(A.D. 861.)
[Authority, an ancient anonymous and perfectly authentic life in
the library of the monastery at Einsiedeln.]
About the year of grace 797, was born Meinrad, Count of Hohenzollern.
He was born in that part of Swabia, then called Sulichgau, which
comprised the valleys of Steinlach and Sturzel, and the towns of
Rottenburg and Sülchen.
Berthold, the father of Meinrad, had married the daughter of the Count
of Sülchen, and lived with his wife in the strong castle of Sülchen on
the Nekar.
Meinrad lived at home till he was ten or eleven years old. At that time
the island of Reichenau possessed a Benedictine monastery of great
reputation. This island is situated in the arm of the lake of Constance,
called the Zeller-see, and very fertile. The monks superintended two
schools in this island, connected with their monastery, one for the boys
who were in training to be monks, the other for the sons of nobles, who
desired to live in the world. At the time that Meinrad entered the
school, his kinsman, Hatto of Sülchen, was abbot.
At this period the great lesson that the monks had to teach the Germans
was, the dignity of labour. The Germans were a turbulent people, loving
war, harrying their neighbour's lands, hunting and fighting, despising
heartily the work of tilling the land, and tending cattle. The monks
began to labour with their hands, and by degrees they broke through the
prejudices of the time, and converted the Germans into an agricultural
people. In 818, when Meinrad was aged 21, the first vines were planted
in Reichenau, to become, to this day, the principal source of revenue to
those to whom it belongs. The position of Reichenau, on the main road to
Italy, gave it a special importance. Many foreign bishops, who, halting
there on their journeys, had carried away with them a pleasant memory of
that quiet isle in the blue lake, returned to it to spend their last
years in peace. Thus the Bishop Egino retired to Reichenau, and built
there, in 799, the church of Our Lady, at the western extremity of the
island, which still exists. At the time of the consecration of this
church, Meinrad was in the monastery school; this was in 816. Seven
hundred monks, a hundred novices, and four hundred scholars assisted at
the ceremony, and sang the grand psalms and _Coelestis urbs_ with
wondrous effect.
The time came for Meinrad to leave school and decide on his career. The
voice of his heart called him to the service of God, and he prepared for
Holy Orders. In 821 he was ordained deacon, and shortly afterwards
priest. He was fond of study; but the book that most charmed his
imagination was the account of the Fathers of the Desert, by Cassian.
The forms of these venerable hermits in their caves seemed to appear to
him and beckon him on. The voice which had called him to the priesthood
said to him, "Friend, go up higher," and he took vows as a monk in the
abbey of Reichenau, to his great-uncle Erlebald, now superior, on the
resignation of Hatto in 822. He was then aged twenty-five.
At the upper extremity of the Lake of Zürich was the little cloister of
Bollingen, dependant on that of Reichenau. It contained a prior and
twelve brethren, who had established themselves in this wild
neighbourhood, lost, as it were, among the mountains, to become the
teachers of a neighbourhood buried in darkness. They established a
school for the gentry and also for the serfs, in which they taught the
boys what was suitable for their different stations in life. Being in
want of a master for this school, they sent to the abbot of Reichenau
for one. His choice fell on Meinrad, who was at once despatched to the
humble priory, situated on the confines of civilization, to which the
mountains and dense forests seemed to say, "Thus far and no further
shalt thou go."
In his new situation, Meinrad drew upon himself general esteem and
affection. His prudence in the direction of souls, his learning, and his
modesty, endeared him to all.
Nevertheless, from the moment of his entering into the priory, Meinrad
had felt a yearning in his heart for a life more secluded, in which he
could pray and meditate without distraction. About two leagues off,
beyond the lake, rose Mount Etzel, covered with dense forest. Often from
the window of his cell did his eyes rest, with an invincible longing, on
the blue mountain. The desire became, at length, so uncontrollable, that
he resolved to visit the Etzel, and seek among its rocks for some place
where he might pass his days in repose. One day, accordingly, he took
with him one of his pupils, and, entering a boat, rowed to the foot of
the desired mount. A few hours after he was at the summit, and his heart
beat with a sweet joy at the sight of a place to which his yearning soul
had long turned. Behind him was a pathless forest of pines, inhabited by
wolves, but he feared them not. He descended the hill by the side of
Rapperschwyl, and arrived at the village, called afterwards Altendorf.
He rested at the house of a pious widow, who received him hospitably. To
her Meinrad confided his design, and asked her to minister to his
necessities on the Etzel, should he retire thither. She readily promised
to do so. Having thanked her, he returned full of joy to Bollingen. He
asked the prior to give him his benediction and permission to accomplish
his project. He, with regret, permitted him to respond to the call of
grace, and Meinrad at once tore himself from his companions and pupils,
and crossed the lake to the beloved mountain. This was in June, 828,
when Meinrad was aged thirty-one. He took nothing with him save his
missal, a book of instructions on the Gospels, the rule of S. Benedict,
and the works of Cassian. Burdened with these volumes, he climbed the
Etzel, and stood on a commanding point. At his feet and before him lay
the blue lake of Zürich, its waters sleeping in sunshine; behind him was
the gloomy horror of the forest. Beyond, the Alpine peaks wreathed in
glaciers, glittering in the light, and around him a solemn silence,
broken only by the distant scream of a magpie, or the creaking of the
pines in the breeze.
The first care of the new solitary was to provide himself with shelter
against rain and storm. He collected broken boughs, and interlaced them
between four pines that served as corner posts to his hovel, and roofed
it in with fern. This was his first house; but shortly after, the widow,
having heard that he had retired to the Etzel, built him a hut of pine
logs, and a little chapel, in which he might offer the Holy Sacrifice.
She attended to all his necessities, as she had promised, and Meinrad
was now at the summit of happiness.
Strange must have been those first evenings and nights in loneliness.
There is a sense of mystery which oppresses the spirit when alone among
the fragrant trees, that stand stiff and entranced, awaiting the coming
on of night. To persons unaccustomed to the woods, few moments of
greater solemnity could occur than those following the set of sun. A
shadow falls over the forest, and in the deep winding tunnels that
radiate among the grey, moss-hung trunks, the blackness of night
condenses apace.
Mysterious noises are heard; the rustling of large birds settling
themselves for the night, the click of falling cones, the cry of the
wild cat, or the howl of the wolf. The gold light, that all day has
flickered through the boughs and diapered the spine strewn soil, has
wholly disappeared, save that for a moment it lies a flake of fire on
the distant snowy peak. Patches of ash-grey sky, seen through the
interstices of the branches, diffuse no light. Perhaps an evening breeze
whispers secrets among the pine-tops and pipes between the trunks, or
hums an indistinct tune, pervading the whole air, among the green
needle-like leaves of the firs. And then, when night has settled in, the
moon shoots its fantastic silver among the moving branches, and draws
weird pictures over the brambles and uneven soil. Branches snap with a
report like a pistol, and voices of unseen birds and beasts sound
ghost-like among the dark aisles of the labyrinth of firs.
It is well to picture these surroundings, when we call up before us the
figures of the old hermits. Their trials were not only of hunger, and
thirst, and cold; there was the trial of nerve as well.
In the forest cell, Meinrad disciplined his body by rigorous fasts, and
his soul by constant prayer. By degrees, his cabin became a resort of
pilgrims, who arrived seeking ease to their troubled consciences, or
illumination to their dark understandings. Always united to God, always
penetrated with the sense of His presence, he strove to know the will of
God, and to submit his own will wholly to that.
Seven years passed, and the number of those who visited him increased
every day. Then, finding his solitude no more a solitude, he resolved to
leave the Etzel, and bury himself in some nook far from the habitations
of men.
Behind the Etzel extended a vast forest untrodden by man, whose savage
and gloomy loneliness attracted Meinrad. Whilst he was musing on his
projected flight, some of his old pupils at Bollingen came, as was their
wont occasionally, to visit their former master. Meinrad descended the
mountain with them to the point where the river Sihl, after numerous
windings in the forest, flows gently through an agreeable valley, and
empties itself into the lake. The pines on its banks were reflected in
the glassy water, and in its crystal depths could be seen multitudes of
trout. The young monks desiring to have a day's fishing, Meinrad crossed
the river, and entered the forest. He walked on silent and meditating,
looking around him, in hopes of discovering some place suitable for the
purpose that occupied his mind. After a walk of an hour and a half, in
a southerly direction, he reached the foot of a range of hills which
formed a semi-circle as far as the Alb. In this basin, enclosed within
the arms of the mountain, wound a little stream over a bed of moss, from
a spring beneath the roots of two large pines. To the south lay the
valley of the Alb, blocked by the rugged snow-topped crags of the
Mythen. This was just such a solitude as Meinrad had desired. He fell on
his knees, and thanked God for having brought him to so pleasant a spot,
and drinking for the first time from the fountain, he returned to his
companions, who, having caught a bag full of fish, went back with him to
his hermitage, and as evening fell, returned to Bollingen.
Meinrad now prepared to leave the Etzel. He went to Altendorf to thank
the widow who had provided for him, and then he departed, taking with
him one monk of Bollingen and a peasant, to carry such things as would
be necessary in the wilderness. As they descended the hill towards the
river, the brother saw a nest of ravens on a branch; he climbed the
tree, and taking the nest, brought it along with the two young birds it
contained to Meinrad, who kept them, to be the companions of his
solitude.
A few paces above the spring, where there was a gentle rise, he decided
should be the site of his habitation, and there accordingly he erected a
simple hut of logs. Providence did not desert him. The abbess Hedwig,
head of a small community of women at Zürich, undertook to minister to
his necessities, in place of the widow of Altendorf; and from time to
time she sent him food, and such things as be needed.
He was now left in complete solitude, and often the temptation came upon
him, as he lay shivering with cold in the winter nights, and the snow
drifted about his cabin, to give up this sort of life, and return to the
community at Bollingen or Reichenau. But he resisted these thoughts, as
temptations of the evil one, with redoubled prayer and fasting. In this
place he spent several years in perfect retirement, till a carpenter of
Wollerau, coming there one day in quest of some wood, discovered his
cell. After that, he was visited by hunters, and then, by degrees, a
current of pilgrims flowed towards his abode, as had been the case on
the Etzel. What added to this was the present of a statue of the Blessed
Virgin and Child, made to Meinrad by Hildegard, daughter of Louis the
German, who had been appointed by her father abbess of Zürich, in 853.
This image speedily acquired the credit of being miraculous, and thus
began that incessant pilgrimage which has continued for over a thousand
years to the venerated shrine where it is preserved.
Meinrad had spent twenty-five years in solitude; and his love for this
mortified and retired life had grown stronger in his heart as he grew
older. He was glad when winter, the frost, and the snow came to block
the paths, and diminish the concourse of pilgrims; yet in spite of the
rigour of the climate at that season, and the want of roads through the
forest, he still saw many visitors, who came to confide to him their
troubles, as children to a father, and to ask counsel of his prudence.
There were also days in which he was alone, and, shut up in his log-hut,
heard only the hissing of the wind among the trees, and the howling of
the wolves, pressed by hunger in the forest; all was sad around the
hermitage, the flowers, the grass, the little spring slept under the
snow, spread like a white pall over dead nature. The two ravens, perched
on a branch of pine which overhung the cabin door, uttered their
plaintive croak. Meinrad alone was happy. He celebrated the Divine
Mysteries, and holding in his hands the eternal Victim, offered himself,
in conjunction with the sacrifice of Calvary; desiring earnestly that he
might be found worthy to die the death of a martyr. His prayer was
heard.
During the last years of Meinrad's life, pilgrims laid presents at the
door of Meinrad, and before the image of Mary. Those that served to
adorn the chapel he kept, the rest he gave away to the poor. Two men,
one from the Grisons, named Peter, the other a Swabian, named Richard,
suspecting that he had a store of money collected from the pilgrims,
resolved on robbing him. They met in a tavern at Endigen, where now
stands Rapperschwyl, where they spent the night. Next day, January 21st,
861, long before daybreak, they took the road to the Etzel and entered
the forest. For a while they lost their way, for the paths were covered
with snow. However, at length they discovered the hermitage. The ravens
screamed at their approach, and fluttered with every token of alarm
about the hut, so that, as the murderers afterwards confessed, they were
somewhat startled at the evident tokens of alarm in the birds. The
assassins reached the chapel door. S. Meinrad had said his morning
prayers, and had celebrated mass. The murderers watched him through a
crack in the door, and when he had concluded the sacrifice, and had
turned from the altar, they knocked. Meinrad opened, and received them
cheerfully. "My friends," said he; "had you arrived a little earlier,
you might have assisted at the sacrifice. Enter and pray God and His
Saints to bless you; then come with me and I will give you such
refreshments as my poor cell affords." So saying he left them in the
chapel, and went to prepare food in his own hut.
The murderers rushed after him, and he turned and said, smiling, "I know
your intention. When I am dead, place one of these tapers at my head,
and the other at my feet, and escape as quickly as you can, so as not to
be overtaken."
He gave to one his cloak and to the other his tunic; and they beat him
about the head with their sticks, till he fell dead at their feet. Then
they threw his body on the bed of dried leaves whereon he was wont to
sleep, and cast a rush mat over it. They then searched the hut for
money, but found none. Before leaving, they remembered the request of
Meinrad, and placed one of the tapers at his head, the other they took
to the chapel, to light it at the ever-burning lamp. When they returned,
to their astonishment, they saw that the candle at the head of the body
was alight. Filled with a vague fear, they set down the other candle and
took to flight. But the two faithful ravens pursued them, screaming
harshly, and dashing against the heads of the murderers with their beaks
and claws, as though desirous of avenging their master's death.
Frightened more and more, and continually pursued and exposed to the
attack of the enraged birds, the murderers ran towards Wollerau, where
they met the carpenter who had discovered the retreat of Meinrad. This
man, recognizing the tame ravens of the hermit, and suspecting mischief,
hastily bade his brother not allow the two men to escape out of his
sight, and then ran to the hermitage, where he found the body of the
Saint. The candle at his feet had set fire to the mat, but the flame had
expired as soon as it had reached the corpse. The carpenter at once
returned to Wollerau, where he spread the news of the murder, and having
bade his wife and some friends take care of the body of S. Meinrad, he
went in pursuit of the assassins on the Zürich road. He soon overtook
them. The ravens were fluttering with shrill screams at the windows of a
house. He entered and denounced the murderers. They were taken, and
delivered over to justice. By their confession all the circumstances of
the martyrdom were made known.
Relics, at Einsiedeln, where, in 1861, the thousandth anniversary of
the Saint's death was celebrated with great pomp.