ON BL. ALARIC, OR ADALRIC, OF THE ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT,
IN UFNAU, AN ISLAND OF THE LAKE OF ZURICH IN SWITZERLAND.
ABOUT THE YEAR 973.
SYLLOGE
On his cult and deeds.
Alaric or Adalric, of the Order of St. Benedict, in Ufnau, an island of the lake of Zurich, in Switzerland. (B.)
BY C. S.
There is in the Swiss canton of Schwyz, in the Black or Dark forest, in the vernacular Finster-Wald, Notice is given of the monastery of Einsiedeln a distinguished and famous monastery of the Order of St. Benedict with an adjoining village, called from its first beginnings Einsiedeln (for Einsiedler to the Germans means a dweller in the desert); but from the wonder-working image of the Blessed Virgin Mary venerated there it is also commonly called the Hermitage of the Mother of God. That place, then rough and forbidding, and therefore fit for the solitary life, was first inhabited by the holy hermit Meinrad or Meginrad, in which also he was slain after the middle of the ninth century, whose Life you have given and illustrated in our work at the 21st day of January, on which he is venerated. The same place was restored in the tenth century by Benno, from a canon of Strasbourg become a hermit, afterward bishop of Metz; and at length Eberhard or Everard in the same century raised it into a monastery, and governed it as its first abbot. Both are honoured by some with the title of Saint, as may be read in our work concerning the first at the 3rd day of August, and concerning Eberhard at the 11th of March and the 14th and 22nd of August among the Prætermissi. Thereafter it was greatly increased in religion and in wealth, and its abbot was numbered among the princes of the empire. Consult, if you please, Christopher Hartmann, a monk of that place, who wrote its Annals and published them in print.
[2] About a German league and a half, or a little more, from the abbey of Einsiedeln toward the North, in the lower lake of Zurich, and of the island of Ufnau, which the Blessed one inhabited, not far from the bridge of the town of Rapperswil, lies the small island of Ufnau, commonly Uffnau, which the aforesaid Benno received from the nuns of Säckingen as a perpetual benefice to be inhabited by himself and his hermit followers, but which afterward the emperor Otto I, having redeemed it from those same virgins, in whose hands the lordship of the place had remained, gave to Gregory, the third abbot of Einsiedeln, and to his successors; as Hartmann relates in his Annals, pp. 31, 75 and following. Now in both places Bl. Alaric or Adalric (for the writers so vary in the name), the son of Regulinda duchess of Alemannia, lived in holiness; at Ufnau, where he also died and was buried, as a hermit, in the monastery of Einsiedeln as a monk. Him, unknown to or passed over by the other martyrologists whom I have consulted, Gabriel Bucelinus announces on this 29th day of September in his Benedictine Menology with the following eulogy.
[3] "In the monastery of Einsiedeln in Switzerland, of Bl. Adalric, monk and confessor. whom Bucelinus announces on this day, He was sprung of most serene parents, the son of Burchard II duke of Alemannia and of Bl. Regulinda, the full brother of Burchard III; in his youth he professed the monastic life in that most holy monastery of the Mother of God at Einsiedeln, where he shone with a rare sanctity of life. Then by leave of his abbot, cultivating the solitary life in Uffnau, an island of the lake of Zurich, he won great reverence for the place. When once the lake had risen too high, and, destitute of human help, he had exhausted the necessaries of life, he received bread and wine from an unknown man, who is believed to have been an angel. Memorable too is that whereby he is said, when he returned rather often to his own monastery, to have trodden the lake with dry feet; but when once he had drawn out a stake from the fence of another man's garden, that he might lean upon it going down the slope, and came to the place, he could not tread the waters by the accustomed grace of God, until he had restored the stake to its place.
[4] [and on which he is said to have died; a certain other writer announces him on the 26th.] He was admonished by an angel to draw St. Wiborada back from too great rigour, and, renowned for many virtues, he flew away to the eternal rewards in the year of Christ 973. Honoured by God with miracles, he is venerated with great devotion of the faithful at Uffnau, having been inscribed on the roll of the Blessed by Theodowin, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, in the year of Christ 1141." Thus Bucelinus, out of the records (as he adds) of Einsiedeln, which are to be examined below. This whole eulogy, from those words "In his youth he professed the monastic life" &c., John Ludwig Schönleben of Laibach, doctor of sacred theology and Apostolic protonotary, adopted from Bucelinus and set out in his Annus sacer Habspurgo-Austriacus at the 26th day of the same month of September; preferring that day, however, for no other reason than that he might not leave it empty. Other martyrologists who mention Bl. Alaric I have not read; but from whatever source their silence arose, it does not permit me to doubt his ancient cult, because of what the aforesaid Hartmann relates in his Annals of the Hermitage of the Mother of God, or of Einsiedeln.
[5] His cult in the church of Ufnau is proved He, at p. 199 and the following, says: "In the year 1141, when Theodowin, bishop of Porto, Cardinal-priest of the title of St. Rufina, and Apostolic legate through Germany, had chanced to come to the Hermitage (that is, to the monastery of Einsiedeln) for religion's sake, at the request and prayers of Vernher (then abbot of Einsiedeln) and of the rest of the Brethren, he dedicated, on the Sunday next after the Assumption of the Mother of God, the church built at Ufnau by Regulinda (the mother of Bl. Alaric) many years before, as we have seen above, but enlarged and renewed by Vernher, to the name and honour of the holy and undivided Trinity, of the Mother of God, of St. Michael the archangel, and of the holy apostles Peter and Paul; to whom, at the petition of the same abbot and of the whole college, he joined the memory of Bl. Adalric, who, as we have also recorded above, had withdrawn to the island of Ufnau, and there had ended his life, not without many miracles in his life and after his death; to whom accordingly Vernher had also been the first to set up a sacred altar in the same church."
[6] Theodowin added, that he might the more kindle the souls of mortals to the pursuit of piety and to the cult and veneration of that same place, among whose Patrons he was reckoned indulgences of seven hundred days of mortal sins and of seven years of venial sins for those visiting that same church on the feasts of the most holy Trinity and of the aforesaid Patrons; and other bishops also conferred many other indulgences upon it. This Theodowin, whom Hartmann here calls both Theodowin and Theodwin, bishop of Porto and Cardinal-priest of the title of St. Rufina, was at once Cardinal-bishop of Porto and of SS. Rufina and Secunda, otherwise Silva Candida, the second who obtained both sees, joined together by Pope Callistus II, as may be seen in Ughelli, vol. 1 of the enlarged Italia sacra, col. 126, where he is called Theodevinus or Theodinus. By the supreme Pontiff Innocent II he was sent as legate into Germany, his own country, where in the year 1138 he was present at the election of Conrad III king of Germany.
[7] That the same man also discharged the office of Apostolic legate there in the year 1141 by the Apostolic legate, renowned for miracles. is clear from the diplomas of the years 1140, 1141 and 1142, which Marquard Herrgott sets out in vol. 2 of the Genealogia diplomatica augustæ Gentis Austriacæ, from p. 164. Nothing therefore stands in the way of the aforesaid Theodowin's having been able to do in the year 1141 those things which Hartmann expressly affirms, nor is there any reason why we should not believe the domestic annalist when he asserts that he did them. And so Alaric was, from the year 1141 onward, added by Theodevinus, legate of the Apostolic See through Germany, to the other holy patrons of the church of Ufnau, and had his own altar in that same church consecrated to God under his name, and a yearly festal day, enriched also with indulgences for the promoting of his veneration; so that we ought not to doubt his ancient cult. Nay, the same annalist writes at p. 83 that that cult was approved by God with heavenly favours, speaking thus: "He so ordered his life that God has willed, and still wills, that the holiness of the living and of the dead man be attested by frequent miracles, then as now also."
[8] But Hartmann published those Annals in the year 1612, Certain other tokens of his cult. and therefore it must be said that at that time the heavenly benefits, by which the Almighty Lord is wont to foster the cult of His Saints, obtained at his invocation, had not yet ceased. The same annalist at p. 83 numbered him among the patrons of Einsiedeln, which Henry Murer the Carthusian also did in his Helvetia sancta published in German, in whose p. 254 his eulogy is read with the title of Blessed. For the continuance of his cult there makes also an effigy of Alaric, which I have at hand, engraved on copper and issued from the press, elegant enough and not ancient, which shows him clothed in the Benedictine habit and his head girt with a diadem or with rays, with this inscription: "St. Adelric, duke of Alemannia, of the Order of St. Benedict." Mabillon too, in vol. 3 of the Benedictine Annals at the year 965, no. 93, after a brief eulogy of him, says: "He is held among the tutelary patrons of the monastery of Einsiedeln, whose provostship still survives at Ufnau"; and yet, which I wonder at, he abstains from the title of Blessed both here and in the Index, content to have called him "a holy Man" and "a Man of God." To me the things said above sufficiently prove his cult, so that he may be inserted into our Work with the appellation of Blessed.
[9] A Life of him written or cited by any ancient I have not read. Hence no particular deeds of his have come down to us, except one or two which Hepidannus, His Life is wanting: he had for father a monk of St. Gall among the Swiss, related in the Life of St. Wiborada, a virgin recluse and martyr, and which also teach us the time in which the Blessed one flourished and the hermit life which he led, and at the same time increase our desire to know more about him. We shall give them below, after we have treated of his parents. Hartmann in the Annals of the Hermitage of the Mother of God, at the year of Christ 926, p. 36, after relating the death of Burchard II duke of Alemannia, subjoins this concerning his children: "Burchard left by Regulinda a son Burchard, quite a boy, and, as we have said, Berchta (married to Rudolph II king of Burgundy). The ancient documents of our monastery record that another son of the duchess Regulinda was Adalric or Alaric, who at this time was leading a hermit life in Ausnau, an island of the lake of Zurich."
[10] Burchard, duke of Alemannia, Concerning both parents Bucelinus, cited at no. 3, agrees; but John Ludwig Schönleben, likewise cited at no. 4, writes that the mother is doubted, in these words: "That Adalric was the son of Burchard II duke of Swabia is certain; concerning the mother there is some dispute. Lazius calls her Hedwig, daughter of the emperor Henry the Fowler, or according to others of Henry the Quarrelsome, sister of St. Henry the emperor. Aventinus names her Luitgard, daughter of Henry duke of Bavaria, granddaughter of Luitolph duke of Swabia; others Luitgard, sister of St. Udalric bishop of Augsburg. Lastly Bucelinus thinks she was named Regulinda, and indeed blessed, the daughter of the emperor Conrad I." But the cited writers (excepting Bucelinus) have made no mention of Adalric, and by whatever name they call the wife of Burchard II, it is established that his consort, whosoever's daughter she may in the end have been, was called Regulinda, Rolinginda or Relinginda. So, I say, it is established from Hartmann the elder, monk of St. Gall, a contemporary or nearly contemporary writer, in the Life of St. Wiborada published in our work in the first place, vol. 1 of May, p. 289, no. 23, whom consult, if you please.
[11] and for mother Regulinda or Relinginda, Further, Regulinda or Relinginda is read to have been twice married: first to the aforesaid Burchard, whom the same Hartmann of St. Gall, Frodoard, Hermann Contractus and the Continuator of Regino relate in their Chronicles at the year 926, and Liutprand book 3, chapter 4, to have been slain while campaigning in Italy on behalf of Rudolph his son-in-law, king of Burgundy. Her second marriage she celebrated with Hermann or Heriman, who was substituted for that same Burchard in the dukedom of Alemannia. The aforesaid continuator of Regino, calling her Wida (unless, however, Vidua, "widow," should be read), at the place cited says thus: "Burchard duke of Alemannia is slain in Italy… The dukedom of Alemannia is committed to Heriman, who took to wife the Wida of Burchard." This Hermann, together with his wife Regulinda and with Alaric, Hartmann of Einsiedeln acknowledges in his Annals as the chief founders of his monastery. But from what has been said it might be doubted from which of the two husbands, namely Burchard or Hermann, Regulinda bore Alaric, had we not from Hepidannus, the other biographer of St. Wiborada, whose words we shall presently give, that Alaric was already living as a hermit at Ufnau before Burchard's death.
[12] most munificent toward the monastery of Einsiedeln. We therefore believe, upon the ancient documents of Einsiedeln cited by Hartmann the annalist, that Bl. Alaric was the son of Regulinda, and we believe him born of Burchard duke of Alemannia; for that Regulinda was married to another before this man, no one that I know has related, nor does the chronology of the Blessed, to be briefly noted below, permit it. And we the more believe Hartmann in this, because the men of Einsiedeln could and ought to have been better informed than all others concerning Regulinda and Alaric; seeing that he was a monk of Einsiedeln, and she was wonderfully munificent toward their monastery and almost of its household. For, on the testimony of the same annalist at p. 44, she not only, together with her second husband Hermann, gave it many things, but also, as may be read there at p. 52, when Hermann died in the year 948, and she was bereft of two husbands, dukes of Alemannia, she straightway joined herself to a third spouse; but one pure, spotless, immortal.
[13] "For, casting off all care and pomp of secular things, who died piously at Ufnau, she betook herself forthwith with a few companions to the same island of Ufnau which her son Alaric had left, and there served Christ the Lord for whatever remained of her life; and, that she might do so the more conveniently and religiously, she first built a chapel under the title of the divine bishop Martin, chiefly for her own use and retirement; afterward she began also to build a greater church for the advantage and good of her neighbours and dependants." Finally, that I may finish what pertains to the Blessed one's mother, the aforesaid annalist at p. 57 records her death and burial between the years 952 and 953 thus: "About these times duchess Regulinda died on the island of Ufnau, when she had spent nearly five years there in all the duties and exercises of piety and holiness. Whatever she had possessed at Feldbach, Stäfa, and Volruvia she left by testament to her son Adalric, and thence to our monastery.
[14] Abbot Eberhard and Adalric, inasmuch as the church which she had begun to build was not yet consecrated, took care that she should be conveyed thence to our monastery, and was buried in the monastery of Einsiedeln. and buried her in a chapel of her own, not without a great reputation of sanctity." So he; but Murer in his Helvetia sancta reckoned her too, with the title of Blessed, among the holy patrons of Einsiedeln; but he did not prove her cult. Less honourably do Hartmann the monk of St. Gall speak of her in the Life of St. Wiborada in our work, vol. 1 of May, p. 289, no. 23, and Hepidannus in the other Life, there at p. 303, no. 30 — and the latter even more bitterly — accusing her that in place of a golden paten, which her first husband Burchard had received from the monks of St. Gall in a manner not sufficiently equitable, and had commanded to be restored after his death, she gave back another of far less price and workmanship. But if in this matter Regulinda really sinned, she may afterward have repented and made good the loss, although these writers were ignorant of it. Now let us pass on to the Son.
[15] That he led a solitary life on a certain island of the lake of Zurich, Alaric, living as a hermit at Ufnau, and was honoured there by a divine revelation and once miraculously fed, Hepidannus relates in the just-cited Life of St. Wiborada, which he composed at the bidding of his abbot Udalric, who in the year 1072 had succeeded Nortpert. In this, according to the division made by our Henschen, in chapter 3, in order to celebrate the frugality of that same holy virgin, he brings him in speaking with himself thus, as though he were then still living. Hepidannus. "Break forth rather, I beseech you, Alaric, servant of God; say what the Head of the Church would enjoin you to entrust to His member" (St. Wiborada). Alaric. "Why, brother, do you force me to attempt those things which you yourself, as I guess, refuse to undertake, seeing certain persons, according to the Apostle's presage, to have turned away their hearing from the truth?" Hepidannus. "To me, my Lord, endowed as I am with no virtue, the virtues give no credit when I speak; but, sprinkled with the sweetness of your sanctity, they willingly lend you their hearing. For even the son-in-law of king Aretas (Herod the tetrarch), a man of greater power, knowing the Baptist to be a just and holy man, not only heard him gladly, but also, having heard him, did many things."
[16] is divinely bidden to admonish St. Wiborada, Alaric. "Fie! Let these weighty examples cease, I beseech you; for although they give strength for speaking, yet for us lesser men it is much to hear, in comparison with the greatest among them that are born of women; nor does the common man, that knows not how to speak with townsfolk, dare to mount the throne of a tetrarch; save that in both cases in this apology I have taken thought because of detractors. Yet, all examples ceasing, I lay it down for safe ears that I acknowledge myself hence a debtor for the setting forth of her sanctity, because the Lord, of divine
converse with her, deigned to choose me as the first intimate after himself. I, Alaric, least of the servants of Christ, resolved for His name to abide as a solitary on a certain island of the lake of Zurich. Therefore, while I was staying there, on a certain night (why do you compel me to speak, brother, whereby those who hear these things may reckon me unworthy?) I was admonished by an angelic address in words of this kind: 'In the monastery of St. Gall, in a certain cell built upon the mountains, know that there is a certain virgin (Wiborada) consecrated to God, faithfully persevering in His service.
[17] that she may moderate her excessive fasting; To her send a faithful messenger, bearing these commands: Every tree, whether fruitful or unfruitful, so long as its root is covered with living earth, can remain in greenness, and clothe itself with fruits or leaves: but if it happen that the earth which nourishes it be absent, when the root is laid bare the tree must needs wither. Wherefore, being admonished by God, spare yourself somewhat from excessive abstinence, so that your dry body, refreshing itself somewhat more than usual, may prevail to persist more fully in His service and praises.'" Hepidannus. "Truly you show a great frugality of the virgin, Alaric; since you declare that God alleged temperance to her. For the labours of Paul, the turning of Laurence upon the gridiron, show that He can suffer His Elect to be much tried. But there are witnesses on your side too, both the prophet bidden twice to take refreshment (Elias) under the juniper, and the crowd that stayed with the Lord three days; and lastly the whole world, for which bread is brought forth out of the earth, that provision for the journey of this life may not fail it.
[18] he himself is divinely fed in that place, What if that miracle too be taken in testimony? You know that when the aforesaid lake overflowed so far that very many days passed before any man dared to enter it by ship; and when you, now almost consumed by hunger, took refuge in prayer, a certain person appearing to you showed that bread and wine hung above your head, refreshed by which you recovered." Alaric. "As you judge, brother: for the knowledge of the truth affrights Alaric from gainsaying this testimony; but the imperfection of his merits dissuades him from proclaiming these things by affirming them. For it is rather your part to announce them; especially since they look not a little to the glory of your Wiborada." Thus far Hepidannus; and lest anyone from his manner of writing should suppose that Alaric was still among the living when he composed this Life, I observe that in chapter 5, no. 29, a dialogue of this sort is likewise set up between Gehazi, the servant of the prophet Elisha, and Hepidannus, and again at no. 30 between this same Hepidannus and Burchard II duke of Alemannia, then dead nearly a century and a half. He is said also to have walked upon the lake of Zurich;
[19] Further, the things which Bucelinus relates about the lake of Zurich being frequently trodden with dry feet I know not whence they were taken, nor do I find them in the Annals of Einsiedeln, in which nevertheless Hartmann did not omit to note the things aforesaid out of the Life of St. Wiborada. The silence of Hepidannus on this point can indeed be no obstacle, since he, as occasion offered, recorded only two deeds of Bl. Alaric, which pertained to commending St. Wiborada's frugality in food; yet it must be said from his own words that Alaric was not yet accustomed to walk through the waves of the lake of Zurich at the time when he was divinely fed; for otherwise he would by no means have been exposed by its flooding to the danger of dying of hunger. However that may be, both miracles, namely the food divinely sent and the walking through the waves, are also represented in the printed image which I cited at no. 8. In it Bl. Alaric is shown in the Benedictine dress, his head adorned with rays, and wholly fixed in the contemplation of the Virgin Mother of God, bearing the child Jesus in her bosom and appearing as it were out of heaven.
[20] He holds a bunch of keys in his left hand, because he is believed to have discharged in the monastery of Einsiedeln the office of keeper of the church. as his printed image also shows. On the same side an angel stands by him offering bread. But in the prospect the island of Ufnau is seen, and he himself walking on foot upon the surrounding lake of Zurich; all which things are set forth in these words placed beneath, engraved likewise on the copper: "St. Adelric, duke of Alemannia, of the Order of St. Benedict, whom the Mother of God by a singular favour drew to her sanctuary of Einsiedeln, and there made him treasurer not so much of holy remains as of her own graces. But when he grew weary of men, he found the fellowship of angels on the island of Ufnau; where, fed by their hands, he walked like an angel upon the waves. He died at length in the year 973, on the 29th of September." This image, since it is neither of ancient engraving, nor is it said whether it was formed after some more ancient exemplar, I have judged that it would not be worth my while to give to our engraver to copy. For the rest, in the poverty of records, let us weigh somewhat the few things that are related of the Blessed one.
[21] Bucelinus, cited at no. 3, writes that he first lived as a monk in the monastery of Einsiedeln He passes from Ufnau to the monastery of Einsiedeln, before he removed with his superior's leave to the island of Ufnau; which, although it be more orderly and by no means far from likelihood, yet seems to rest on no ancient testimony. Hartmann in the Annals, recording nothing of a prior monastic life, seems rather to indicate the contrary, and at the same time assigns the cause for which Alaric betook himself from his beloved solitude to the aforesaid monastery. At the year of Christ 940, p. 44, he says this: "In the same year Regulinda, with her husband duke Hermann (who, as he has it at p. 52, had redeemed the site of the monastery itself with the hermitage subject to it from the counts of Rapperswil, and had given it to Eberhard, the first abbot), being about to vie in munificence toward the Hermits (so he calls the monks of Einsiedeln), when she had learned thoroughly the progress of the monastery and the multitude of those serving God there, in order that necessaries for their expenses might be at hand, gave to Eberhard Kaltbrunn in Castris, and Stäfa, and Lindau, hereditary villages of the canton of Zurich, with all things belonging to them.
[22] She built there a chapel for herself and her posterity in the upper basilica, at his mother's persuasion, and there acts as keeper. in which also she afterward wished to be buried; she proved herself kindly and exceedingly favourable to the monastery: moreover she was the author to her son Alaric of his leaving the island of Ufnau, which he had now inhabited many years, and betaking himself to our monastery; that he should change his place, not his purpose or affection; that a hermit should join himself to hermits. And he, then following his mother's counsel, thereafter discharged among our people the office of keeper. Hermann added a supplement out of the dowry and by the will of his same consort, and made over to the Hermits Gams of the county of Werdenberg — they call it Campso by the ancient name of Rhaetia — and Uttwil; the former a village in Rhaetia, the latter of the canton of Zurich." And so, as far as I can gather from all this, Hermann and Regulinda urged, she her son Alaric, and he his stepson, that he should remove from the hermitage of Ufnau to the monastery of Einsiedeln, and add to it a new splendour from his birth and virtue, and so confirm more and more the donations they had made.
[23] He returns to Ufnau, where he dies, and being buried is renowned for miracles. How long after these things Alaric stayed among the monks of Einsiedeln I have not found out, save that the oft-cited Hartmann, after the words concerning the death and burial of Regulinda, which he placed about the year 952 and which are given at no. 13, presently subjoins: "Not long afterward, having left the office of keeper, Adalric returned to the same island, either that he might more conveniently finish his mother's buildings, or, as I should rather believe, out of desire and love of a greater solitude." Nor has Hartmann more concerning him, except about his blessed end, at the year 973, saying: "About these times, on the feast of St. Michael, Adalric met his death on his island of Ufnau, and was buried in the church which his mother had begun to build in honour of the most holy Trinity, of Mary the Mother of God, and of the apostles Peter and Paul, and which he himself had completed. He had been keeper of our monastery; and so he ordered his life that God has willed, and still wills, that the holiness of the living and of the dead man be attested by frequent miracles, then as now also. From his inheritance great possessions and estates and rights came to the Hermits at Stäfa, Volruvia, Feldbach, and other villages and districts neighbouring on the island of Ufnau and on the Hermitage; so that he ought to be numbered and venerated not only among the tutelary Saints of the monastery, but also among its founders."
[24] From various reckonings compared together Since through the lack of writers we have no more concerning that blessed Man — which we lament — there remain only a few things to be said about his date. From the words of Hepidannus given at no. 16, Bl. Alaric was already living as a hermit at Ufnau at the time when St. Wiborada was giving herself to pious exercises at the monastery of St. Gall. Now both he and Hartmann of St. Gall, older than he, lay down a twofold dwelling of that Saint in that place; the first beside the basilica of St. George, in which they say she abode about four years; the other a cell near the basilica of St. Magnus, in which also she was slain by the Hungarians in the year 925, and into which Hepidannus in the Annals of Melchior Goldast's edition notes that she was enclosed in the year 916: "Wiborada exclusa est" — for which certainly must be read reclusa est or inclusa est, "was enclosed." The same Hepidannus also, in the Life of St. Wiborada, referred the divine admonition given to Bl. Alaric at Ufnau concerning the moderating of that virgin's excessive fasting definitely to that time in which she was still dwelling near the basilica of St. George, which therefore must be placed between the years 912 and 916.
[25] the Blessed one must have been a hermit already before the year 925 But if anyone prefer to suspect that some error crept in upon Hepidannus here in the Life (which would be no wonder in a biographer writing nearly a century and a half afterward), so that the Blessed one was bidden to admonish Wiborada about too great frugality of food while she was already living enclosed in the cell near the basilica of St. Magnus; this being supposed, Alaric may indeed have withdrawn to Ufnau for the first time somewhat later, yet not after the year 925, in which I have said St. Wiborada was slain. Wherefore he must certainly have led the anchoretic life on that island for many years, if he passed thence, at his mother Regulinda's persuasion, to the monastery of Einsiedeln not before the year 940, as Hartmann of Einsiedeln asserts. In that monastery, by the reckonings of the same annalist, he must be said to have lived as a monk about twelve or thirteen years; that is, as many as are counted from the year 940 to 952 or 953, about which he fixed Regulinda's death, and not long after Alaric's return to Ufnau. Lastly, the Blessed one spent about twenty other years, the last of his life, in the same hermitage of Ufnau, if, as the same Hartmann affirms, he met his blessed death about the year 973.
[26] From these things it follows besides, first, that Alaric cannot have been born of Hermann, who married Regulinda the widow of Burchard, slain in the year 926, at which time Alaric was already leading the anchoretic life. and to have died in advanced age. It follows secondly that the same Blessed one died in advanced age, since he then
must have numbered the seventy-eighth year of his life, even if he had been but thirty when St. Wiborada died in the year 925; or at any rate that he withdrew to Ufnau while quite young, and was even then endowed with a great holiness, so that before the aforesaid year 925 he deserved to be honoured with a divine revelation for the admonishing of St. Wiborada. Thus in one point he would have been not unlike his mother, or even have surpassed her in both, since she is said in Hartmann of Einsiedeln's Annals, p. 32, to have been a woman distinguished in age and in virtue. More concerning this Blessed one we have not.