CatholicaKrusch (ed.), MGH Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum IV (1902) — translated from the Latin, including the editorial preface and apparatus in substance.
Editorial Preface #
The place in the Black Forest — that is, in the Breisgau — watered by two streams, today called St Trudpert, still preserves the memory and name of St Trudpert. When in the late eighth century it had been almost reduced to a wilderness by the disagreements of the heirs — that is, the owners — one of them, a noble of the province named Rambert, restored the ruined site and built a basilica with altars richly decked with gold and of new and fitting material. Then in the upper part of it the body of the patron was taken from the tomb and laid there, the diocesan bishop — namely of Constance — being summoned and an innumerable multitude of the people flocking together, in the second year of King Louis, on the sixth of the Kalends of May — that is, on 26 April in the year 815 after the birth of Christ.
That the building of the basilica and the translation of the body happened “recently, in our times” — long after the saint’s death — is asserted by the author of the Passion, who himself complained that the old miracles had not been committed to memory, and reported the following concerning the origin of the place: Trudpert and Rudpert, brothers born in Ireland, among the innumerable martyrs of the Roman world and the empire of the Franks who had come into Gaul from other parts of the world to renew the ruined Church, first received their commission at the thresholds of Peter in Rome — where they were to exercise the service of God, the one in Bavaria, the other in the place I have mentioned in the Breisgau. Then Trudpert — of whom alone we now treat — when he began to seek in the neighbouring forest a valley as it were assigned to him by God, asked Otpert, the heir — that is, the owner — of it, the great-grandfather of the Rambert mentioned above, to be conducted there; and accompanied by huntsmen he reached the place destined for him. Immediately dismissing his companions, he bade them tell Otpert that he had found a fitting place, from which he would never at any time depart in the days of his life; and Otpert showed him all courtesy and kindness, granting not only the place he had sought but also certain neighbouring estates with all that adjoined them, nor did he withhold servants strong of body and most apt for clearing the forest. And when they bore the hard labour ill, one of them slew the saint as he slept, after he had spent almost three years in the hermitage. The martyr was laid in the oratory built by Otpert, and while he yet lived the coffin was opened in wondrous wise, so that the triumph of the soldier of God might in no wise come into doubt among weak minds.
But weak minds have not been lacking since the days of Godefroy Henschen, for whom that martyr’s triumph did come into doubt; and the learned scholar brought two arguments against the biographer’s authority: namely that the brotherhood of Trudpert and Rudpert was rashly assumed from the similarity of their names, and that both names, being wholly Teutonic, point to a very different homeland than the Irish one he had assigned. And the region assigned at Rome for the exercise of divine service must, as F. W. Rettberg notes, be referred to the pattern of the commission which Boniface had received from the Roman see. The deeds ascribed to Trudpert in the Passion were therefore devised by its author, who committed them to writing as he had imagined them, and had nothing certain or established beyond the building of the basilica and the translation of the body in 815 — as I readily agree with Albert Hauck.
Since the acts of Trudpert exist in two forms, A and B, containing entirely the same matter and differing only in style — which in A is more prolix, in B simpler and purer — greater authority has been ascribed by almost all down to the present day to the latter recension, on account of its very brevity, as the older. Yet if we compare the beginning of text B — the prologue omitted — “Cum innumerabiles martyres Romano orbe Francorumque imperio” with A, the contrary opinion is rather to be held:
A: “duos germanos fore patrum memoria tradit” — B: “duo germani fratres fuisse traduntur” A: “de Roma repedantes” — B: “Romam egressi”
For no one skilled in the letters of that age will deny that the ruder and more antique style occurs in A, while B has undergone a common revision. Moreover the words added in A (ch. 10) to Rambert’s name, “recently, in our times”, are missing in B; and even J. M. Lorey, that most zealous defender of the contrary view, granted that they belong to a writer contemporary with those times. The year of the Incarnation supplied in B, 816, cannot stand, since it agrees rather with the second year of Louis the Pious [815]. F. J. Mone held that this last chapter of the life was added afterwards, and the same scholar suspected everything referring to the ninth century that seems to shake the author’s credibility — namely the words Francorumque imperio, the passages touching the kinship of Trudpert and Rudpert and Otpert’s successors Rambert and the rest. But Ireland as the homeland — which he himself admits also roused suspicion — he judged should be tolerated, since with the brotherhood removed he preserved Rudpert for the Franks. He thus gave students of hagiography a brilliant example of critical scrutiny scarcely to be endured; nor are there wanting today those who, having rooted out the offending passages, dare to ascribe the highest antiquity to what remains. The B recension, for its part, was revised and compressed for the cult, that it might be read in the assembly on the saint’s recurring feast — as may be concluded from the addition “whose heavenly birthday we keep today”. From it depend the lessons divided into three chapters which were admitted into the breviary of the church of Strasbourg (beginning: “Beatissimus martyr Trupertus, cuius hodie natalitia colimus”).
The author pursues the aim common to hagiographers: to establish the rights adhering to the soil of his own monastery. For the whole burden of the Passion — as anyone who has enquired deeply into these letters will agree with me — consists in Otpert the heir’s donation of that valley, by which he delivered “into the service of blessed Trudpert both the site of the monastery and certain estates of his own right adjoining the aforementioned place with all their appurtenances”; and that Otpert truly held the property of the place is expressly declared in recension B. Now that valley is forked, and only the lower part, down which the Neumagen brook flows, belonged to the monastery; in the upper valley of the Brizzina brooks it held nothing but the cure of souls of the coloni dwelling there, canonically granted by the bishops of Constance. The two valleys were distinguished in the manner I have described in the privilege of Lucius II of 1144, whereby the monastery came under the protection of blessed Peter and the apostolic see. The upper valley, together with the advocacy of the monastery, was held by the family of Staufen from among the ministeriales; and the monks had contracted a long quarrel with them for the extortion of these rights. To strengthen their own cause they adulterated charters with such fertility and such art that they very nearly deceived the most learned men down to our own age; and among the fraudulent fabrications of charters attempted in monasteries through the Middle Ages, these are reckoned surely the greatest — which is no small praise. To Otpert therefore and Rambert, possessors of that land, they gave the counts of Habsburg as successors, ascribing to them not only the confirmation of the first donation but a second restoration of the monastery — as though they possessed it by hereditary right — and feigned that the right of property had passed from them into the congregation itself, so that the true advocates were wholly excluded. The benefactors’ grants to the monastery already follow this order in the bull of Pope Lucius held to be genuine: Otpert, Rambert, Liutfrid and their successors. In the forged charters, however, the kinship and merits of each towards the monastery are more fully related. The restorer of the “monastery established in honour of God and of the apostles Peter and Paul and of St Trudbert the martyr, who is there crowned and rests in his most holy body” is celebrated as Count Liutfrid of Habsburg in the privilege purporting to be given in 902 — who venerates Otpert and Rambert as his “ancestors”. Of these same “founders of the monastery of St Trudpert the martyr in the Black Forest of the diocese of Constance”, and of Count Liutfrid himself, Count Albert of Habsburg makes mention in the privilege ascribed to 1186, whereby the former is contained and confirmed. With these and other documents of the monastery of Trudpert some have laboured out the origins of the august imperial house. And the monks seem to have cultivated this connection between themselves and that monastery with the utmost zeal, not without good fruit — handing down its memory to posterity even in a church inscription, to which the Passion of the patron also owed its fame and name. Finally von Weech, the most learned keeper of the Karlsruhe archives where the monastery’s charters are now preserved, uncovered the whole fraud with the highest acumen; and the case being examined afresh, Aloys Schulte confirmed and enlarged his argument and laid bore the end at which it aimed.
It is clear, moreover, that the monks’ hopes were raised above all by the counts of Habsburg after Rudolf was elected king in 1273. If credit is to be given to the charter ascribed to him of 1277, he adjudged the ownership of both valleys to the monastery by formal sentence. Under the same king the patron’s Passion seemed to need revising, that it might suit the monastery’s new august friendships and connections; and the monks now boldly declared that the magnificent and generous lineage of the counts of Habsburg drew its origin from the stock of Otpert, that the advocacy of the monastery also belonged to it, and that this had devolved upon strangers — among whom Otto of Staufen is named. This new edition of the Passion (beginning “Quemadmodum viatoribus positis”) they comprised in two books (C) in 1279 under Abbot Wernher, adding these verses:
If you ask the time when we wrote this, know it thus: To a thousand, twice seven, thrice three, and two hundred, Add years since God came in the flesh. Abbot Wernher then ruled the edifice of the martyrs, God’s true servant — may He grant him a seat in the heavens.
And in the following year, namely 1280 after Christ’s birth, changing them they named the monks Albert and Werner, who had seen to the writing of the book of Trudpert:
In the years one thousand two hundred and eighty, Under the serene father Wernher full of honours, Albert the rector and refresher of the sick, And the good keeper Werner, tiller for these ends, Caused this book to be written, blessed gentle Trudpert, For you — shining far through the climes.
The contents of the first book are drawn from the older acts A, save for the passage concerning “Count Liutfrid, the illustrious count, begotten of the same stock, in no wise degenerating from his ancestors’ devotion” — to whom the renewal of the monastery in honour of SS. Peter, Paul and Trudpert is ascribed; while the other book contains miracles wrought in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, chiefly those illustrating the troubles inflicted on the monastery by the advocates. Of the character of each it is thus related at the end of book I: “Let these things, spoken as best we could of the more ancient deeds committed to writing, suffice; now let our discourse be directed to those things which have not yet receded from the memory of the living — which were done before their eyes or learned by sure report from men lately deceased and worthy of faith”; while the other bears this heading: “Here begin the chapters of the second book, concerning the miracles of St Trudpert the martyr wrought in modern times.” And the whole work ends with this admonition to the monks: “Worship then, you inhabitants of this valley and place, worship and love that which you have — lest you be deprived of so great a patron; but may you deserve to be defended and protected by him before Him whose faithful soldier he was on earth, from whom he deserved to receive the triumphal crown in heaven, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.”
For editing the Passion, which alone I have drawn up in recension A, these resources were at hand:
- Codex Sangallensis no. 577, 10th century, pp. 367–374. 1*) Codex Stuttgartiensis, Bibl. fol. no. 56, written in the 13th century and adorned with most beautiful pictures, formerly of Zwiefalten monastery; it contains on fol. 7–8’ the Passion of Trudpert without preface and ending — so that even the second year of Louis is missing — but enlarged with interpolations which seem to be of St Gall origin; and on fol. 8’ the translation of the saint made in 962, which I have printed below.
- Codex Einsidlensis no. 250, 12th century, pp. 214–224. 3a) Codex Heidelbergensis, Salem IX, 29, 13th century, fol. 167’–170’. 3b) Codex Basileensis A IX, 4, written 1491/2, formerly of the church of St Leonard in Basel the Greater, of the order of regular canons of St Augustine, pp. 78–88.
The very ancient codex 1, with which 1* is closely connected as depending on a very similar exemplar, has certainly great authority — yet with the rest agreeing it is not rarely weakened: e.g. ch. 4 servos] 2, 3a, 3b with B; viros 1, 1*; ch. 6 quo] 2, 3a, 3b; ubi 1, 1*; ch. 10 abnepos] 2, 3a, 3b; ac nepos 1, 1*. Things standing thus, its readings had to be added to the notes. Books 3a and 3b are written out from the same exemplar; it seems to have been copied under Abbot Erchanbald — who, as may be gathered from the verses appended to codex 3a, not only restored the monastery of St Trudpert when it had been consumed by fire, but also “wrote the venerable acts of the saint”; and the poet testifies that the book was corrected by himself — the same who is celebrated in the verses following the Passion in 3b: “Erchanbald”. From where Erchanbald, of whom nothing else is known, was believed the author of Passion A, since he seems to have copied only exemplar 3. Codex 1, transcribed by Kunó Francke, I collated with the remaining books.
It is a pleasure also to enumerate the codices of recensions B and C, which I came upon by chance:
B) Codex Bernensis no. 47, 12th century, fol. 118–119. C) Codex Salisburgensis, archives of St Peter’s monastery IX, 34, formerly I and VII, end of 14th century, fol. 16–42.
This most recent edition C first saw the light in Godefroy Henschen’s Acta Sanctorum, Antwerp 1675, April III, pp. 426–440 — for which the acts, collated with the Blaubeuren codex, were transmitted to Aschaffenburg by Gamars. Besides this book, which belonged to the library of St Trudpert’s monastery, the editor had at hand the Strasbourg church breviary printed in 1478, in which the whole life, divided into three lessons to be recited at matins, was contained. The chapters of book II passed over by Henschen lie unpublished to this day.
Recension A was first unearthed by Bernhard Pez of Melk from the interpolated Zwiefalten codex (our 1*) in his “Letter to the learned P. Marcus Hansiz S.J. and other men in Germany, France and Italy” (Vienna 1731); and ascribing these acts of St Trudpert as the most ancient to “Erganbald, abbot of St Trudpert’s about the year 700”, he seemed to himself to have found the most welcome weapons against the men most zealous who had “written against the tradition received among the Salzburgers concerning the age of St Rupert”. But his adversary P. Marcus Hansiz in his “Reply to the letter of B. Pez on the life of St Trudpert” (Vienna 1731), least of all accepting his arguments, contended that the Passion is of little authority.
Moreover the historians of the Habsburg house also brought labour and zeal to these acts for establishing its origins; and the matter being found rich, Marquard Herrgott in his Diplomatic Genealogy of the August House of Habsburg (Vienna 1737, vol. I, pp. 285–298) offered readers a triple text — the St Gall (1) and Basel (3b) codices being transcribed and the Pez edition placed between them — nor did he omit to add specimens of the handwriting of codices 1 and 1*, which, being hand-drawn, agree ill with the truth.
Then Michael Lorenz, professor ordinarius of eloquence and history and keeper of the Strasbourg library, examining three leaves of an old codex torn from a wrapper, believed he had unearthed the purest and most ancient of all the acts which had seen the light, and published them in the dissertation he entitled: “The Acts of Trudpert the martyr, the most ancient of all that exist, brought forth to illustrate the origins of the Habsburg-Austrian house from a manuscript of the Strasbourg academy library” (Strasbourg 1777) — arranging it so that one page was occupied by the St Gall acts taken from the preceding edition with the variant readings of the Zwiefalten and Basel codices added, while opposite stood the Strasbourg codex, to whose margin the breviary text was added. Reckoning that recension A, somewhat fuller, plainly exhibited nothing new not contained in the other B beyond empty verbal ornaments, he placed his own first on account of its very brevity — and erred to the whole heavens concerning the age of the Strasbourg codex: for its script, as may be understood from the specimen though imperfect and rude, must be ascribed to the 11th/12th century, not the 9th or 10th as he had held.
Following the same opinion of the character of the two recensions, F. J. Mone in his “Collection of Sources for the History of Baden” (Karlsruhe 1848, I, pp. 19–21) edited the “earlier life by an anonymous author” — namely recension B — after the Strasbourg codex which M. Lorenz had used, and at pp. 22–26 the “second life by Erchanbald” — namely text A — after our codices 1, 1*, 2, 3b; for he did not come upon codex 3a until the work was finished (cf. p. 525).
Here Begins the Passion of St Trutbert the Martyr #
1 When the merits of the saints are recalled, the Holy Spirit, the indweller of them all, must be invoked with a pure and vigilant conscience — that He who bestowed on them such manifold instruments of the virtues may deign, Christ being propitious, to breathe a pure and whole understanding into those also who desire to spread their memory with the help of almighty God and to hand it on to posterity. For human frailty — the more prone it is to slip into vices now that the world, so to speak, is declining to its fall — is the more unworthy to understand any mysteries or to recall the merits of the just, unless He lift up the fallen muddy life of the frail and restore through His ineffable loving-kindness the poverty of the wavering senses — He who redeemed sinners and crowned martyrs with His precious blood.
2 Since therefore we read that innumerable martyrs were crowned with their own blood in the Roman world and the empire of the Franks, very many of them are proved to have come from other parts of the world into the Gallic regions — having heard the fame of a new and rude Christianity — to renew the Church of Christ now almost ruined for want of teachers. Of their number, the memory of the fathers hands down that there were two brothers, who, sprung from the island of Ireland, leaving home and country with whole mind according to the Gospel’s command and bearing the cross of Christ in their hearts, followed the example of very many blessed men — such as blessed Gall, who going out from the same lands, leaving kindred and country, came to the hermitage in the territory of the bishopric of Constance and, wearied with many labours, rested in peace for Christ’s name; in whose name a famous church is seen to have been built, enriched with many riches and honours. In like manner the aforementioned two brothers, Trudpert and Rudpert — of whom the one, namely Trudpert by name, is read to have migrated by the palm of martyrdom, as will immediately be told, in the year of the Lord’s incarnation 607, under blessed Boniface the third, the emperor Phocas reigning — departed from the misery of the present life, kindled by various doctrines which threaten eternal torments for momentary delight and promise heavenly joys for the renunciation of temporal things: sons of a certain duke according to worldly nobility, they walked in the way of the heavenly Leader. They flew together to the thresholds of blessed Peter the prince of the apostles, that by the prayers of the supreme key-bearer they might merit to learn in what parts of the world they ought, by His favour, to begin the service of God. And since there is none whose own will has not first faltered who seeks God’s help and the patronage of His saints in vain, the aforementioned brothers returning from Rome had been made certain, as is said, in what places they should exercise the service of God and end the present life — never to die in blessed memory. One of them, Rudpert by name, returning to the parts of Bavaria and keeping the most worthy memory of his name, flourishes to this day, as is said, in the world with most brilliant signs of miracles. But the other, Trudpert by name, passing through the bounds of Italy and following the course of the river Rhine, traversed the greatest part of the province of Alamannia; and in the district of Breisgau he began with great effort to seek a certain valley in a neighbouring forest — a valley as it were assigned to him by God.
3 And when he found the heir of that valley, a certain Otpert of noble rank, the man devoted to God began to entreat him with all his might that for the name of the Lord Jesus he might be able, his men leading him, to visit the valley he had long desired. Who, as a noble man, at once perceiving the will of the man of God inspired by God, bade his huntsmen conduct him without delay to the place he sought. They, fulfilling the command, when they had passed a certain part of the forest, tried to lead him through another valley than the one he sought. But the man of God, inspired, at once perceiving their intent, passing of his own will through the pathless places of the neighbouring mount, came at once, Christ leading, to the place he had desired; and there, near the river Neumagen and beside the bank of another stream running from the same mount, since he found the place delightful, he first began to give himself to sacred prayer.
4 And when he had long knocked at the highest Thunderer with prayers, at last rising from prayer the servant of God began earnestly to ask his guides that, returning to the aforementioned Otpert their lord, they should render fullest thanks for his goodwill and announce to him wholly this from the servant of God: that, almighty God bestowing it, he had found a place fitting for the fulfilment of His service, from which he would never at any time in the days of his life depart. And when the aforementioned huntsmen had announced to their lord in these very words, he, as a fortunate man revolving in his mind the future felicity, giving thanks to almighty God, showed all courtesy and all kindness to the servant of God thereafter. For he himself first went into the hermitage to visit him, and most diligently exploring all his will, could find nothing else in the holy man’s mind save that he sought that place for the cause of God alone — which he had long held marked out for him by God’s assent. And when he had received with a willing mind all the words the servant of God reported, being a man filled with charity, he not only would not go against the will of the servant of God, but favouring his desire in every way, granted with devoted mind not only the place he asked to inhabit, but also delivered into blessed Trudpert’s service certain estates of his own right adjoining the aforementioned place with all their appurtenances; no, moreover he assigned to the servant of God six choice servants, strong of body and most apt for clearing the forest, who should not cease to persist in his service with unfailing perseverance in all things the man of God might need at that time. O blessed and most fortunate mind of a man busy with the deeds of the world, which deserved to leave to his successors so great a patron received in his own seat! O no outweighing of silver and of first and purest gold, where the eminent daily consolations of so great a patron are had — so that both men and women, devout layfolk as well as religious clergy, cease not, pierced with pious tears, to seek his immense and continual intercession with God.
5 And to return to the thread of the aforementioned little narrative: the blessed Trudpert, beginning to cultivate the place just named with pious labours, sparing not his own strength, ceased not to offer the daily task of work to almighty God. And since he exercised so continuous a labour by day and by night both in work and in prayer, the servants committed to him began gradually to refuse to undergo so great labour and to be contrary to him. But the most blessed servant of God, exhorting the thankless men daily not to leave off the accustomed work, constantly appointed for them a midday meal lest they grow weary in the work, while for himself he ever kept only an evening meal — and that a scanty one. And when the man full of God had passed some time in this unwearied fatigue of labour in that hermitage, and the aforementioned servants committed to him, though compelled by fear, were continually exercising the earthly work with him, certain of them did not lay aside the evil will instilled by the devil’s persuasion. For two of them, brothers by birth, saying they would in no wise endure such immense and useless labour with the servant of God, began to plot something for his death; and though their fellow-servants in no wise consented, those two, the ancient serpent persuading, could not abandon the crime begun. And when the blessed Trudpert had now spent almost three years in the hermitage, on a certain day, wearied by the midday labour, when he had given his limbs to sleep lying a little on his right side on his stool, his head resting on his right hand — one of the aforementioned brothers, seizing an axe, struck the sleeping man of God on the temple and, leaving the axe fixed in his brain, fled. But St Trudpert, sleeping his most blessed death in sweetest slumber, crowned with the blood of martyrdom, went to the Lord, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.
6 But these two brothers, who had been the authors and perpetrators of the murder of the innocent and holy man, pricked by their own guilt, tried to make their way through the remote and pathless places of the dense forest and to seek the parts of the Alamanni. But since, as holy Scripture witnesses (Prov. 21:30), there is no wisdom, there is no knowledge, there is no counsel against God — on the second day, when they thought they had found a fitting place of refuge, at that very hour at which they had left the athlete of Christ crowned with martyrdom, with their garments torn and rent, wandering through that same wilderness they came unwillingly to the place where they had perpetrated the crime. And when, going out of the forest, they had been seen by certain persons crying out, the most wretched of men turned back again and tried to seek refuge as before. But on the third day likewise, at the same hour as before bursting out of the wood — many now coming up — they were openly discovered; and turning back at once they did not delay to retrace the path of their error.
7 But to return to our purpose: Otpert, as soon as he learned that the man of God had been slain, began to hasten there with all speed. And when he found him unburied and resting as in sweetest sleep, giving thanks first to God, as was fitting, who had deigned to crown His soldier with such a triumph, it came about that he enquired by diligent investigation of certain persons how the murderers of the holy man had, as we related above, burst unwillingly from the forest now a second time. Perceiving the miracle shown by God, on the fourth day of his martyrdom dawning he set guards in the place where they had before appeared. And they, delaying nothing at the hour of their coming, arrived at the same place as they had done before. And when they were so wasted with hunger and emaciation and the tearing of all their garments that they were captured by the guards without any difficulty, they were at once brought to Otpert. And he, using wise counsel that he might the more securely procure the burial of Christ’s martyr, commanded those men, their hands bound behind them, to be haled to Bobo, the count of that time, that they might be condemned by his judgement. And while they were being dragged there by stout couriers, it befell midway that they came to a certain river-bank. And as one of the culprits’ guards, supporting himself on his spear, was trying to walk carefully upon the post of that bank, the most wicked pursued man suddenly rushing upon the guard’s spear and transfixing himself at once ended his miserable life by a most wretched death. See the like vengeance of a devoted servant and of the most precious Lord! For the most wicked traitor of the Lord, hateful to heaven and earth, deserved to perish by the death of a self-murderer; and the cruel murderer of His servant St Trudpert likewise delayed not to slay himself by the spear’s infixion. He therefore perishing in the manner we have told, when his brother had been brought to the presence of the aforementioned count, he perished without any delay by the fitting penalty of the gallows.
8 But now putting aside these sad things, let us turn our pen to the glad funeral of Christ’s soldier. The holy Trudpert therefore, a stone coffin having been prepared, deserved to receive a praiseworthy burial, with the worthy praises of the priests and the Christian people, in the oratory which Otpert built for the veneration of the holy man — Christ granting it.
9 These things being thus accomplished, my pen holds back from recounting by how many manifest signs of miracles and how many virtues St Trudpert was made illustrious, for want of ability — since the old miracles are not much committed to memory for this reason, that new ones are daily renewed if the faith of those who ask fails not. For after some years’ course, when innumerable signs of miracles were continually seen to be shown at the body of St Trudpert, the saint appeared in a vision to a certain servant of God and showed him that the lower middle part of his body was wet with water. And when he to whom it was shown preferred to publish the vision abroad rather than to conceal it, the priests of the neighbouring district assembled — Otpert still living and present there. And when they were taking counsel what should be done in this matter, by God’s will it suddenly seemed good to all that the coffin should be opened and it be made known to all how the matter stood. Being opened, the body of the holy man was found whole and sound and in every part incorrupt, as if it had been buried that very hour and moment. And it was taken from the tomb to the greater glory of Christ and, in a wondrous and ineffable manner, washed with a bath after the custom of the newly dead and wrapped in purest linen, and is known to have been laid again in the former place with great praises of the priests — which we believe was revealed by the Almighty so that the triumph of His soldier should in no wise come into doubt among weak minds. These things being so done, the devotion of Christians flocking from all sides has not ceased to this day to seek the suffrages of the pious martyr and to frequent his temple, ever entreating his help; for where so many virtues shine forth by the merits of the saints, there the devotion of all will assuredly flock.
10 But when after much time and many courses of years, the realms changing diversely, that same place in which St Trudpert rests had been almost reduced to a wilderness by the disagreement of the heirs — “recently in our times” a certain Rambert by name, the great-grandson of Otpert, pricked by divine admonition, began with full effort to build the ruined, to cultivate the untilled, to restore the destroyed, and to unite what had been torn apart. And when all things, God favouring, fell out for him according to his wish — so that he restored the whole to its former state, although with great intervening labour, and built a basilica with altars richly decked with gold and of new and fitting material — then at last, the bishop to whose diocese that holy place belongs being convoked, and an innumerable concourse of people flocking together, the most sacred little body of Christ’s martyr, the clergy devoutly assembling, was again taken from the tomb and seen again both by the aforementioned bishop and by Rambert and very many others who were judged worthy of such and so great a sight. Wrapped again in a new pall, the deposition of the most pious martyr was celebrated in the upper part of the newly built church with most worthy praise of Christ — in the second year of the reign of Louis, on the sixth of the Kalends of May, at that very season at which he had gone forth crowned with precious blood — our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, who with the eternal Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.
[In codices 3a and 3b these verses follow the Passion:]
These shrines Erchanbald, after the ashes of Trudbert the gentle martyr, Had built up again by renewing — touched with the love of God; Nor did it irk him to write the venerable acts of the saint, But he accomplished it as best he could — To exalt the father and console his worshippers, To prefer him to the place whereby this place is hallowed, Inviting the peoples, a lover of the monks’ worship. Which he wrought with zeal, with strength, with virtue and with art Under the foot of Trudbert — ha! remember me! Scorn not, my monks, so great a patron! O whoever read: this book is the corrected one — The same who set the verses corrected it.
You who send the gifts of our rejoicing, Mary — The pledge and nourishing offspring born of you as mother: Rejoice, O thrice-blessed Ireland, of holy Trudpert! Keep the bone, Alamannia; possess the spirit, you stars. Our mother Alamannia is yours, prudent father: When evil harms, may she free and cover you. Erchanbald, servant to you through all that time, That I may so serve you, the gracious, the pious.
Two. of His Translation #
After these things the venerable bishop of the church of Constance, Conrad by name, rejoicing in the virtues and approved miracles whereby blessed Trudpert was made illustrious, and hoping to have him as an intercessor in heaven by whose merits and prayers he might be brought to the heavenly kingdoms, was pleased to take with him two neighbouring bishops and the devout clergy, wishing to bring his conceived purpose to effect. Setting out on the journey, he came to the monastery of the holy martyr Trudpert, where so great a multitude of men had flocked that the sick were crushed by the whole. By whom he was devoutly translated in the year of the Lord’s incarnation 962 — in that same year in which Otto, the glorious king, received from the supreme pontiff John XII, all applauding him, the name of emperor and augustus. And he was translated into that place in which he rests even until now; and there the lame received their walking, the blind their sight, the deaf their hearing, the paralytics their cure, the lepers their cleansing, all men seeing — our Lord Jesus Christ granting it.