Regularity of monastic life and observances was maintained till the XIth century. The church was accidentally destroyed in 1045, but was rebuilt and consecrated to the Blessed Virgin by Bruno, Count of Dagsbourg, Bishop of Toul, and Landgrave of Alsace, a descendant of Odile's brother Etton. A few years after it was again destroyed by the Hungarian invaders, and again Bruno, who had become the Sovereign Pontiff in 1049 under the name of Leo IX., had it rebuilt. This pope, called to Germany by the interests of the church, went himself to Hohenbourg to consecrate the edifice and reassemble the dispersed sisterhood. He did not leave this place, so dear to his heart, till he had re-established the monastic discipline.
About a hundred years after this the community of Hohenbourg greatly relaxed its fervor, the number of its subjects diminished, their revenues decreased, and the buildings were decaying. The monastery would perhaps have been abandoned had not Frederick Barbarossa, in his quality of Duke of Alsace, interfered to save so celebrated a house from falling. He sent to reform it Ricklende or Kilinde, whom he took from the Convent of Bergen in the Diocese of Eichstadt, and to whom he gave the title and rights of Princess of the Holy Empire, and also bestowed on her large sums of money for the reparation of the monastery. Ricklende, whom we have already mentioned, joined great zeal and piety to an enlarged mind and much information. Sustained by the authority of the emperor, she re-established discipline in less than two years, as her successor, Herrade de Landsberg, formally testifies. The religious habit worn in this house was white, albens quasi lilium, says the Hortus Deliciarum. The bull of Pope Lucius III. says they followed the rule of S. Augustine. Ricklende had under her thirty-three choir Sisters. In Herrade's time there were forty-seven and thirteen lay Sisters. It was in the time of Herrade that the Emperor Henry VI., disregarding his oath, had Sibylla, the widow of Tancred, and Constance, her daughter, arrested and conducted to Hohenbourg to take the veil.
In 1354 the Emperor Charles IV. visited S. Odile's tomb, Agnes de Slauffenberg being the abbess. He had the saint's body exhumed, and Jean de Lichtenberg, Bishop of Strasbourg, detached a part of the arm to be deposited in the Cathedral of Prague. But, at the request of the sisterhood, Charles IV. drew up an act which forbade any one, under the severest penalties, from ever opening the tomb again. The bishop pronounced the sentence of excommunication on whomsoever should violate this decree of the sovereign.[72]
The Abbey of Hohenbourg, or of S. Odile, as it was also called, was destined to terrible disasters. It was sacked in the XIVth and XVth centuries by the grandes Compagnies by the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. It was still more unfortunate in the XVIth century. Niedermünster was burned in 1542, and Hohenbourg on the 24th of March, 1546. The canonesses and prebends then dispersed, and Jean de Manderscheidt, Bishop of Strasbourg, [pg 270] fearing the Lutherans would seize the property belonging to the two abbeys, obtained permission from the Holy See to annex it to the episcopal domains by paying the canonesses an annual pension. The monastery, rebuilt in 1607 by Cardinal Charles de Lorraine and the Archduke Leopold, Bishops of Strasbourg, was burned anew in 1622 by the Lutheran army of the Count de Mansfeldt. The church was repaired in 1630, but again devastated by the Brandenburg soldiers in 1633. They removed the lead from the windows and organs for ball. Subsequent wars were also disastrous for Hohenbourg, and on the 7th of May, 1681, the whole convent was again burned. Only the Chapel of Tears and that of the Angels remained standing.
The Premonstratensians of the ancient observance established themselves at Hohenbourg in 1663, converting it into a priory. They began to rebuild it in 1684. Two of the monks, Father Hugues Peltre and Father Denys Albrecht, carefully collected all the ancient accounts of S. Odile, and wrote biographies of the saint, which we have freely made use of in this account.
Niedermünster, which was given to the Grand Chapter of Strasbourg in 1558, is now only a heap of ruins. Rosine de Stein, who died in 1534, was the last abbess.
The French Revolution had also its effect on Hohenbourg. A few days after the decree of the National Assembly on the 13th of February, 1790, suppressing the monastic vows, the Convent of S. Odile was vacated. Nevertheless, pilgrimages to the shrine of the holy Patroness of Alsace continued to be frequent.
Nearly all that could nourish or excite the piety of the pilgrim had disappeared from the antique cloister of Altitona, but Odile's tomb still remained and sufficed to attract a great number from all the surrounding countries.
XIV.
On the 7th of July, 1841, at nine o'clock in the morning, the remains of S. Odile were taken out of the tomb where they had reposed so many centuries, and exposed to public veneration on the altar of the chapel which bears her name. On the eve of this festival Mount Hohenbourg presented an animated spectacle. People from Alsace, Lorraine, and around Metz arrived in crowds. In ascending the mountain they dispersed to gather foliage and wild flowers to deck the old Church of S. Odile with. Large vases were placed on the altars and the boiserie around the church to receive these floral offerings of successive groups. A fir-tree from a neighboring forest stood beside each column of the nave. Garlands of box and of oak-leaves hung from tree to tree and covered the trunks. S. Odile's tomb and altar were richly decorated and her statue crowned with flowers. The châsse of the saint was placed on an elevation elegantly draped. Thousands of pilgrims roamed around the precincts in the evening, visiting successively the various sanctuaries.