September 21 sees the commemoration of an Irish hermit and martyr, Landelin, or Landelinus in Latin. Roísín Ní Mheara describes what is known of his life and of how his memory has been kept alive for over a millenium in the area of Europe in which he flourished:

In Murbach we are in reach of the famous Alsatian wine route bordering the Rhine. There one should look out for Rouffach, a small town where, on the gentle slope of its vineyards large letters proclaim: CLOS ST LANDELIN.

The choicest of Alsatian wines are produced here in Rouffach, and stopping to savour them we honour both saint and proprietor who is proud to greet a guest from Landelin’s homeland. Studying his wine-card we read in French: ‘Saint Landelin, an Irish prince, came to preach the Gospel. Around the year 640 he suffered the death of martyrdom. In the eighth century the bishop of Strasbourg donated to the ‘Monks of Landelin’ stocks cultivated on the best wine-growing slopes of Alsace, since titled ‘Saint Landelin’s Vineyard’.

Landolin the Martyr and his cult

A leap over the Rgine back into the Ortenau (Breisgau) will take the curious to the haunts of this Landelin (Landolino; in the oldest form Lendlin). It is a way taken since time immemorial by the inhabitants of Rufach (Rouffach) and other Alsatian parishes to Ettenheimmunster. There they take part in a long procession, headed with a silver bust reliquary carried on a bier, and an old Landelinus-Litanei is sung while they trace the grounds of the abbatial domain, long since disappeared. Riders also make the round, carrying a banner and a relic of the saint, and their horses are blessed on the green beside the holy well. The beautiful and imposing church of St. Landelin adjoins the well’s sanctuary. Built in 1688  and enlarged again in the eighteenth century to serve the never abating concourse of visitors, it superseded former pilgrim churches built on the spot where the saint was martyred. The new altar, erected by the abbot of Ettenheimmunster, carried an inscription in golden letters – S Landelinus Scotiae Regis Filius, followed by a Latin hymn of praise with an explicative second verse that runs:

Quinque fontes semper manant
Landelini meritis
Aegros, caecos, claudos sanant
Sors magna est inclytis

Five sources always flowing
are Landelin’s merit
healing the sick, blind and lame
famed among nobility.

Today the high altar of St. Landelin’s has an oil painting of the ‘glorification’ of its patron, while a side-altar shows him in a wooden statue as a young man. Only in the baroque period did this youthful image appear; older ones portray Landelin as a mature, bearded man, often crowned in princely robes. On the ceiling his legend is told in seventeen frescoes, the first two of which, starting to the right of the west entrance show the saint’s departure from Ireland.

It seems that the cult of St. Landelin set in straight after his death at the hands of a local huntsman, infuriated by the conduct of his hounds, which refused to chase deer in the vicinity but became meek and docile when nearing the hermit’s cell. The huntsman had the backing of his pagan lord, Gisico, who considered Landelin a sorcerer.

There in the glade, where Landelin lay outstretched in his blood, spring water gushed forth from under the severed head and at each limb’s extremity. The five sources (some legends say there were four) soon formed a basin, to which the natives resorted, and bathing, found healing there for many ills.

Anchorites, settling in the neighbourhood, were gathered together in the early eighth century by the bishop of Strassburg to form a colony and provide for the increasing number of pilgrims to the spot. Out of this the first cella monachorum grew, with time, the impressive resort we find there now.

It was Etto (Eddo), the succeeding bishop of Strassburg in the eighth century, who caused another monastery to be erected a little further up the valley for thirty Benedictines. Etto was deeply impressed by the miracles at the well, over which he had a new sanctuary built. His interest may reflect Irish sympathies for, before becoming bishop of Strassburg, he was abbot of Reichenau, in direct succession to Pirmin.

Etto’s monastery, built in honour of Landelin, was given the name of its founder – Monachium divi Ettonis – and became ‘Ettenheim-Munster’. Incorporating the pilgrim church of St Landelin’s, it cherished the saint’s memory through more than a thousand troubled years.

Nothing remains but a monastery wall of this once great seat of learning, a centre of theology and music, which radiated into the Rhine valley and influenced its spiritual and cultural life for centuries. The percussions caused by the French Revolution and the Secularization of 1803 saw its library scattered, its archives in ashes, its monks finally dispersed and the huge complex razed to the ground after having served as a a factory. This all has left us with a great void, concerning Ettenheimmunster’s early history and also that of its Irish patron saint.

Of the few items salvaged from the abbey after confiscation in 1803 the most precious was the bust reliquary of Landeling, made in 1506 as a recipient for the saint’s skull. It was taken to the pilgrim church of St. Landelin, acting from then on as the parish church, and is kept in the sacristy. It is exposed on special occasions. That it was saved goes to the credit of an undaunted parish priest, pouring condemnation on the heads of those involved in transporting the bust on a cart to the smelting foundry. To eschew the fires of hell they unloaded it, dropping it into a ditch.

The reliquary, a prime work of art of the late Gothic period, portrays the bust of St. Landelin in chased silver. Bejewelled and embossed, it contains the saint’s skull, and has, inserted on the chest, a figuration of the martyrdom, whereby circles around the outstretched limbs and severed head demonstrate the pools of rising water. Scenes from the life of the saint surround the base of the reliquary, and these are especially interesting for they follow early legends that were recorded from oral tradition. Here the true peregrinus confronts us, with satchel and staff. This is what we are told:

Crossing the Rhine, into the wilds of the Alemanni, Landelin makes his first stop at the house of a certain Edulf, where the village of Altdorf now stands, at the foot of the northern Black Forest range. Here he wanders off up the valley of the Undiz to where it is joined by the Luttenbach, a little stream – today Lautenbach – and builds himself a hut in the forest glade. Animals befriend him, especially deer, who brings him food. There fate overtakes him.

Full of misgivings, Edulf’s wife and three daughters set out from Altdorf to search for Landelin, accompanied by a guide. One of the daughters is blind, and when they come across the body of the murdered hermit, she is left behind weeping, while the others go for help. She touches her eyes with fingers stained from Landelin’s blood, and her eyesight is restored. Returning with the intention of bringing their friend’s corpse back and over the Rhine to receive a Christian burial, which could not be afforded on the right side of the river, Edulf’s family are convinced by the miraculous cure of the hermit’s sanctity. They carry his remains down the valley, to a place where, having put the load down for a rest, they find it impossible to raise it again. Even a team of oxen brought there with a cart, cannot move the corpse. This, it is decided, is a sign from heaven that Landelin wished to be buried there, and that they proceed to do. They stick the hermit’s staff into the grave to mark the spot. It sprouts green leaves and eventually grows into a huge oak tree.

The church that was built there, where first anchorites had their hermitage, is the Munchweier parish church of today. There under the mensa of the altar is the tomb with Landelin’s relics. The centre of the cult, however, has always been the site of his martyrdom and the wellhouse with the holy sources.

Since Landelin’s Irish origin is today questioned for no other reason than his name ‘sounds Frankish’, it would be gratifying to find in the genealogies of Ireland a (F)lann, born around 600, who went abroad on a pilgrimage of no return.

 

Roísín Ní Mheara, Early Irish Saints in Europe – Their Sites and their Stories (Seanchas Ard Mhacha, 2001), 123-127.

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September 8 is the feast of yet another Irish saint who flourished in seventh-century Europe, Disibod of Disenberg. Below is an account of the saint and of his hilltop monastery taken from a modern scholar’s work on the places associated with the Irish in Europe:

Disibod/Dodechin – perhaps Dubh dá Chrích?.. Not alone a great monastic ruin on a hilltop in the Palatinate keeps posterity aware of him, but hagiography proffers two separate Lives of the saint, both dating from the twelfth century and hailing from the same place. The first document, the Vita Sancti Disibodi, was written by the famed Hildegard of Bingen who died in 1179, having spent the first part of her life in the nunnery of the Benedictine abbey that superseded Disibod’s foundation. Further at our disposal is a chronicle compiled in the scriptorium of that same monastery, the Annales Sancti Disibodi.

…This ‘Sybil of the Rhine’, as Hildegard was called, may well have been unwittingly influenced by traditions of the irish Church passed down in her monastery, causing her to embark on medical studies that were to bring her lasting fame. A herbarium was part and parcel of every irish monastic settlement, as can be perceived in religious institutes based upon some foregoing ‘hospitale peregrinorum et pauperum’ named in early charters. Charity implied medical care, the existence of a herbarium was a prerequisite.

The monastery of Disibodenberg was certainly no exception. Its ruined many-storied hospice protruding from the hill’s wooded crest dates from the twelfth century period of Hildegard von Bingen. .. Halfway up the ascent to the monastic site the road, flanked with vineyards, passes a farmhouse. This is the Disibodenhof, housing a small museum. Its importance lies in the claim to be the site of Disibod’s original monastery. There he was first interred, fulfilling his wish for a humble burial.

Already during his lifetime recourse to the monastery caused it to overflow and make a transfer necessary. The plateau on the summit of the hill was chosen to accommodate the many converts desiring entrance into the abbot’s religious order. The later translation of Disibod’s remains to the hilltop sanctuary caused a new stream of followers, this time pilgrims to the patriarch’s grave coming to show their respect and pray for indulgences in the abbey church. The precincts became a pivot around which for centuries to come the religious life of the region centred.

Disibod was a man of mature age on his appearance in the Rhine confines of seventh century Merovingian France. Not stated in the Vitae are his previous whereabouts, nor is his itinerary known. The supposition is that he came in the general movement north of prelates from Aquitaine, or the Poitou. Treated with veneration on arrival with a small attendance in Trier, Disibod was granted the site of his choice for a missionary station in the Palatinate. The allotment was made by the Merovingian ruler seated in Trier, who pronounced the forthcoming monastery crown property. The Franks were intent on re-activating not only Trier’s bishopric but also the episcopal seats of the Romans on the west bank of the Rhine. The aim was to form a chain of defence against the barbarians across the water. the Merovingians regarded the conversion of the Teutonic tribes beyond a political necessity. By donating Disibod’s missionary station to the archbishop of Mainz, the position was strengthened. The Irish abbot became, however, a tool of Frankish expansion policy, Mainz, together with Trier, forming the spearhead of the campaign.

There is a thread of tradition implying that Disibod left Ireland in the company of St Kilian having crossed the Rhine at Mainz, Kilian made his way up the river Main only to be murdered with two fellow evangelists in Würzburg in the year 688. This immolation Disibod was spared, wisely keeping as he did to the west bank of the Rhine. He was following a vision, being directed to the site of his destination by an angel. He recognised the predicted height ‘where two streams meet’ in the angle of the rise jutting out between the river arms of Glan and Nahe. Here he stopped to settled for good, reaching the then biblical age of eighty-one.

Disibod was treated with great esteem in hagiography. His clemency, his healing powers and ministry to the poor are documented…

Disibodenberg abbey was badly exposed to Viking and Hungarian incursions of the ninth and tenth centuries. This is known from the reported visit of the archbishop of Mainz to the ravaged site in the year 975. Dismayed at the conditions he found, including the state of the holy founder’s grave, he caused twelve canons to be installed there. Admirers of the Irish engagement in Europe, they did their best to repair the damage and revitalise devotion to Disibod in the hearts of the people.

A hundred years later Benedictine monks took over what was by then a double monastery, to be followed in 1259 by Cistercians with their reforms. This was the abbey’s richest period. A magnificent basilica crowned the hill, in which Disibod’s remains, together with those of his three Irish companions, were exposed to veneration in an ornate marble sarcophagus before the high altar.

Roísín Ní Mheara, Early Irish Saints in Europe – Their Sites and their Stories (Seanchas Ard Mhacha, 2001), 97-101.

Note: A couple of Hildegard’s ‘Songs for Saint Disibod’ can be found on the blog here.

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Saint Fiachra (Fiacre), whose feast day is commemorated on August 30, is one of those Irish saints who made his home in continental Europe, in this case France. As any number of websites will tell you, he is hailed as a patron saint of gardeners and forever linked to the horse-drawn carriages of Paris which bear his name. Roísín Ní Mheara, who has made a special study of the Irish missionaries of Europe, first tracks Fiachra in Brittany and goes on to follow the trail of the saint as he moves towards Paris:

Around the middle of the 7th century, Fiachra puts in an appearance in northern Gaul. In the Paris region of Ile-de-France and in the adjoining Brie district which claims him as its patron saint, we find him again, warmly welcomed by Bishop Faro of Meaux on the river Marne. Faro(n), of Burgundian nobility, was one of those who had received Columban’s personal blessing as a child, and he greatly favoured Irish missionaries. His abbey, Sainte-Croix of Meaux, was stocked with monks from Luxeuil and Irish pilgrims found a welcome there on their way to and from Rome, for Meaux lay on the old Gallo-Roman route that led from the Channel coast eastward….

Faro alloted Fiachra, a hermit by nature and as such not prone to the comforts of a monastic life inside the Gallo-Roman walls of the noble city of Meaux, a place of his own to settle in, on the abey lands of Brieul. This zone lay to the East, its vast forests considered uninhabitable, infested with ‘sorcerers’ and their barbaric adherents. That it is deemed appropriate for Fiachra’s vocation is no invention of his biographers in order to stress the saint’s courage. Centuries later unholy practices such as the ‘Witches’ Sabbath’ are reported in the vicinity.

There in Brieul Fiachra manages to reconcile the impossible – the life of an anchorite with that of a busy prior and missionary. In the clearing he makes for himself he builds a hospice, set apart from his hermitage. This, as well as catering for pilgrims and wayfarers, acts as an asylum for the sick and needy. For their upkeep Fiachra makes the surrounding land arable, creating a huge garden where vegetables, fruit, flowers and medical herbs are grown. And he has, like Columban, his locus deserti, a covert beside a well in a secluded place since called ‘Le bois de France’. Here in the forest of Brieul the modest abbot lives and labours, expiring around the year 670. People of all calling visit his grave in search of posthumous cures.

Briefly sketched, this is the story of Fiachra, a saint of France about whose Irish background nothing is reported, except that he was of gentle birth. To get a better grasp of his personality, which must have been outstanding, we need to climb through mountains of legends.

What does iconography tell us? It gives us a humble figure in monk’s attire holding a book and a spade, often a basket of fruit at his sandaled feet. Fiachra, the patron of horticulturalists, has, however, an implement at his disposal that is more than a simple spade; considered so holy that it had to be buried with its master. In the oldest effigies of the saint it is not a spade at all, but an Irish cambutta he is holding – one with a ‘Tau’ head. Whatever the case, tradition affirms that it was through the power of this instrument that Fiachra consolidated his monastic settlement (one is reminded of angelic traditions concerning the foundations of Armagh). The legend of the foundation of Saint-Fiacre-en-Brie, as the abbey came to be known is as follows:

In Brieul the concourse of pilgrims reaches such dimensions that Fiachra is obliged to make a petition to bishop Faro in Meaux for a supplementary piece of land to cater for them. Faro informs Fiachra that he may take as much land as he is able to dig around in one day. Returning to the forest, Fiachra grasps his spade and starts to mark a line for the required extension by digging a trench. The spade barely touches the ground when beneath it a deep cleft appears. Fiachra proceeds with the round, the chasm advancing with him, trees falling to the right and to the left to carve out the spade’s way. Soon a wide circle is drawn, with a trench to mark the precincts of a new monastery.

This uncanny performance does not go unobserved. A busybody called in tradition ‘La Becnaude’ hastens away to Meaux with the news. She denounces Fiachra as a fearful sorcerer to bishop Faro. Whereupon she returns to Breuil with the bishop’s order to cease all operations immediately. The Becnaude heaps insults on Fiachra, who sinks abjectly down on a forest boulder to await the arrival of Faro. And there, beside the trench the bishop finds him, but lo! the jagged surface of the rock the saint is seated on has melted, out of sympathy, into a consolatory chair! Tendered proof is a rounded, indented stone, placed beside the tomb that once held Saint Fiachra’s remains in the village church where his abbey once stood. Inhabitants of that village are also aware of the site of the famous trench in the forest, earthworks being visible for a long time.

Overwhelmed by such signs of Fiachra’s divine calling, Faro promises every assistance. It is also ordained that, since it was a woman who villified the poor hermit, men alone should be allowed to cross the border trench. The Becnaude receives her due personally, for while Fiachra’s stone turned smooth and soft as wax, her own countenance takes on the quality of a scarred, jagged rock.

A prohibition for women to set foot within the precincts of the abbey of Saint-Fiacre in Brieul existed down to its dissolution in 1760. We also note that a far stricter monastic rule was observed there, distinguishing it from the seventeen other abbeys subordinate to Sainte-Croix in Meaux which later became ‘Saint-Faron’ by name.

Up to the ninith century Fiachra’s cult was limited to the locality, but by the thirteenth century it had become widely acclaimed and the legend glorified in many liturgical hymns. .. His [St. Fiachra’s] relics were removed to the cathedral of Meaux for safety during the sixteenth century Calvinist disturbances…

Twice an English king tried to steal the relics. Henry V was prevented from doing so by his fiery steed refusing to jump the trench. Edward the Black Prince got away with them as far as Normandy, it is said, where having deposited them overnight in a church, he found them next morning glued to the altar!

Roísín Ní Mheara, Early Irish Saints in Europe – Their Sites and their Stories (Seanchas Ard Mhacha, 2001), 44-49.

 

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