741. Maria Anna Fadin, a maiden, full sister of the present parish priest at Kraxen, and at that time portress at Habbach, through the whole past spring was tormented with a violent pain of the head, for the relief of which various remedies — namely a purging of the bowels and the opening of a vein — were applied; but in vain. At last her face swelled high; there came on also a huge abscess in her mouth, and a violent pain of the teeth. She would indeed have greatly wished a tooth to be pulled out for her, if only she could have determinately pointed out the decayed one; for all brought her equally great pain. Three days after the feast of St. John she had bound herself by a vow of going on pilgrimage hither and of offering a slender gift. On that same night the abscess of her mouth burst, without her knowing it, nor could she perceive how it could have come about that so wonderfully and so quickly the whole ulcer and all pain departed; since in her mouth no opening or wound could be observed through which the eruption had been made. Thus thinking and thinking again, she composed her body in a sitting posture and bent her head into her hands; when from her mouth a humor not unlike water flowed out with great force. But today, paying her due thanks, she cleansed her soul of faults by a pious confession, and wished the sacred sacrifice of the Mass to be made.
[91] and a boy, The thirtieth of July in the year 1741. Martin Hebian of Terstein, on the past day sacred to the conversion of St. Paul, in the winter season toward evening had sent his son of thirteen years, Martin likewise by name, to the stall, to hold out fodder to the cattle: and while he was busy at this work, it happened that, falling unexpectedly, he remained fixed to the ground lifeless. His father and mother, having long awaited his return, went to the stall to find out what was the cause of so long a delay. But beyond all expectation they find him stretched on the ground and like one dead. Hence the man and the woman, greatly stricken, turn him from one side to the other, but not even so was his breath called back.
At last the husband's opinion was that the boy had doubtless been touched with apoplexy, since before he had been altogether sound and vigorous; but his wife strongly opposed him.
[92] While they were thus disputing with each other, the boy breathed again, are freed from various evils looked up, and asked to be carried out of the stall, since he feared it very much. To those asking the cause he answered that, intent on his work, he had been overwhelmed by something and dashed to the ground with such force as if the whole mass of the world had fallen upon him. And so he was carried by his parents from the stall to the hearth; but there, suffering swoons continually succeeding one another, he showed by gestures that he was in great distress. The neighbors, called thither, advised that a priest should be fetched, which the sick boy himself also desired; but the father omitted to carry it out on account of the inclemency of the air and the great abundance of snow falling at that very time. The mother meanwhile, commending her son to St. Notburga with many prayers and sighs, vowed a Mass, and at once the boy felt himself better, and fell into a placid sleep. Waking after two hours, before everything he cried out to his mother that he was hungry.
[93] Thus he continued in better health until the third day, are freed; but on that very day he was seized with frenzy, which vexed him very often and in a wretched manner. His mother, Jera by name, remembering the vow uttered, persuaded her husband to hasten hither with their son to the promised Mass, for the celebration of which a priest had by then been engaged. But the boy made much trouble for both of them, the man namely and the woman, until they had arrived here; for on the way the frenzy had twice come upon him. But after they had been present at the Mass, on the return he underwent another but the last of its attacks, and thereafter enjoyed full health.
[94] Likewise in the past year at Christmastide, on the day sacred to St. Stephen, a sick calf is healed. the above-mentioned man and woman found their calf, only two days old, affected with disease, whose force at last so prevailed that it could neither stand on its feet nor take nourishment, and lay down like one expiring. But as soon as the woman had again promised a Mass in honor of St. Notburga, the calf too recovered.
[95] The fourth of August in the year 1741. Primas Smrekhar of Depallah declared today A fever, that two years ago he had been seized with a violent fever, and that for a whole year, namely until the beginning of autumn of the year just past. So that from the long duration of the time, and from being kept from necessary husbandry, he despaired in mind. But since by impatience he profited nothing, he took wiser counsel: he made a vow that, if ever his strength should suffice, he would come hither and procure a sacrifice of the Mass. On the day immediately following that vow, the fever and all sickness left him.
[96] About the most recent festival of the Lord's nativity, the scab infected his right cheek, the scab and an abscess, from which, growing worse for fourteen continuous days, there arose in him such an abscess that for three days he was blind in his right eye. Set in this state he began to think and to remember St. Notburga: he confessed indeed that he had done wrong in having too long deferred the Mass promised on the first occasion; but, since means for it were lacking, he renewed his purpose of procuring a Mass as soon as money should suffice for the stipend of celebrating one. Besides this, sighing devoutly to St. Notburga, he prayed urgently that through her intercession with God he might shortly be freed from that wretched malady. Presently on the next day he was able to open his swollen eye and to use it, and not long after, the scab falling away, he was wholly healed.
[97] and other evils are driven off. After the feast of Pentecost, on the fast days which recur at the four seasons of the year, he fell into a third calamity; when namely for three days he was afflicted with violent colic gripings and cruel pains. Wherefore he renewed for the third time the vow first conceived, and at the same time promised St. Notburga a small portion of wheat: but in an altogether wonderful manner all the gnawings of pain and all the gripings ceased in a single moment of time. Hence he himself at last today satisfied his vow and offered the promised little gift.
[98] to an infant believed dead, life The fifteenth of October in the year 1741. The pregnant wife of Michael Perpaula, born at Lagkh, at length on the seventh of the month of September lately past brought forth her child: but not without great distress to her husband and the midwife; because she brought forth an infant livid over its whole body, destitute of all motion, and, in the judgment of all, already dead. Nonetheless the sorrowing husband promised here a sacrifice of the Mass in honor of St. Notburga, adding moreover that, if by the patronage of St. Notburga the boy should happily come forth alive, the mother with the boy would undertake a pilgrimage hither. This vow being uttered, the midwife observed some motion in the boy, and at once, having dipped him in water, fortified him with the Baptism customarily conferred in necessity. But since at every moment of time he took on a greater whiteness and gave more signs of life, the midwife washed his body after the custom, and he was carried to the parish of Mannsburg to be duly baptized, where the name Michael was given him. And today the man and the woman with the boy made the promised pilgrimage, procured a Mass, and paid their thanks.
[99] and to a boy afflicted with the utmost The first of November in the year 1741. The wife of Matthew Hebian of Tepallah declared that her little son, scarcely six months old, named Michael, had very often, when urine had to be passed, suffered great pains, and that frequently the passage of the urine had been quite closed to him; whence on every occasion the unhappy boy tormented himself and broke into groans and loud cries. His mother, ignorant of the cause of these things, at the advice of the neighbors had more than once smeared the infant's belly with various things. But that calamity had to be borne by the wretched infant until his second year; which being at last completed, it was observed that he often passed sand with his urine. The afflicted mother consulted various persons as to how the boy might be helped. Some proposed the use of certain waters; others wished the boy to be carried to the Laibach … b or another surgeon, that he might be cured either by cutting or by some other remedy: since at that time, from the violence of his torments, the wretched infant's body was so wasted that nothing remained to him but bones and skin, and he presented the appearance rather of a dead than of a living child.
[100] pains from the stone, health is obtained. The mother, however, could not be brought to follow counsel of this kind: but in its place she promised here from a true heart, in honor of St. Notburga, that she would procure a sacrifice of the Mass as soon as she had as much money as was needed for paying its stipend. When the mother had uttered that vow this year, some days before the festival of Pentecost, on the day noted above toward evening a placid sleep came upon the wretched infant: at which the mother could not but wonder somewhat. At last, waking, the boy began to lament for a short interval of time, in which namely he passed three little stones, and again rested, and began to recover day by day. And the mother, at once anxious lest so great a benefit, and one so conducive to the greater honor of this great Patroness, should lie hidden longer, brought hither the three said little stones and related the whole course of the matter, adding that in truth, after God, she could ascribe this benefit to none other than St. Notburga. And the boy too, who is now two years and a half of age, already now knows how to exhort other boys diligently to venerate both the most holy Mother of God and St. Notburga, lest they be afflicted with a like disease to that which he had before.
[101] The above-named Matthew Hebian, the infant's father, in the past winter had fallen into an illness, A man near death from a hectic fever recovers. upon which a hectic fever supervening fastened him to his bed so wretchedly for five weeks that at last he had to be fortified with the last Sacraments of the dying, the lord chaplain himself who attended him at that time asserting that he would shortly depart from this life. And indeed his frequent vomiting, with which blood was always mingled, cast upon all the utmost doubt of his preservation. Yet the counsel of certain pious men of the neighborhood, who advised that he should heartily bind himself here to St. Notburga by some gift suited to his condition — since thus several others had obtained in this place the benefit of healing — the sick man at last embraced; and, drawing a coin from his purse, he laid it on a table near the bed, and heartily vowed to St. Notburga a sacrifice of the Mass, that slender gift, and a pilgrimage. Which done, he was better, and after a few days, though still somewhat weak, he brought the appointed coin hither as a gift, ordered the promised Mass to be made, and thereafter enjoyed entire health.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER X.
A defect of the feet removed; dropsy cured; the falling sickness extinguished; health obtained for the dying; diseases driven from cattle.
A girl obtains the power of walking, The third of November in the year 1741. Andrew Kollada of Podgariz under the parish of Mannsburg testified that his little daughter, then five years old, had first from her birth, as is wont to be done with all infants, been carefully wrapped in swaddling bands; but that, when after half a year they had tried to set her on her feet on the ground, it was found that both feet were rigid from a defect of the joints. Thus therefore, growing in age, without ever being able to lean upon her feet, which were very like a stump, the wretched infant was continually fastened to her bed. Various baths and very many remedies were applied, that she might be brought to the right use of walking; but every effort was in vain. At last this year her mother uttered a vow to St. Notburga, and offered here her daughter's shorn hair with a waxen image of a woman on the sixteenth of July, on which lately fell the yearly festival of the church's consecration. On the next morning the parents observed that the girl, leaning on her little bed, raised herself somewhat of her own accord: but, her feet being even then rigid, she was compelled to keep to her bed as before.
[103] she obtains it, When in this same year, before the day sacred to St. Michael, the reverend lord Michael Wrekh, chaplain at Mannsburg, had there after the custom collected the wheat, he visited the said girl, and to him, touched with the utmost compassion for her, the parents set forth not without grief the whole course of her condition in detail. They had indeed the desire of vowing a Mass to St. Notburga at Ebensfeld, but the means were lacking for paying the Mass stipend: yet if (they added) the lord chaplain himself, in place of money, in
payment for the stipend of the Mass to be celebrated there would deign to accept some measures of wheat, it could thus conveniently be brought about that the promised Mass should be performed. He readily gave his assent to the condition, and appointed the third day for them, on which, unless he should be otherwise hindered by a necessary and unforeseen journey, he would certainly perform the divine Office in honor of St. Notburga for the said girl. The parents were present at the appointed time, their little daughter being brought too: but, the said lord chaplain being hindered from coming hither, the parents returned home with their helpless daughter just as they had come. On the fourth day at last the lord chaplain performed the Mass here, and on that same day, after the Mass was finished, that infant of five years raised herself of her own accord, went out of her bed without anyone's help, and thereafter, to the utmost astonishment of all, kept the use of walking with jointed feet.
[104] a dropsy vanishes without human remedy; That a dropsy should be expelled from a human body without any natural remedy is a thing unheard of and surpasses every force of nature, but not the great power of St. Notburga. This Maria Kosmarin, born at Laibach, experienced in fact. For she, on the feast of the Virgin assumed into heaven in the year 1741, was vexed with a violent fever; when at length it degenerated into a dropsy so grave that everyone, even the physician himself, despaired of her life on account of the immense height of the swelling. But — which was the greatest of the evils — in the same year she had conceived, so that it was deservedly judged that it would shortly be all over with mother and child alike. Wherefore, at her confessor's counsel, she took care to be fortified beforehand with the last Sacraments of the Church. On a certain day, when she had been brought to the highest point of the malady, she turned her mind with full confidence to St. Notburga; nor was she frustrated of her help. For about midnight, while her confessor thought that her soul was about to depart on the road of eternity, she seemed to herself to be breathed upon by a cooling breeze, and afterward fell into a placid sleep. But waking on the next day she felt her pains so far soothed that she ventured to walk about her chamber, supported by a single prop; and within a short time she was so freed from the swelling that she herself, without support, appeared here at Ebensfeld to show herself grateful for the health recovered, on the nineteenth of August in the year 1742.
[105] Agnes Polakhin, born at Lagkh, in the spring season had lost a cow in the public pastures; a lost cow is found; and when after a whole day it had not returned home after the custom, she thought that it had turned aside to another's stall, and searched the whole village; but she could neither find it nor learn anything about it. Hence the woman was greatly saddened. On the third day, full of grief, she went to the mountain, promising meanwhile a sacrifice of the Mass if, by the patronage of St. Notburga, the cow should be restored to her. Intent on these thoughts, she perceived a noise on the mountain, and, pursuing her way further, beheld a cow running about with impetuous lowing, and recognized it to be the very one she had lost three days before. She climbed the mountain therefore in haste, and, overtaking the cow cropping the grass in a green meadow, led it home with great joy of mind. But because the aforesaid woman could not for lack of money procure the promised Mass sooner, she presented herself here on the second of September, and according to her vow caused a Mass to be made.
[106] Lucia Sellekkha in the village of Nargarze lay ill of a most dangerous disease, a dying woman, so indeed that she now seemed rather dead than alive, and no hope of her healing shone out either to physician or to surgeon. All the remedies of human industry being therefore laid aside, she was advised to commend herself to St. Notburga. And indeed, as soon as she had invoked the help of St. Notburga, she was better, and on the third day after, namely the eleventh of June in the year 1745, she herself was present before St. Notburga to pay her thanks for the benefit received. The witness is Joseph Schifrer, priest.
[107] Margaret Deuzin of the parish of St. Martin in lower Carniola, and another suffering from the falling sickness are healed. for six years continuously, on every third day, had been seized with the falling sickness. But in the year 1743, fourteen days before the Christmas feast, she suffered its assault daily. She had indeed sought the favor of health in various places, but at St. Notburga's she at last obtained it so far that she experienced no assault at all of the long-lasting malady, and no trace of it. Wherefore on the thirteenth of September in the year 1743 she showed herself grateful here a.
[108] The tenth of August in the year 1743. Martin Anschin of the village of Stobenim testified For calves that he had obtained two benefits by the intercession of St. Notburga. The first is, that three years before, when two of his calves had been so infected with disease that no hope of their being wholly healed remained, he vowed to procure a Mass to the greater honor of St. Notburga, and presently obtained the effect of his vow, the beasts being fully restored a short time afterward.
[109] The second, that the aforesaid Martin experienced the great and powerful intercession of St. Notburga in an ox, and for an ox health is obtained. which in the holidays of the Lord's Nativity contracted a disease, and after inspection and examination was judged to have on its head a huge ulcer, mingled with corrupt matter and blood, and called in their native tongue Schabiza. The afflicted man did not indeed omit to apply every remedy for driving off the evil: yet he had to have recourse to heavenly medicine. For as soon as that same man had promised that he would order a Mass to be made, the evil was relieved, and the ox on that very day, without the help of any other remedy, stood forth sound and vigorous.
[110] A young man, from a wound The sixth of October in the year 1743. There was present here Jera Kompalza of the village of Kompalla, and she attested this distinguished benefit obtained from the beneficent hand of St. Notburga. Her husband had bought a two-year-old horse for accomplishing the labors of husbandry, and after her husband had gathered the millet b he had on the second day of this month sown wheat: wherefore, as is the custom, he wished presently to harrow the ground, and entrusted this labor to be carried out by his son, sixteen years old. The youth complies, hastens home, harnesses the horse, and yokes the harrow. When he had thus returned to the fields, the care of leading the horse lay upon him, and that of guiding the harrow upon the maidservant. But while they were thus tilling the field, the father came up leading two oxen; and when the horse beheld them, impatient of the bridle it began to grow wild: the youth tried indeed to check its rush, but was dragged by the furious beast as far as his father's garden, where the horse at last stopped.
[111] brought to extremity, recovers. But the youth had been injured in the spine of his back by one tooth of the harrow so far that his bowels (as she herself related) were easily laid bare. The unhappy mischance was presently reported to his mother, and she was greatly stricken by the pitiable sight. The youth meanwhile, carried home, was laid on a bed, and his last breath was awaited at every moment. For already the livid color of the dying appeared in him. Yet both parents, since in a sermon delivered to the assembly on the feast day of St. Notburga they had learned her manifold prodigies, full of confidence commended their son to her, a vow of procuring a Mass being added; and the sorrowing mother, coming to the bed, exhorted him to bear those great pains patiently out of love for the Crucified Lord. At this admonition sleep crept over the youth; and behold, after household remedies of very little moment had been applied, on the third day, namely the fifth of this month, he began to walk about his chamber without the support of props.