Baring-Gould’s sources: German Martyrologies. Venerated in Swabia. Authority: — “ Vita S. Iddae comitissae Tockenburgi et confiratemitas; accessit origo monaster. Fischiugensis, ex idiomate germanico in latinum traducta, Constants, 1685.”] Ida or Idda, Countess of Toggenburg, was the daughter of Count Hartmann of Kirchberg in Swabia. As a child she was brought up by her pious parents in the fear of God and care for the poor. They had founded the Benedictine monastery of Wiblingen, and were generally respected in their county as the patrons of religion, merciful rulers, and lovers of peace. Ida found her chief delight in relieving the necessities of the poor and sick, and when Count Henry Idda of Toggenburg.
…of Toggenburg was on his way home in 1197 from a tournament in Cologne, and passed near, he heard of the beauty and virtues of the young countess. He had not seen her, but when he heard the way in which she was spoken of, the love that attached to her, the admiration which surrounded her, he felt in his heart that he could not desire a better or more suitable wife. He therefore rode at once to Kirchberg, and was hospitably received. The sight of the fair Swabian girl, slender, with pale blue eyes, and light brown hair; so modest, gentle, and yet so earnest in doing good, won his love completely. He allowed only a few days to elapse before he declared his passion. The parents consented to the union, and she, no doubt, readily gave her hand and heart to the young and handsome count, already famous for his courage, and lord of an extensive county. But, though her heart was drawn to him, a shadow of approaching sorrow hung over her soul, and she could not escape from the presentiment of coming evil. Perhaps she had already had occasion to mark the violence of the undisciplined spirit of her young husband, the readiness with which he gave way to violent tempests of passion on the smallest provocation, and raged like one of the wild mountain torrents of his native mountain land. She left her father’s castle amid the weeping and good wishes of the poor, and with tears filling her own blue eyes. She rode south beside Count Henry, who showed her the tenderest devotion on their way. The Black Forest was passed, the Lake of Constance burst on their eyes, and beyond, almost lost in vapour, yet gleaming out above the blue haze that hid their bases, the snowy Alps.
The violence of the character of Henry of Toggenburg was to her a source of constant alarm and distress. After one of his outbursts of rage, when cool, he repented and was VOL. xiii. 7 contrite. But though she could forgive him, his passion cast a chill on her heart; she loved, but she dreaded him. With gentleness she bowed before the storm, and pitied her husband the infirmity which he seemed unable to overcome. She went daily to the convent of Fishching, or the chapel of the Mother of God, “in der Au,” there to pray for grace to bear her trouble, and for help for her husband to resist his besetting sin.
Their marriage was not blessed with children, and this filled the count with discontent. It chafed his spirit to think that the rich valley of Toggenburg would pass at his death to a relative, and not to a son of his own. His dissatisfaction found its vent in unjust reproaches heaped on his much-enduring wife. She passed as an angel of light among his servants and subjects, remedying, as far as lay in her power, the wrongs he had done them, or the accidents that had befallen them, winning everywhere their love, as she had before won the love of the poor in her father's home.
There was an Italian in the retinue of the count who was moved by the beauty of Idda to a guilty passion. She noticed his offensive attentions, and avoided meeting him as much as possible. She did not like to speak to her husband, lest he should blaze forth in one of his paroxysms of passion and kill the Italian Dominic.
One day, as Idda was on her way through the wood to the chapel of Our Lady, Dominic rushed out of the bushes, and flinging his arms round her, poured forth the burning words of his lawless passion. She cried for help, and a servant, Cuno, hearing her call, ran up and delivered her from the Italian. To save the man's life, she forbade Cuno to mention the circumstance to his master, and she maintained silence thereon herself. Dominic, instead of feeling grateful for this, sought an opportunity of revenging himself. Not. 30 5. Idda of Toggenburg. 99 That opportunity presented itself in an unexpected manner. After her delivery from Dominic by Cuno, the countess manifested her gratitude to the faithful retainer in many ways. Dominic pointed this out to his master, and insinuated that the countess had conceived an affection for the man-at-arms. Henry of Toggenburg was a ready prey to jealousy, the hint rankled in his breast, but he saw nothing that could satisfy him that there was anything guilty in this regard of his wife for Cuno. The jealousy that brooded made the count more harsh and capricious than usual to his patient wife. She felt it and suffered; but poured forth her sorrows before the compassionate Mother of Sorrows beneath the Cross.
Often she stood at her window and looked in sad dreams over the dark forest towards the north, the direction of her happy home in childhood, and thought of her dearly-loved parents so distant, and so desolate without her. The tears ran down her pale cheeks, and moistened the needlework on which her fingers were engaged. One sunny spring-day, the fancy took her to draw out all her bridal apparel from the chest in which it was preserved, to place it in the sun in her window, and brush it, so as to free it from dust and from moth. At the same time she took the jewelled betrothal ring which Henry had given her, and after sadly contemplating it, she laid it also in the window, intending in the evening to polish it. She was then called away to her household occupations. When she returned some hours later, the ring was gone. A raven had seen the sparkling jewel and had carried it off to its nest. She searched her chamber in vain, and not being able to find the ring, she thought it best to say nothing about its loss, and to replace her bridal dress in its chest as before.
Some days after, Cuno was out in the forest hunting. He met with no success. As he was returning home he saw a raven’s nest in an old pine-tree. He thought he would like to have a young raven to train up in the castle, and to hop about the courtyard and hall with clipped wings. He therefore climbed the tree, reached the nest, and on removing one of the young birds, observed something sparkling among the twigs that composed the nest. To his surprise and delight he found a costly jewelled ring. He put it on his finger, and returned to the castle with the young raven, little aware that he was rushing on his ruin. It was not long before the count noticed the ring on his man’s finger. He looked closer at it, and at once recognized the ring he had given Idda when he betrothed her to himself. Filled with ungovernable fury, and not waiting to listen to an explanation, or wholly disbelieving the story the frightened man stammered forth, he ordered him at once to be attached by the feet to the tail of an unbroken horse, and driven down the rocky path that led from the castle. The trembling servants obeyed their lord, and the horse, plunging away, drew the unfortunate Cuno over rock and stumps of trees till the life was dashed out of him. Henry did not wait to see the sentence carried out to the end; no sooner was the horse let go, than he rushed upstairs to his wife’s room, and seizing her in his arms, cursing her as an adulteress, the dishonour of his house, he flung her from the castle window down the precipitous rock into the ravine at the bottom.
But God protected His servant. Bushes growing out of the clefts in the rock broke her fall, so that when she reached the bottom, though stunned, she was not killed. When she came to her senses, she got up, and after considering what to do, resolved to conceal herself in the depths of the forest-covered mountain land, and spend her days in devotion, nourishing herself on what she could find. S. Idda of Toggenburg.
She wandered away under the pines for a considerable distance, searching for a commodious place of refuge. At last she found a rock which overhung, and which with a little artificial assistance would serve her as a shelter. She set to work adapting the place to her needs, and in collecting roots. During the summer and autumn she laid in a store of edible roots, and wild berries and fruit. She ripped off the bark of the birch, plaited it, and made herself bedding. Winter came on, and the winds howled through the forest. Icicles formed from the eaves of her cave. She suffered extremely from cold, and had to shelter herself under piles of dry moss she had collected. Whether she had succeeded in obtaining fire does not appear. If not, her condition must have been pitiable in the extreme. Thus, neglected and alone, she passed several years, and made a vow to live the rest of her days to God only. And, after all, there was strange charm and peace in this life. No fierce moods of a husband to keep her in constant alarm, no wrongs to be righted, taxing her discretion to the utmost. The wood and alps yielded food, if poor, yet sufficient to sustain life. As her clothes wore out, the birch gave its fibrous bark, which was easily plaited into a coarse but warm covering. And there was a charm ineffable in this life: the spring flowers, the blue gentian on the sunny slope, the pale pink primula in the meadow, the soldanella and butterwort about the spring, the purple clematis that tangled the yellow flowering berberry — they had never seemed so lovely to her before.
In the meantime the count had repented of his act. He hovered in uncertainty of mind between belief in the guilt and the innocence of his countess. Knowing her perfect purity of character, he could not believe her guilty. Having seen the betrothal ring on the finger of Cuno, he could not but doubt her innocence. He wished he had made inquiries before dealing with both with such precipitation. The body of his wife had not been found. He thought some loving hands of the poor whom she had tended had committed it to the ground. He did not venture to inquire closely. He sent word to the Count of Kirchberg that his daughter, having been convicted of adultery, had been executed. The news filled the old people with dismay. They were too remote to institute an inquiry, too inferior in power to take revenge. Henry of Toggenbuig tried to stifle the remorse which gnawed at his heart by engaging in war. Frederick II. was emperor, and there was fighting on all sides. The Count of Toggenburg was ever ready with his sword. His furious charges scattered the foe like chaff before a whirlwind. But nothing could appease the anguish of his heart He was haunted by the thoughts of his loved Idda, the sweet Swabian blue-eyed girl with her long light plaits of hair, and modest blushing cheeks, as he had seen and loved her first at Kirchberg; and then the horror of the thought that he had taken her in his arms, and had dashed her to pieces on the rocks, filled him with a despair which made him old and grey before his time. He sought refuge from his remorse in the repeated assurances of Dominic, whom he retained by him, that the countess was guilty, and that he had but executed on her a judgment merited by her conduct. Yet this was a miserable comfort. Almost better to be assured that she was innocent, and bear himself the burden of crime. Though he had been rough and unjust to her, he had idolized her; and the thought that she whom he had reverenced and loved was false and foul, was a thought he could not endure.
Seventeen years had passed, when one day, as a huntsman of Toggenburg Castle was pursuing game in a remote part of the forest, he discovered the cave, and looking in, saw a pale woman, clothed in old rags and a rough garment of birch-bark. She looked up at his exclamation, and he recognized the countess. He fell at her feet in profound agitation. She raised him and asked after her husband. The huntsman told her of his remorse, of the gloom which had settled over him. Then she bade him go to the count and tell him she was still alive.
No sooner did Henry of Toggenburg hear this than he hastened with the man to the cave where his long-lost wife lived. Who can describe the meeting, the tears of shame and self-reproach, when he heard the story of the loss of his ring, and the innocence of ldda? Readily did she forgive him; but she would not return with him to the castle. No 1 that life was now over for ever. Seventeen years had weaned her wholly from the world. She was unfit to resume the broken thread of a courtly life as countess, and, moreover, she had vowed to God to spend the rest of her days alone. All she asked was a little cell near the chapel of the Mother of God, in the meadow below the castle, where she could once more listen to the church bell, assist at the Holy Sacrifice, and receive the Bread of Life.
He sorrowfully consented. She was given what she asked for, and took possession of it, bringing away with her from the cave only the wooden cross she had made for herself. She spent some years there, tending the flowers in a little garden, but at last was driven from it by the crowds who came to her as to a saint, and she took refuge in the privacy of a cell in the convent of Fisching. There she died, about the year 1226, and there her body rests in the church, once monastic, but now parochial.
It is said that when Dominic heard of the countess having been discovered he destroyed himself, fearing the terrible punishment which would have been inflicted on him by the count.
In art S. Idda is often represented with a stag at her side, from whose horns issue flames of fire, as popular tradition asserts that a stag served her as a candlestick. By this means she was able to read her offices at night 5. Perpetua.
