OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE

Category: Irish saints in Europe

  • Saint Fingen of Metz, February 5

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Canon O’Hanlon has an account of a most interesting 10th-century saint who laboured in continental Europe, Fingen of Metz. He shares his February 5 feast day with an earlier saint, Fingin, son of Odhran, of whom nothing else seems to be known, but it appears to O’Hanlon that the existence of the earlier Fingin’s commemoration on this day was the reason why the 17th-century hagiologist, Colgan, assigned the 5th of February to his later namesake of Metz as well. Saint Fingen is commemorated in one of the Metz calendars at 5th October, which is most likely the true date of his natalis. At the end of the piece Canon O’Hanlon introduces yet another Finghin, this one an Abbot of Roscrea who reposed in 1005, and suggests that he may have been our saint of Metz but I am not convinced. Fingin of Metz had an illustrious career in Europe as a founder and reformer of monasteries, and seems to have enjoyed secular patronage at the highest levels. He has left an epistle to a nun, the Latin text of which has been published, but Orthodox readers will also be interested to read of the celebration of the Greek Liturgy in the 10th century by the Bishop of Toul in which Irishmen were also involved.

    St Finghin, Son of Odhran Feabhla, or, of Metz, in France.
    [Probably in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries.]

    In distant countries, as well as at home, the names of many renowned Irishmen are honoured for their merit and virtue. Colgan has some notices of a holy man, called Fingen, inserted in his great work, at the 5th of February. A saint bearing this name, is mentioned, also, by our native compilers of martyrologies. He is entered, in the Martyrology of Tallagh, at the 5th of February, under the title of Febla, Fingin mic Odhrain. There must be some transposition of proper names, in this record; unless, indeed, an entry in a later Calendar be incorrect. Thus, we read, Finghin, son of Odhrán Feabhla, is set down in the Martyrology of Donegal, as having a festival on this day. The account given of St. Fingen is very imperfect, as we find it in Colgan’s work. The Bollandists have omitted this saint, placing him, however, among the Praetermissi et in alios dies relati, for the 5th of February.

    They observe, likewise, that Colgan had not a sufficient reason for giving him the title of beatus, since he had found him called only virtuosus. The chief cause, why Colgan placed his St. Fingen, at the 5th of February, was, for the reason, that the name of a Fingen, the Virtuous, son of Odran Fedhla, happens to occur at this day, in some Irish Calendars. The holy person, thus commemorated, in our fasti, was a very celebrated Irish abbot, who is said to have left Ireland, and to have gone to the kingdom of Lothaire. He is called Fingen, and he must have been born, sometime in the tenth century. It is said he succeeded St. Cadroe, as abbot of St. Felix, otherwise known as St. Clement, at Metz, in or about the year 976. Mabillon, who treats concerning him in his history, did not scruple to consider this Fingen as a great saint, and he often speaks of the abbot, at Metz, as a most religious man. Yet, this Fingen, in all probability, was different from the saint, who is recorded, at the present date, in our native Calendars.Nor did Colgan state, that they were the same, although both were, no doubt, Irishmen. At least, the Fingen, celebrated in connexion with Metz, is regarded as a Scottus, by race, and derived by birth from Hibernia. We are informed, there was a pretty full account of him, in an ancient Life of Thierri I., Bishop of Metz, which unfortunately has not been recovered, if the biography be extant. Besides other mistakes, concerning Fingen and his Irish monks, admitted by Fleury, he calls them Ecossois thus misleading his readers, as to their nationality.

    The old abbey of St. Symphorian had been rebuilt, by Adalbero II., Bishop of Metz, who had a great esteem for Fingen. Over it, this holy man was placed, in the year 991; and, with the assistance of the Empress Dowager Adelhaide, a protectress of Fingen, and of the Irish Benedictines, and grandmother to Otho III., as yet only king, Adalbero obtained from the sovereign a confirmation of the rights and possessions of this establishment. Conditions were imposed, that the Irishman Fingen, its first abbot, and his successors, should not have any other than Irish monks, so long as these could be found, but, in case they could not, the admittance of monks belonging to any other nation was allowed; and, that prayers should be constantly offered there for the king’s soul, for those of his parents, for the existing bishop and for his successors. This deed was signed by the king, at Frankfort, on the 25th of January, A.D. 992, in the ninth year of his reign, and in the 5th Indiction. There is a short epistle of Fingen, still extant, in the library of St. Remigius of Rheims, to Fastradis a nun, concerning a monk, named Guilier. This was found by Mabillon, who seems to have published the letter in its entirety. Fingen was sent to re-establish the monastery of St. Peter and St. Vitonus, now St. Vannes, at Verdun not long after he had been set over St. Symphorian.

    At Verdun, he fixed some Irish monks. Seven of these were there, under his direction, when the celebrated Richard, dean of the diocese of Rheims, and Frederic, who had been Count of Verdun, applied to him in 1001, for permission to become members of this house. It is stated, that they first went to consult St. Odilo, at Clugni, for direction, and he advised them to become monks under the holy Abbot Fingen. The anonymous author of a Life of Richard pretends, that on his and Frederic’s first going to Fingen’s monastery of St. Vannes, they did not find there a very regular observance of religious rule. However, this story, about the defect of regular observance, is rejected altogether by Mabillon, who shows, that Fingen was a very holy man, and that he could not be deficient in enforcing regularity, in the monastery over which he presided. It seems probable, Richard’s and Frederick’s reason for having consulted Odilo was, that on their first going to Verdun, they found another monastery there, lately founded by Bishop Wigfrid, which seemed to them more convenient, although the monastic observance was not as regular, as in Fingen’s, at St. Vannes. This latter was small and deficient in buildings. As they were persons of high rank in the world, Fingen at first was loth to receive them. He was afraid, that they could not put up with the poverty and strict discipline of the monastery. At length, however, he complied with their request.

    The saying of Fleury, that Odilon sent Richard and Frederick back to St. Vannes, under the persuasion, that they would reform the establishment, is quite a mistake; for, they could not be expected to do so, while they remained only simple monks. The Irish abbot instructed and trained his disciples so well, that they became two of the greatest and most useful men of their times. Richard especially was very much distinguished. St. Fingen, three years after he had received Richard, died in the year 1004, and was succeeded by his holy disciple.

    It is singular, that in the Irish annals, the death of a Finghin, or Finguine, called Abbot of Roscrea, is marked, at A.D. 1005. This date comes so near that of the death of our St. Fingen, that it might fairly be suspected they were one and the same person. The day of St. Fingen’s death was probably the 8th of October, at which he is praised in the Necrologium of St. Clement of Metz, as abbot, having been buried in its church. To finish this account of Irish ecclesiastics, who were distinguished in foreign countries, during the tenth century, which is supposed to have been a dark age, we shall add a curious circumstance related, regarding St. Gerard, Bishop of Toul. This prelate, in 986, gave a retreat, in his diocese, to several Greeks, who, mixed with Irishmen, performed the Church Service, in their own language. They all officiated, according to the Greek rite. Hence, we see, that the Irish ecclesiastics still continued to cultivate Greek literature, and, at a time, likewise, when learning had not been in the most flourishing state on the Continent.

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  • Saint Colman of Stockerau, October 13

    October 13 is the feastday of an Irish saint who met a particularly sad fate in early eleventh-century Austria. Below is a paper from the Irish Ecclesiastical Record by Father J.F. Hogan on the life of Saint Colman (Coloman) in which he describes the circumstances which led this Irishman to be adopted as a patron of the Austrian people. I particularly enjoyed the description of the saint by the Viennese chronicler who said ‘God sent us from Ireland, which is situated at the extreme end of the world a saint who was to be the intercessor and advocate of our whole nation, and who would teach us by his example to despise all earthly things, and seek only those which lead to heaven.’ The idea of Ireland as being at the extreme end of the world is a concept to which Saint Patrick himself would have related. Finally, let’s also spare a thought for Saint Gothalmus, the faithful servant of Saint Colman, who shared both his master’s journey and his fate. May they continue to intercede for Austria and its people and for this island ‘at the extreme end of the world’.

     
    ST. COLMAN, PATRON OF LOWER AUSTRIA
     
    The story of St. Colman is very different from that of most other Irish saints whose names are still venerated in distant countries. He was not an apostle in any ordinary sense of the word. He was not sent nor did he go to preach the Gospel, nor to convert the heathen. He may, indeed, have had in his mind some ultimate aim of the kind, but it had not yet matured nor assumed definite shape when he was overtaken by the fate of the martyr. Neither was it his immediate intention to settle in any of the monasteries founded by his countrymen in the centre of Europe, nor to devote himself to teaching, nor to study, nor to the pious exercises of religious life. It is, we believe, more than probable that he would in due course have become a monk, a teacher, and a preacher ; but his most pressing purpose at the time of his death was to wend his way to the Holy Land, to visit Nazareth, Bethlehem, Caphernaum, Jerusalem ; to follow the footsteps of the Master through Samaria and Galilee ; to venerate the earth on which He had walked in the flesh, where He was born, where He lived, and where He died ; to meditate on Jordan’s banks and on the Mountain of Beatitudes; to assuage his spiritual thirst at the fountain of Siloe and at Cedron’s holy brook; and, above all, to fill his soul with memories of the Garden of Olives, of the Way of the Cross, and of Mount Calvary.
     
    This was the motive which urged Colman to leave his country, and in obedience to which he one day found himself in a strange land, unknown, unfriended, and unable to make himself understood. It is also remarkable that, notwithstanding that he was an utter stranger to the people who afterwards adopted him as their patron and protector, from the very first he took possession of their hearts, and retained his hold upon them, only with increasing power, through many changing centuries. It is really wonderful how his fame spread from the wood near the little town of Stockerau, where he was tortured and hanged, all over the province of Austria proper, away through Styria, Istria, and Carniola, through Hungary, Bohemia, Bavaria, and Poland. Kings and princes were called by his name at baptism; churches and chapels were dedicated in his honour. Coloman, King of Hungary, the nephew of St. Ladislas, and one of the immediate successors of St. Stephen the Great, promoted the fame of his holy patron wherever his influence extended. Rudolph IV. of Hapsburg was equally devoted to his memory. This most peaceful and mildest of saints had always a great attraction for soldiers. One of them, a brave Austrian knight, who served under the Emperor Ferdinand III., lies buried near the tomb of his patron, in the great Benedictine Abbey of Molck, on the banks of the Danube; and on the marble sarcophagus erected over his grave appears the inscription:
     
    HEUS VIATOR!
    HUC OCULOS, HUC MENTEM MODICUM REFER.
    EX VEXILLO FIDELITATEM, EX LEONE VIGILANTIAM PENSA.
    FIDELIS FUI
    DEO, CAESARI, AMICIS
    USQUE AD ARAS.
    VIGILAVI DONEC OBDORMIREM IN MORTE.
    ET QUOD SOMNUS ESSET SUAVIOR,
    HANC UMBRAM QUAESIVI
    TUTELARIS MEI SANCTI COLOMANNI.
     
    St. Colman’s Irish nationality is universally and gratefully recognised in Austria. The standard work on The Life and Miracles of the saint is that of Father Gotfreid Deppisch, which was published in Vienna, by the University Press, in 1743. This learned writer was a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of Moelck, on the Danube, and his work on St. Colman is dedicated to the illustrious Adrian, abbot of the monastery, and “Rector Magnificus” of the University of Vienna. He took great pains to find out all that was known about the honoured patron of his country. He came specially from Vienna to the Franciscan Convent of St. Antony of Padua, at Louvain, in order to consult the Annals of the Four Masters, the works of Ussher, Stanihurst, and Ware, but especially some manuscript materials that had been left by Father John Colgan and Father Hugh Ward concerning the origin and descent of St. Colman. He was hospitably received by Father Antony McCarthy, then guardian of the convent, who made all the researches the learned Benedictine required, and submitted them to him. The result could not be more satisfactory. The author takes much trouble to place St. Colman’s Irish origin beyond all doubt; and he devotes several pages to refute the Scotch pretension that the saint was a son of King Malcolm III. and of St. Margaret of Scotland.
     
    ” We must now [he writes] bring forward proofs that cannot be contradicted to show that the native land of our glorious patron is no other than the kingdom of Ireland, and that he was born and bred an Irishman. The oldest and the strongest is to be found in that ancient chronicle of the Austrian Margraves of Babenberg, which a learned priest, named Aloldus of Bechlarn, composed in the year 1063, and which the illustrious Father Jerome Hanthaler, annalist of the Monastery of Lilienfeld, accidentally discovered, about three years ago, in the library of Maria-Zell, in Austria, to the great honour and profit of historical studies in our country. The next is that of Thomas Ebendorfer von Haselbach, a canon of the Cathedral of Vienna, teacher of Holy Scriptures, and celebrated Austrian historian, who lived in the time of the Emperors Albert and Frederick III. This learned author, amongst other valuable works, has left us a long and beautiful eulogium of St. Colman, in which he tells us that ‘God sent us from Ireland, which is situated at the extreme end of the world, a saint who was to be the intercessor and advocate of our whole nation, and who would teach us by his example to despise all earthly things, and seek only those which lead to heaven.’
     
    The author further quotes several passages from chronicles and annals kept in different parts of Germany, many of which are to be found collected by Father Jerome Fez, the famous librarian of Moelck, and editor of two of the most valuable collections of historical documents ever published in Europe. It would, indeed, be a mere waste of time and space to dwell further on a matter which is universally admitted.
     
    St. Colman seems to have belonged to some distinguished family in Ireland, and was, possibly, as Ward suggested, son of Malachy, high king of Ireland, who lived towards the end of the tenth century. The only reference made to St. Colman in any of the older Irish books is that found in the Calendar of Donegal, in which we read: ” Colman ailithir in Austria mac Maoilscheachluinn mor mac Dohmnuill.” “Colman the pilgrim in Austria, son of Maolsechlainn Mor, son of Dohmnall.” He was accompanied by a servant, Gothalmus, on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem ; and is usually spoken of as having made great worldly sacrifices in order to devote himself entirely to the service of God. The pilgrim’s road to Jerusalem, in these days, lay through Austria, Hungary, and Turkey ; and as it happened the throne of the Holy Roman Empire was then occupied by the pious Henry II. and his saintly queen, Cunigunde. St. Stephen was king of Hungary, and the province of Austria was governed by the wise and prudent Margrave, Henry of Bahenberg. Great political troubles disturbed all these countries at the time we write about ; for the Austrians were beginning to assume that supremacy over their neighbours which they vindicated under several chiefs of the young Bahenberg dynasty, and have maintained to the present day under the time-honoured aegis of the Hapsburgs.
     
    When St. Colman arrived in the midst of their province, in the year 1014, it was overrun by soldiers from Hungary, Bohemia, and Poland. The minds of the people were greatly excited ; and when they found a stranger amongst them, ignorant of their language, and hurrying on from one village to another, they came to the conclusion that he was a foreign spy, seeking information and an opportunity to betray them to their enemies. It was in vain that the poor pilgrim protested his innocence, kissed his crucifix, and pointed towards the east. What was regarded by them as hypocrisy only enraged them the more. A cruel and infuriated mob laid hold of him in the village of Stockerau, and led him out to a neighbouring wood, where they bound him hand and foot, and hung him from a gibbet, erected specially for the purpose. Nor were they satisfied with the cruel death which they decreed to the servant of God. They had recourse to other refinements of barbarism, which even at this distance are enough to make one shudder. They scourged him with whips before his execution ; they applied burning irons to his body while he was struggling for life ; and they tore and lacerated his flesh till he had scarcely the human shape. The author of the hymn which was sung in his honour in the Middle Ages accurately describes the nature of his torture :
     
    “Scilices, ignita ova,
    Flagra tibi, vulnera
    Imprimebant, nec non nova
    Tormentorum genera.
    Carnes tuas vellicabant
    Forcipe ferrarrii ;
    Ossa tua lacerabant
    Serra carpentarii.”
     
    When the evil work was done, its authors hurried off to some kindred task, and so little thought did they bestow on the poor victim they left hanging in the wood that their crime seems to have passed without any special notice ; for it was only a few years afterwards that some of the inhabitants of Stockerau were startled at the sight which they beheld at the spot where the saint had suffered. There was the gibbet still ; but fresh leaves had grown from the dry wood, and flowers that gave forth a fragrant perfume had blossomed from the beam. There was still the body of the saint hanging in the air : but it was whole and uncorrupted.
     
    ” Mire fragrans, indestructus
    Permanens biennio.”
     
    The birds of the air had respected the temple of so pure a soul. The hair and beard had grown down over the pilgrim’s frock, and a smile of heavenly peace and forgiveness seemed to light up the countenance of the victim. The people were struck with amazement when they witnessed the spectacle. They began to fear that the vengeance of God would overtake them and punish them for the crime that was perpetrated in their midst. The clergy were at once informed of the prodigy, and the remains of the saint were reverently taken away and placed in the church of Stockerau, where wonderful miracles testified to the sanctity of the murdered pilgrim.
     
    An account of all these strange occurrences soon reached the ears of Henry, Margrave of Austria, who was greatly struck by all he heard, and proceeded to make a careful investigation into the whole history. When he was satisfied of the undoubtedly genuine nature of all the events narrated, he called together the bishops and clergy of the country, and had the body of St. Colman transferred to the important town of Moelck, where he himself resided. There, in the Church of the Benedictine Abbey, it remains to this day, surrounded by the veneration and love of a whole country. A short time after the remains of the saint were transferred to Moelck, the King of Hungary took possession of them, and carried them away for awhile, but they were duly recovered by the people of Austria. Poppo, Bishop of Treves, arranged the first transfer; but Providence evidently destined the saint to be the patron and protector of Austria. A rich mausoleum in Corinthian style is erected over the shrine of the saint. “Justus ut palma florebit ” is written near its summit, and “Sepulchrum Sancti Colomanni Martyris,” indicates the contents of the shrine. Here pilgrimages still come from all parts of Austria, and the glories of the saint are heard in the strong German tongue.
     
    Churches were dedicated to him at Stockerau, Moelck, Laab, Aggstein, Vienna, Abenthull, Eysgarn, Aichabrunn, St. Veit, Steyer, Lebenan, Berlach, and many other places. A stone that was marked with the blood of the saint was brought by Rudolf IV. to Vienna, where it may still be seen in one of the walls of the Cathedral of St. Stephan. This same illustrious duke had an elaborate cross manufactured, in which he had large relics of St. Colman encased, and surrounded by the relics of other saints. This precious memorial of princely faith is still to be seen in the treasury of Moelck, with an inscription bearing testimony to the motives and object of the donor.
     
    The learned Johannes Stabius, biographer of the Emperor Maximilian I., wrote an elegant poem in praise of the saint, commencing with the lines:
     
    “Austriae Sanctus canitur patronus,
    Fulgidum sidus radians ab alto,
    Scoticae gentis Colomanus acer
    Regia proles.”
     
    It is curious, that although St. Colman could not be said to have been put to death in odium fidei, yet, on account of the violent character of his execution, he is generally regarded as a martyr. Not only do all the early writers of Austria itself, but also the learned Baronius, and several Popes speak of him as a martyr. His, however, is not the only case in which custom has sanctioned a title which technically belongs by right only to those who give their lives for Christ as witnesses to the truth.
     
    Several Popes conferred rich indulgences on all who would visit with the proper dispositions, the shrine of the great national patron. Those granted by Innocent IV., Honorius IV., Boniface VIII., Clement VI., Boniface IX., Benedict XIV., and by a great number of bishops, archbishops, and the Patriarch of Constantinople, are enumerated by Father Deppisch, in the admirable work on St. Colman, to which we have already made frequent allusion. It is but right to add that Gothalmus, the faithful companion and servant of Colman, who shared with his master the hardships of the journey and his cruel death, shares likewise in his glory; for he, too, is honoured as a saint, and his memory is faithfully cherished, and can never be dissociated from that of his master. Father Deppisch gives a full description of the solemnities that were celebrated in his time at Moelck and in other Austrian churches, in honour of St. Colman. We understand that they have lost nothing of their impressiveness and popularity in later times, and that they are always attended by some representative of the royal Hapsburgs, who regard St. Colman as one of the most faithful protectors of their own interests, and of those of their people.
     
    J. F. HOGAN.
     
    THE IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD Volume 15, AUGUST, 1894, 673-682.

    Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2015. All rights reserved.

     

  • Saint Landelin of Alsace, September 21

     

    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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