Acta Sanctorum, February, vol. II, pp. 361–373 — the dossier on the Irish monks of Regensburg: Bl. Marianus Scotus (Muiredach mac Robartaig of Donegal, d. c. 1088), founder of the Scots monastery of St Peter and of St James at Regensburg; and Bl. Murchertach, the first Irish recluse there. Comprising the Bollandist preliminary commentary, the contemporary Life of Marianus in six chapters, and the eulogy of Murchertach. Translated into modern British English, with the damaged OCR reconstructed as faithfully as possible.

Preliminary Commentary #

§ One. The Scots’ monasteries in Germany. #

The ancient Scots — men coming from Scotia and Britain — bore the Christian faith into the nations of the Germans and the Gauls, and, when the light of faith had been planted among barbarous peoples, very many holy men from Scotia followed, who either preached Christ’s faith to nations still ignorant of it or, after the example of the monks of old, led the religious life; and in those places they established monasteries — sometimes several each, as we see in the cases of SS Columbanus, Gall, Fursey and others. Into them the Scots, worn out by the toil of travelling and preaching, used to withdraw for a while and take new breath in the meditation of divine things; others, as is written below of B. Murcheratus, shut themselves up in cells as inclusi, and by fasting and prayer offered themselves to God. Nor did it happen rarely that citizens of the German cities, beholding these pilgrims from Ireland serving Christ under so austere a rule, of their own accord built them dwellings and, after the example of the Argentinensians (the men of Strasbourg) and other citizens, bestowed the places on them.

Ireland, moreover, has long borne a double name — Hibernia and Scotia; and that it is ancient Scotia is agreed by all the writers of antiquities, as Ussher showed in his Antiquities of the British Churches, and others cited by us elsewhere. The reason why monasteries of Scots were built in various places of Germany is none other than that Hibernia, which was anciently called Scotia, poured out those monastic colonies.

Among the monasteries of the Scots which flourished in Germany, the principal were these: the monastery of St Kilian at Würzburg, where the Scots who came over with St Kilian lived, and which the bishops of Würzburg afterwards granted to the Scots — though Aventinus, in book 7 of his Annals of the Bavarians, would have it that it was founded under Bishop Embricho by the Scots of his day; the monastery of St James at Regensburg; that of St Giles at Nuremberg; that of St Nicholas at Memmingen; that of St James at Eichstätt; that of St James at Constance; that of St George at Vienna in Austria; that of St Martin at Cologne; and others, in which the Scots governed until poverty or relaxed discipline made way for other monks. How it happened that Scots had the charge of them is what our Marianus’s history shows — Marianus, whom we give below, and who was himself, as it were, the first foundation-stone of the Scots monasteries in Germany.

Nor did Marianus dwell in any men’s monastery at Regensburg, much less become abbot of St Peter Consecrated — as Aventinus mistakenly supposed in book 7 of his Annals of the Bavarians, confusing him with the abbot of the same name who lived a hundred and twenty years, called Murcherodachus, Augmundus, Candidus — which is refuted by what follows. For Murcheratus came to Regensburg long before Marianus, and lived a reclusive life near the convent of virgins; John went into Austria; Clement to Jerusalem; Donatus remained; and our Marianus, by the providence of God, stayed at Regensburg itself.

§ Two. The names of the same. #

The Scots monks of Regensburg were called by various names: Muiredach or Murcherodachus — from which Murcheratum, Murcherdachum, Murcherdachum. And we now call him Murcheratus, nor do we labour to distinguish by names those saints who had one name in the vernacular. The name-forms of the same saint vary: Murdilach, Murcherdach — the son of Murdilach, commonly called Derry-Lougran — and at last Marianus. The Marianus who wrote the Chronicle was another man, as we shall show below.

§ Three. The Life of B. Marianus. #

The Life of B. Marianus the Scot, monk of Regensburg, was copied from a manuscript of the Charterhouse of Garmisch by Johann Garsensius of the Society of Jesus. Raderus in his notes marked: “Certainly, if our annotator observed truly, the monastery was the same city wherein both lived in the same years and under the same emperors; and both wrote, and both enjoyed the fame of sanctity long before — the one being the Chronicle-writer, the other the abbot.” Whether our Marianus is the same as the Marianus who composed the Chronicle of the World — called Marianus Scotus — has been disputed by learned men; for both lived at the same time, both were Scots, both monks, both writers, both saints. But that the Chronicle-writer ended his days at Mainz, an inclusus for ten years, while our Marianus stayed at Regensburg until his death, the ancient writers witness. For the Chronicle of Fulda and other records say that Marianus the Scot, having received the tonsure of a monk from Abbot Richard of Fulda, passed over sea and devoted himself to the work of St Benedict’s rule with notable piety and severity of discipline; and that afterwards, coming to Mainz, he was enclosed for ten years in a cell in the cloister of St Martin’s church there, and died in the year 1082 — the same year in which Hildebrand, that is Pope Gregory VII, was driven into exile — as Trithemius and others report, though some make it 1081. Our Marianus, on the contrary, never left Regensburg after he came there, and governed the Scots monastery of St James there until he died in the year 1088, being the seventh to hold that abbacy after the founder, according to the Chronicle of that monastery — apocryphal though some parts of it be. That the two Mariani are distinct is therefore clear enough.

Of B. Murcheratus, whose natal day is also celebrated — on the 12th of this month, as we noted — it is written: “Murcherodachus, an Irishman by birth, going out of his own land, came to Regensburg in Bavaria; and there, near the aforementioned convent of virgins, he so shone by abstinences and prayers and the utmost severity of life, even to a great age and his last day, that afterwards the place received its fame from him.” The eulogy then relates how Murcherodachus, who came out of Hibernia as the first foundation — as it were the first stone in the foundations — was followed by Marianus, whom the fame of his virtues drew after him.

B. Marianus died in the year 1088 and was buried in St Peter’s; and his memory afterwards almost wholly perished, the monastery being converted to other uses and the memorials destroyed in the religious troubles — a loss we ascribe to the heretics and to our author, according to his custom. Under Bishop George the monasterium was transferred and its memory in great part abolished; the bishop himself died in the year 1125. But in what year our B. Marianus died is certain: the Life itself will immediately fix it at 1088. And indeed the Scots monastery of St James flourished at Regensburg so greatly that it planted daughter-houses at Würzburg, Nuremberg, Eichstätt, Memmingen, Constance and Vienna — concerning all which the same Life instructs us.

Raderus’s manuscript had this title: “The Life of St Marianus, monk and confessor of the Order of St Benedict, of the Scots, written by a certain almost contemporary of the same Order (as appears); wherein likewise are recounted the foundation and progress of the monastery of St James of the Scots at Regensburg, and by the way mention is made of the foundations of houses of the same Order at Würzburg and Eichstätt, Nuremberg and Vienna, with certain other memorable matters.” Whether Raderus had the Life itself entire, or some part of it, does not appear; nor does he seem to have had the whole of it.

The Life of Bl. Marianus, Abbot of Regensburg — by a Scottish monk of Regensburg. From a manuscript of the Charterhouse of Garmisch, copied by Johann Garsensius of the Society of Jesus. #

Chapter One. The Irish nation converted by St Patrick pours its saints abroad. #

Certain writers of saints’ lives, with over-bold licence, invent or relate at pleasure what neither probability of truth nor fidelity of testimony supports — no, what is plainly disproved by public instruments still surviving to this day. From such men the memory of our holy father Marianus seems to me to have suffered: they have made him out to be of the company of St Peter Consecrated and have set over him an abbot who never was. Fortunate, however, is that man’s memory — and his fame — whom I have seen in common with many of my brethren. Perhaps, however, someone will ask who this Marianus was, and from which he came to this land: to whom I answer — from the furthest parts of the world, from the islands of the Gauls, he came for the faith of Christ, God’s help guiding him.

“From the furthest bounds of the earth,” says the prophet, “has He set me, to the nations far away away”; and St Patrick, the glorious apostle of Ireland, went first to that nation and taught them the faith, a man of signs and miracles illustrious — after whom the peoples of Ireland, kindled by the ardent flame of the Holy Spirit, went out through all lands, learning and preaching, that they might spread the name of the Lord. Of whom the nobler in memory are these: first, St Columba, who converted the northern part of the English nation to the faith of Christ with equal charity and preaching, and finished his life there in holiness. What shall I say of St Columbanus, who brought the light of justice to the nations of the Franks and the Lombards, of Italy and of Bavaria? What should I recount of St Gall, who shone in the solitude of the wilderness by a life of anchorites, illustrious with miracles? But the number of those who went out is beyond counting, and no certain term can be set to their number. For after the ardent flame of the Holy Spirit had kindled the peoples of Ireland, who by their preaching drew the nations of various provinces to the Christian faith — men imbued with the rudiments of divine law wandered through many lands for many years.

After the departure of so great men — Columbanus, Gall and the rest — there arose in Hibernia a certain man, Marianus by name, who from his boyhood, being instructed in letters, learned the divine scriptures; and beyond the common measure of his fellows he grew in the grace of writing, so that his hand seemed made for the pen. In the same time he wrote many little books and many manuals of the psalter with his own hand for the indigent and the poor — and no earthly gain did he ever look to from that writing. From the same country also two venerable men, John and Candidus, having heard by report of the holy man’s life and manners, sought him out and clove to him; to whom also many of the faithful joined themselves, and lived with them for the sake of God’s name.

Chapter Two. Of his journey into Germany, and of the things that befell him by God’s providence. #

These things being so, the man of God Marianus, with the said companions — John and Candidus — went to the venerable abbot Hermann, who then presided over the monastery of St Michael at Bamberg under Otto the bishop; and there they lived for a time as guests, received with all charity. And when the aforementioned brethren wished to proceed further on their pilgrimage, the holy man Otto, bishop of Bamberg — whose great kindness and charity is known to all — besought them with a father’s love that they would at least go to the thresholds of the apostles Peter and Paul at Rome before they turned homeward. So by God’s providence they came to Regensburg, and were honourably received by Otto, the bishop of that city, and by the abbess Hernilda, mother of the convent of the Superior Minster of virgins; and they lived a space with the brethren in the said city, the said abbess and the citizens ministering to their necessities with great kindness.

So the holy man Marianus, perceiving how acceptable a pilgrimage it would be in God’s sight, determined with his companions to remain in that land — and this more by divine than by their own choice. For when the time came that they should depart from there, the brethren — namely, John and Candidus and the rest — desired to go back to the places from which they came; but Marianus, led by the Holy Spirit, said: “Far be it from us to desert this place which God has chosen for our rest.” And see, the abbot of the monastery of St Peter at Regensburg, called Albert, together with the clergy and the whole city, made the church of St Peter extra muros over to them — which the citizens had built in honour of St Peter on the hill called the Mount of Victory, outside the walls — the place where, according to the apocryphal chronicle of that monastery, St Peter himself miraculously appeared and marked the bounds. But since that place was too narrow and confined to hold so many brethren, a monastery was built for the Scots in a certain level and broad field belonging to the noble lord Albert of Midelsheim, who lived in the mountains near Phrandenhausen, in honour of St James — under Donatus the first abbot of that place, in the time of Erchanfred the bishop of Regensburg.

Then the fame of the holy man’s virtues and of the holy life of himself and his companions spread abroad; and Murcheratus, the Irish inclusus of the Superior Minster of virgins — of whom we spoke above — had lived in that place in a cell before ever Marianus came, and there completed his days in sanctity. And the citizens of Regensburg, hearing the fame of their religion — especially one Betzelmus, a citizen of the city, a man filled with divine love — built at their own charges, narrow though they were, a cloister and a cloistered dwelling for the few pilgrims, in hope of another’s recompense. And when that cloister had been begun, then by the flying fame of the same place the thresholds of the pilgrims were sought from every quarter: first from the northern parts of Hibernia, from which the holy man had come, many of his countrymen — who had known his boyhood and youth consecrated to God in all things — leaving their goods and dear kindred, set out with cheerful mind, casting worldly things away for the eternal; and over so many seas and through so many trackless kingdoms they followed the man of God Marianus. And when the blessed man Marianus, to whom all that he wished was granted, had reached the element of the writer’s art and of divine letters, a certain wise old man, who being filled with the divine Spirit used to foretell things to come, said to the same Marianus when he was yet a boy: “O you beloved of the Lord! many pilgrims, if life be your companion, shall you join to Christ.” Which oracle the men of his province, holding it in mindful memory, followed — drawn by Christ’s guiding and kindling, from the borders of the paternal West, to the East.

And I can scarce relate with credible mention in the present how great and celebrated the friend of God became, after a few years, in the number of the brethren and in the monastic religion: for even to the times of the younger Emperor Henry — who drove his father from the kingdom — there lived in that place, under the abbots, seven abbots in succession, men venerable, of the northern nation, who by God’s will were the first founders of Christ’s religion and pilgrimage there; and they governed the monastery to their life’s end.

Chapter Three. Of the church of St Peter given to Marianus, and of the monastery of St James founded at Regensburg. #

At that time the abbess Hernilda, mother of the convent of the Superior Minster of virgins — a blessed mother of pilgrims, burning with the fervour of charity — freely granted to the holy pilgrims the aforementioned church of St Peter extra muros for ever, with the consent of the Emperor Henry the Elder. Therefore also certain noble citizens of the same city, and especially the said Betzelmus, a man full of divine love, built the cloister and the cloistered dwellings for the few pilgrims at their own charges — scanty though they were — in hope of another’s recompense. And when that cloister had been begun, so great a company of the Scots gathered there that the place could not contain them, as has been said; whereupon the church of St Peter being yielded up, a new monastery was built in the flat and broad field in honour of St James the Apostle and St Gertrude the Virgin, in the name of the holy Trinity.

Then, when by divine clemency He had looked down from heaven upon the holy and simple men — the Spirit of God’s grace guiding them — to extend them in lands, in possessions and in monastic religion into greater things, He inspired the minds of the noble men of Bavaria and of the citizens of Regensburg to confer burial-ground, fields and estates on Christ’s poor for the honour of God and St James with much devotion. Among whom the first and chief was a nobleman named Conradus, who with his wife, with much charity and devotion, bestowed many estates for the salvation of their souls and for Christ’s poor. After him, Perinardus and Knollivarus conferred many fields, meadows and pastures on the same place. Moreover a certain generous widow, Luitgardis of Nigravilla, who had gone to Jerusalem, gave for the brethren’s provisions thirty ploughlands of choice soil, a stone-quarry of her own in the villa called Indeldorf, with woods and meadows and all appurtenances — which the said abbey still holds. Then the countess Landehacha, who after her husband’s death lived many years in widowhood in the monastic habit, gave with her own hands, through the mediator Count Gerhardus, according to the custom of the place, all her allod and hereditary property to the monastery, where also she is buried with her mother Bertha.

But lest he should seem to change the place rashly or without counsel, or to transfer the abbacy from its first institution — for the church of St Peter had been given to Marianus, as was said — Donatus remained the first abbot of the new place; yet all things were ordered by the will and ordination of the abbot of St James, and a convention was made between them that the monks should be subject to one and the same abbot.

Chapter Four. Of the monastery of St James of the Scots founded at Regensburg; and of Macarius at Würzburg and the monastery of St Giles at Nuremberg. #

So the monastery of St James was established by divine ordinance in the western part of the city of Regensburg, with the licence of the Lord Pope Calixtus and of the Emperor Henry the Younger; and the brethren, buying an area outside the walls of the city of Regensburg for thirty talents of Regensburg money from Count Frederick of Frankenhausen, through the hand of the mediator Otto the prefect of Regensburg, laid the foundation of the monastery in the name of the holy Trinity, the Lord working with them.

And a certain brother of that place, an industrious man and most learned in transacting affairs, Mauritius by name, went with only a boy for companion through the wildernesses of the world — the Holy Spirit guiding him with grace — and came to the King of Russia; and he received from the princes of that most opulent city furs of sable and ermine worth a hundred marks, and carrying them on waggons came safely to Regensburg; from which price the buildings of the cloister and the roof of the monastery were made.

After Abbot Donatus had gone the way of all flesh, a generous man, shining with the light of wisdom, Christianus by name, succeeded as abbot. The same Abbot Christianus, with the praise and licence of the bishop of Regensburg, seeking Pope Innocent, made over the cloister of St James of the Scots with all its appurtenances to the tutelage and defence of the same, and also to the patronage of the Roman curia; by which Pope Innocent the same Christianus was reverently consecrated abbot. And furthermore, that this might remain unshaken and unchangeable for ever, the same Pope Innocent, most clement father of the poor, commended the aforementioned cloister’s care and protection and also its advocacy to the Emperor Henry and his successors — so that without any tribute or any temporal use, the cloister should belong at all times to the Roman curia and the Lord Emperor’s protection.

There was also a certain holy man, Macarius by name, of that congregation, who entering religion had brought his body into God’s servitude: he bound himself about with rough wooden girdles, allowing nothing soft save himself, so that they might inflict deep wounds on his arms and flanks; and — what was harder — he abstained from every drink that cheers the mind, as from poison. From where it befell that on a certain day, when the blessed man Marianus visited the blessed father Embrico, bishop of Würzburg, for some pressing cause, the bishop bade wine be set before them in honour of the guests, and commanded Macarius first to taste the wine. But the holy man Macarius, wishing to preserve the virtue of abstinence, said: “To-day, my Father, I drink not wine.” But Embrico the bishop said: “I command you by holy obedience, and I ask you in reverence for the holy martyr Kilian, that you taste this wine with me.” But what was the holy man Macarius to do — set between Scylla and Charybdis, that is, between the virtue of abstinence and the precept of obedience? Which part should he break, which obey? But by divine inspiration he took the cup and drank a little. Then the same Macarius, offering the same cup, filled with the same wine, to Bishop Embrico, said: “I beseech you, reverend Father, with like charity — though boldly — that you deign to drink again of the same cup.” And when the father bishop drank of the same wine, marvelling a little he called the butler: “What is this,” said he, “which you have presumed to do? For you have presumed to pour out to me and to Abbot Macarius pure water instead of wine, in the name of St Kilian!” But the butler, calling heaven and earth to witness, swore that he had drawn the wine of the whole cellar with his own hand. Then the bishop, marvelling, with his holy hand gave to all in the chamber to taste of the wine; and all found it wine. Then the clergy wondered, then the people ran together, then the princes were moved by the greatness of the deed; then the bishop himself with the great men of the whole city sounded the glorious merits of Macarius in the people’s ears — that the water, offered in obedience to the virtue of abstinence, had been turned again to wine in the bishop’s cup; while the cup which obedience had wrung from abstinence remained wine for the saint. Therefore the bishop of Würzburg ordained that that place should for ever be granted to the uses of the brethren of God and of St Kilian — the people applauding — and the place, full of God, was called thereafter the monks’ ces of St Kilian.

Nor is it to be passed over what happened prodigiously to him after his death. For while the brethren of a certain monastery towards the south were singing matins by night under a shining moon, a fiery tower appeared stretching from earth to heaven, illuminating the city and the whole region like the sun at midday, the whole people watching. The clergy and people of St Giles, seeing the place from which the flame issued, gave much silver to B. Macarius and his brethren — for they affirmed without doubt that that fiery tower was the soul of Macarius; and the citizens, who had known his abstinence and miracles while he lived, figured them to be the presage of greater miracles to come. And fourteen days after, by their account, the soul of the holy man flew from the prison of the flesh to the palace of the eternal Father.

Moreover, a man filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, Gregory by name, of the cloister of Regensburg, was elected most worthily to be abbot of the Scots monastery of St Aegidius — which is at Nuremberg. Who, born of a noble stock, being driven out by his own, so burned with divine zeal that whatever his hand found to do, he gave publicly and privately to the poor. Who after a few years in such study ended his life, and was translated to Christ.

Chapter Five. Of the monastery of St James of the Scots at Würzburg, and of St Giles at Nuremberg. #

A certain madman, bound by his friends, was brought to that same church of St James, that the brethren might pray for him; their prayers being poured out, they set the sick man, chained as he was, upon the tomb of the first abbot; and at once, aided by the merits of the excellent father, he was made whole — whereupon innumerable blackest coals [of affliction] were lifted from him.

These fathers being dead, they elected as abbot a man full of grace and truth, one of the same Regensburg brethren, their prior named Carus — who most prudently and fittingly erected many vineyards and shoots in the same place, for the use of the cloister. Whom, a few years after, King Conrad and Queen Gertrudis of most blessed memory, taking him for their chaplain, richly endowed him and his successors for ever, in hope of the eternal retribution — together with the church of the Scots at Vienna, which had fallen to ruin and was by him restored.

Chapter Six. Of the Scots monasteries at Vienna and at Eichstätt, and how the latter was restored. #

There was also a certain father, Declanus by name, prior of the same congregation — a man most prudent in counsel and gentle, and in transacting affairs most skilled — whom Abbot Christianus, on God’s suggestion, with the brethren’s consent, appointed prior over the monastery of Vienna; where, God’s peace aiding him, he cleansed the place, fallen as it were to ruin, and gathered a choir of religious men, to the great admiration of all. And after this the same Declanus was elected abbot in the same place, which he ruled with the greatest prudence.

Whether I could compass the whole in a brief work without generating the weariness of tedium in the ears of the auditors, I know not; yet this among the rest I judge most worthy of admiration: that so far from their country, with the help only of God’s name — not by the aid of any king, duke of Bavaria, or prefect of the city, nor the largess of any other man — the holy and simple pilgrims from the bounds of Ireland provided and prudently built monasteries to the honour of God and St James; and all things prospered with them by God’s help — not by the world’s favour but by the name of God. Therefore also, that the brethren might have a sure reward, the aforementioned abbots gave to the monastery of St Peter five ploughlands of certain ground, and ordained in the convention that whenever any brother of St Peter or of St James should come to them as a pilgrim, such honour should be shown him as to a lord abbot — so that the same reward might be required of all the brethren, who had left the sweet soil of their native Ireland — a soil, I say, free of every kind of serpent and of all noxious worms, of mountains and hills and valleys and forests fit for hunting, of most pleasant streams of rivers and green lands and rivers from pure springs — as sons of Abraham, through the paternal inheritance which I shall show they preferred: what shall their prize be? In the house of the eternal God for ever and ever, dwelling with angels and archangels, they shall set their mansions; they shall go from virtue to virtue; they shall see in Sion the God of gods — to whom be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Nor indeed, O brethren, should it be hid that God, foreseeing and providing from of old, joined in these men two graces — that in these times, after the example of the most blessed pilgrims, the Scots’ monasteries might be set in these places: both in Bavaria and towards the east and the west — that in them all the brethren, far from their country, might pray for the welfare of the city, for peace, for the state of the Empire and of the prelates, and for all who live therein.

The Eulogy of Bl. Murcheratus the Recluse #

The natal day of B. Murcheratus is celebrated on another day — yet because the same city and the same monastery are common to him with B. Marianus, we join him here. His eulogy runs thus:

“Murcherodachus, an Irishman by birth, going out of his own land, came to Regensburg in Bavaria; and there, near the aforementioned convent of virgins — the Superior Minster — dwelling as an inclusus in a narrow cell, he so shone before God and men with abstinences and prayers and the utmost severity of life, even to a great age and his last day, that afterwards the place received its fame from him. For he, who came out of Hibernia, was as it were the first stone in the foundations of the Scots’ monastery in Germany — the first of all who came to Regensburg. And after him came Marianus, whom the fame of his virtues drew after him — for the sweet savour of a holy life is not confined within the walls of a cloister.”

So far the ancient writers of the monastery. The name of the saint is variously written: Murcherodachus, Murdilach — “the son of Murdilach, commonly called Derry-Lougran” — Murcheratus, Murcherdachus, and the like; but we now call him Murcheratus, nor do we labour to distinguish by names those who bore one name among the Irish.

Of St Raynaldus, Bishop of Nocera in Umbria — preliminary commentary (overflow) #

[The AASS article on St Raynaldus of Nocera begins here: that his church flourished near the river Tinia; that his feast is kept on 9 February; that Bzovius in the Annals under 1225, and Jacobilli among the Saints of Umbria for 9 February, gave his acts — a religious priest, a true servant and friend of God, at last bishop of Nocera; that his ancient Life exists in manuscripts of the cathedral of Nocera, of the church of St Angelo, and of the Capuchins; that another was published at Perugia by Joannes Baptista Theodorus Nucerinus; that he was born at Nocera of the noble Vici family, imbued from earliest infancy with holy manners, dear to God and men, enriched with the honours of the noble, and by the divine Spirit’s leading devoted himself to the divine service…]