Curiosities of Christian History Prior to the Reformation

by James Paterson

When Duke William, in 806, became a monk in the abbey of St. Saviour, in the Herault, he at once showed his delight in every lowly task. He set about making a good road up the steep cliffs, and cut through rocks to make a causeway, using hammer and pickaxe like a day labourer. He also planted vineyards and fruit-trees and laid out gardens. He laboured in all ways with his own hands in true humility. He often prostrated himself before the abbot and brethren, beseeching that for God’s mercy he might be allowed still greater self-renunciation and hard work. He sought the lowest offices in the monastery, and the meaner the toil the more welcome. He would gladly act as a beast of burden for the brethren in the Lord’s house. He who had been a mighty duke was not ashamed to mount a poor donkey with a load of bottles, or carry fagots and pitchers of water, or light the fires, or wash the bowls and platters. When the hour of refection came, he would spread the table for the monks in due order, and remain to watch the house, fasting till the meal was over. Once, when the wood for baking was exhausted, he was forced to use twigs and straw, which choked the oven, and was chidden for his delay. He had nothing with which to clear out the ashes; but, rather than be late, he invoked Christ, and making the sign of the cross, entered the oven himself and used his hands, and neither was he scorched while throwing out hot cinders, nor was his cowl singed. After this, the abbot and brethren consulting, forbade his engaging in servile work, and allotted him a suitable cell, so that he might apply his leisure to prayer and holy meditation. Thus, by degrees, William arrived at great perfection in every virtue. He predicted the day of his death, and when it occurred there was heard in the air a loud and strange tolling of bells, though no human hands touched them.

THE SWISS ABBEY OF EINSIEDELN AND ITS PILGRIMS (A.D. 860).

The second most famous monastery in Switzerland is Einsiedeln, which rises high on an undulating plain, and was founded in the days of Charlemagne. A monk named Meinrad lived at that time, and had resolved to spend the rest of his life in the wilderness devoted to prayer and to the faithful guardianship of a little black image of the Virgin, which had been given to him by Hildegarde, the abbess of Zurich. In 861 this holy man was murdered by two robbers, who hoped to escape, but were pursued by two pet ravens of the saint, which flapped their wings and haunted them till the men reached Zurich, when notice was taken of the strange sight, and the men were convicted and executed. The fame of the ravens and the saint became published, and pilgrims and hermits flocked to the spot where the saint had lived, and a Benedictine community built an abbey and church there. They got a bull of Pope Pius VIII., authorising the consecration of the church, and the bishop of Constance was about to proceed with the consecration, when, on the night before, he was aroused by sounds of angelic minstrels, and it was announced by a voice from heaven that there was no need to go on with the sacred rite, as it had already been consecrated by the powers of heaven and by the Saviour in person. The Pope was satisfied that this was a true miracle, and granted plenary indulgence to all pilgrims who should repair to this shrine of Our Lady of the Hermits. From that time, during nine centuries, there has been a constant series of pilgrimages, and the wealth of the monastery has grown immensely, the abbot being a prince of the Holy Roman Empire. The French, in 1798, stripped the chapel of its holy image; but the monks were equal to the occasion, and produced a duplicate, which they said was the original. Another attraction to pilgrims is a fountain with fourteen jets, from one of which it is believed the Saviour once drank. Here pilgrims and worshippers swarm, and rejoice in being near so hallowed a place.

ST. MEINRAD, A MONK OF THE ALPS (A.D. 890).

This St. Meinrad, born about 863, when a young monk yearned to live alone on the serene heights of the Alps, and he fixed on Mount Etzell, about six miles from Lake Zurich. The pine forest behind, though frequented by wolves, did not deter him. He tore himself from his brethren, and with one pupil set out. He took nothing with him but his missal, a book of instructions on the Gospels, the rule of St. Benedict, and the works of Cassian. He fixed his eyes on the glittering pinnacles of ice and snow, and settled down in solemn silence, with nothing but the creaking of the pines and the chatter of the magpie within hearing. He made a little pine house interlaced with boughs, and a widow who entertained him at a half-way house built for him a little chapel and oratory. The mysterious noises of this lofty abode, and its grand panorama of shining realms and flitting colours, made his hut a constant pleasure. But pilgrims found him out and began to increase, so that he had to leave it and retire far into the forest. He took with him two young ravens to be the companions of his solitude. One day, after he had been some years enjoying perfect solitude, a carpenter in search of wood discovered his cell and gave him a present of a little statue of the Virgin, which became miraculous. Pilgrims found this out, and gave him presents till he was thought to be rich. Then two robbers murdered him; but owing to their being pursued by the ravens, they were suspected, then watched, and then convicted, as already stated.

CROYLAND ABBEY BURNED BY THE DANES (A.D. 870).

In 870, the Danes having defeated the English near Croyland Abbey, the fugitives reaching that place and relating the news caused the greatest terror. The abbot and monks, confounded at the disaster, at once resolved to keep with them the elder monks and children in the abbey, in the hope of exciting pity, and to send off all the younger brethren with the relics and jewels and the body of St. Guthlac by water. Among their treasures was a large silver table, which, with some chalices, they threw into the well of the cloister; but the table was so long that it could not be concealed, and so had to be buried under ground. The younger monks carried off the rest of the property into the woods. Meanwhile the abbot and monks clothed themselves in their vestments, and entering the choir, chanted the services of the hours, and went through all the Psalms of David, after which the abbot himself said the High Mass. When the Mass was finished, and the abbot and attendants had communicated, the Danes burst into the church and slew the venerable abbot on the altar. The rest of the brethren in vain endeavoured to escape, and were put to the torture, so that they might reveal the place where the treasure was concealed. One little boy, aged ten, who was under the charge of the prior, seeing his patron about to be put to death, nobly entreated that he might be allowed to perish with him. Fortunately one of the Danish earls took a fancy to the boy and saved him. But all the monks were slain, and the brutal pirates broke into the tombs and monuments of saints in search of treasure. When disappointed, they collected all the dead bodies of their victims and set fire to the monastery, and all were consumed. Next day the Danes proceeded to Peterborough, and broke into the abbey, destroyed the altars and tombs, and burned the books and charters, reducing the whole to a heap of ashes, which smouldered for a fortnight.

NUNS OF COLDINGHAM CUTTING OFF THEIR NOSES (A.D. 870).

During one of the marauding expeditions of the Danes in 870, when they fixed their headquarters at York and ravaged all the country round, brutally killing men, women, and children, the monks and nuns were especial objects of their fury, and all lived in terror of a visit. In Coldingham, an abbey in Yorkshire, the lady abbess, foreseeing, from the proximity of the enemy, that her own house would shortly be attacked, and valuing her honour more than life itself, called the nuns into the chapter-house. There she made to them a touching address, setting forth the brutal passions of the Danes and their own imminent peril. All promised to listen to her advice and implicitly follow it. Upon this the abbess, seizing a knife, cut off with it her nose and upper lip, and the whole sisterhood immediately redeemed their promise by mutilating themselves in the same manner. The next day the Danish troops invaded the monastery, and seeing the horrible spectacle, recoiled from their victims and gave orders that the house should be fired. This command was immediately executed, and the abbey was burned to ashes, together with the abbess and nuns, who thus nobly suffered martyrdom rather than risk a worse fate.

THE MONKS OF CLUNY (A.D. 909).