Baring-Gould’s sources: German and Roman Martyrologies. Canonised by Pope John XV. in 993, twenty years after the death of the saint. Authority A life by a contemporary and companion, probably Gerhard, provost of S. Mary at Augsburg. Also mention in various early German historians, as Eckhardt the Younger (972), and Hermann the Contracted (1054). The life attributed to Gerhard is valuable historically, and contains much that is interesting as illustrating the Church history of the time. Another life, by Gebehard, bishop of Augsburg (996-1001) is incomplete and worthless. There is a third, equally worthless life, by Berao, monk of Prum, afterwards abbot of Augsburg (1008-1048). A rhythmical life, founded on that of Berno, was composed in the nth cent, by a certain Albert. Another life by Ludolph, B. of Augsburg (987-997).] Ulric or Udalric, was the son of Ubald, count of Kyburg, and Ditperga, daughter of Burkhardt, duke of Swabia. He was bom in 893, and was educated in the monastery of S. Gall. As a boy he formed an acquaintance with S. Wiborada, a recluse living in a ceil adjoining the church of S. Gall The old woman became much attached to the boy, and gave him her belt to wear, as a reminder to him to observe holy chastity. Whenever evil thoughts arose in his mind, she bade him exclaim, “ O God make speed to save me 1” and should this fail to distract his attention, she advised him to touch a candle or hot ash, so as to produce momentary pain. At the age of fourteen, he went home, and was confided by his parents to the care of Adalbert, bishop of Augsburg, who made him the and shortly after gave him a canonry. In 909, at the age July 40 S. Ulric.
…of sixteen, he went to Rome, and was well received by the pope, 1 who, if we may believe his contemporary biographer, wished at once to ordain him to the bishopric of Augsburg, then vacant by the death of Adalbert, but S. Ulric was too diffident to accept the offer. In 923, Hiltwin, who had succeeded Adalbert, died; thereupon the count of Kyburg, the duke of Swabia, and other powerful relations of Ulric, asked the emperor to give the bishopric to him. Henry I. consented, and Ulric was consecrated bishop on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, 923, when he was thirty years old. The cathedral and the city walls were in ruins, and Ulric’s first care was to restore them. Only the crypt of the cathedral was in a condition to be used, and there a certain visionary named Rembert saw him on Maundy Thursday consecrating the holy oils, with the ghostly forms of two of his predecessors standing by, and assisting in the function. When this was noised abroad, the lively imagination of others led them to see in the gloomy crypt at early mass the hazy forms of spectral bishops standing about their saintly successor. His biographer has much to say of his charity, his frugality, his piety. Ulric said three masses at least a day; in Holy Week he kept no table, but was served with only bread and beer in his bedroom;* and he only bathed in Lent [the forty days of fasting before Easter] on the Saturday before Ash-Wednesday, at Mid-Lent and on Easter Eve.
Henry I. died in 936, and was succeeded by his son Otho I. His son, Ludolf^ rebelled against the emperor in 951, and was joined by Amulf, son of the late duke of 1 Sergiu* III., but the biographer, Gerhard, call* him Marinus. Marinus was not pope till 949. Thi* is probably an error of forgetfulness in the writer, into which he was not unlikely to fall at a period when popes rose and fell in succes* sion with bewildering rapidity.
cerrisia se recreare caepit. Gerhard t Vit. S. Udalrici. i f8 Bavaria. S. Ulric remained firm in his allegiance to the emperor, and Arnulf entered Augsburg, demolished the fortifications, and pillaged the churches. He besieged the bishop in the castle of Mechinen, but was attached and routed by the troops of the emperor.
The bishop issued from his confinement, and passing between the camps, endeavoured, not unsuccessfully, to reconcile the emperor with his son; and peace was again established. Arnulf had fallen under the walls of Ratisbon [Regensburg in Bavaria]; but a powerful party in Bavaria, headed by his brother Werner, were induced by their hatred of Henry, duke of Bavaria, the close ally of the emperor, to have recourse to the Hungarians, whom they invited into the country. Confident of success on account of their enormous numerical strength, the arrogant barbarians boasted that their horses should drain every river in Germany. Augsburg, whose supposed treasures attracted their cupidity, was besieged by them. The bishop had rebuilt the walls, and had called to his aid his brother Dietbold, his nephew Reginbold, and Burkhardt of Swabia, who had married Liutgard, his sister. The defence was entrusted to the duke. The barbarians were encamped on the Lech outside the city walls. Their chiefs drove them into the trenches with long whips. One, named Lehel, bore an enormous horn, whose note was the signal for the attack. At the first onslaught, the Hungarian chief was killed, and his followers fell back in confusion. The weavers of Augsburg made a sally, and gained possession of the shield of the Hungarian king, which has ever since been borne by their guild. Otho assembled the arrier-ban of the empire, the Bohemians joined their forces with his, and fell on the Hungarian horde under the walls of Augsburg. It was the ioth August, 955. The sun poured with intense heat upon the plain. The bishop sent forth by night all his £ Ulric.
retainers to join the emperor, and retired into the cathedral with the women to pray for success. 1 The Hungarians rapidly crossed the river, fell upon the rear of the German army, and were pressing hard upon the Swabians, when the fortune of the day was turned by Conrad of Franconia and Lothringia, the husband of Liutgard, daughter of the emperor. Otho struggled, sword in hand, in the thickest of the fight A vast number of the enemy were drowned in attempting to escape across the river. Conrad was mortally wounded in the neck by an arrow aimed at him by one of the fugitives, when in the act of raising his helmet in order to breathe more freely. The brother of the bishop, and his nephew, the son of the gallant Burkhardt of Swabia, were among the slain. A hundred thousand Hungarians are said to have fallen in this great battle. Two of their princes, Lehel and Bulcs, were, by the emperor's command, hanged on the gates of Augsburg.
Few of the Hungarians escaped to their country, almost all the fugitives being slain or hunted down like wild beasts by the Bavarian peasants.
After the battle, Bishop Ulric went over the field in • A story which originated in the x$th century, of which not a trace it to be found earlier, is to this effect. The bishop went forth at the head of his troops, and an angel oat of heaven brought him a cross of honour to wear on his breast, and animate him to the contest. The cross is shown at Augsburg, and the story is told, and believed there, to this day. The contemporary historian does not say he went forth, but only that he sent his brother and nephew with his troops. '< he Bollandists [Jesuit scholars who since the 1600s have critically studied the lives of the saints] say on this "Ad Auc tores factum illud asserentes, quod attinet; fallor multum si non assertionem suam superstruxerunt soli populari opinion! seu tradition!, de cujns origine, antiquitate, propagationeque nihil prorsus certi ecitur.
"Nimis enim saepc experientia magistra docuit, populates illas traditiones ruinoso fundamento nixas, leviuscuKs opinionibus continuatas, rerum novarum, pnesertim mirabilium, cupida credulitate propagatas, pro sincera veritate inanes fabeilarum fumos dedisse; quas si dissipare velit gnarus rerum indagator, vix est at possit, nisi pro vera indignatione, hominum presertim mdoctornm, odium ferat, vd certe indignationem."
search of the bodies of his brother and nephew, and having found them, buried them solemnly in Augsburg. He now set to work repairing the damages wrought by the war. The church of S. Afra was in ruins, he rebuilt it, and was by a vision informed where the body of the Saint lay. In this church he made a tomb for himself in a sort of crypt, and therein daily said mass. Order being restored, he made a pilgrimage to Rome (a.d. 958), where he obtained the skull of S. Abundius, and brought it back with him to Augsburg. Either on this occasion, or on a former, he halted at Agaunum, the modem S. Maurice in the Valais, and obtained bones of S. Maurice and some of his legion. But, being hospitably entertained afterwards on his way to Augsburg by the abbot of Reichenau, he divided the bones with him. Several so-called miracles are related of his life about this time. One day the bishop had to cross the river Werten on horseback (caballicare) with his chaplain Herewig, and a company of retainers. The latter took the river in different places, mistrusting the usual ford, but Ulric and his chaplain rode through the water at the ford they were accustomed to. It was winter, and the bishop wore thick worsted stockings (soccis de sago factis indutus), drawn over his legs. Herewig reached the further bank first, and was splashed with water to his waist To his surprise, on examining the bishop's stockings, they were not wet On another occasion he was boating on the Danube, when a great raft came against the bows, and stove them in. With great difficulty the boat was brought to a shallow, and all in it escaped through the water to shore, when suddenly it occurred to the chaplain that they had forgotten to secure the safety of their bishop, whom they had left in the stern, and who was too old and infirm to escape unaided. Some of them at once waded back, S. Ulric.
lifted him out of the boat, and carried him ashore, and no sooner was he in safety than the boat foundered. In 967, the old prelate undertook another journey into Italy, to see the emperor and the pope. John XIII. received him with cordiality at Rome; and on his way home, Ulric visited Ravenna, where the emperor and empress then were. When Otho heard that S. Ulric had arrived, he ran out of his bed-room with one shoe on, to greet him, and the empress Adelhaid showed almost equal eagerness to see him. The bishop seized the opportunity to implore the emperor to give the see of Augsburg [a bishop’s “see” is his diocese, named from his seat (Latin sedes)] after his death to Adalbert, his nephew, 1 abbot of Ottobeuren, which he held “in commendam.” The emperor gladly assented, and on his return to Augsburg he made all his knights and retainers swear fidelity to Adalbert, and then he invested his nephew with pastoral staff and mitre and all the episcopal insignia.
But this step of Ulric caused general dissatisfaction among the clergy of Bavaria, and a synod was convened at Ingelheim (a.d. 972) to consult on this matter. At the first session, Adalbert, with rash presumption, entered the conclave fully attired as a bishop, and holding the pastoral staff. The archbishop of Mainz and his suffragans refused to receive him, and indignantly charging him with violation of the canons, compelled him to withdraw. At the second session Ulric was present, attended by a, few chaplains. His conduct was brought under consideration, and he was required to defend himself! From age and loss of teeth he was unable to speak so as to be heard by all, and therefore he summoned Gebhardt, provost of S. Mary's at Augsburg, to speak for him. Gebhardt accordingly informed the council that Ulric was advanced in years, and wished to retire from the duties and labours 1 Son of Liutgarde, hit titter, and Burkhardt, duke of Swabia. of his office into a Benedictine [monks following the Rule of St. Benedict] monastery, and then throwing himself at the feet of the emperor and the archbishop of Mainz, implored them to hear the petition of his master. This was no answer to the charge of violation of the canons. The council felt it was not Many of the bishops, says Gebhardt in his life of his master, were only angry at the appointment of Adalbert, because they had hopes of obtaining the see of Augsburg for themselves after the death of S. Ulric. But there was felt a delicacy in the matter. The bishop of Augsburg was aged eighty-two, and was esteemed by all for his sanctity. The council was unwilling to pronounce a public censure against him, and a middle course was adopted. It was decided that Adalbert should be called in to swear upon the four gospels, that he had accepted the episcopal office without knowledge that he was acting in contravention to ecclesiastical rule, and in the event of his re: using, he was to be forbidden the exercise of his episcopal office anywhere and at any time. He took the required oath, and then S. Ulric, still bent on carrying out his scheme, again supplicated permission to retire into a monastery, and place his nephew in his room.
Some of the wiser prelates then drew S. Ulric out of the council hall, and talking with him in private, explained to him the inadmissability of this proceeding, and the danger of the precedent he was desirous of setting up. The old man’s eyes were opened, and filled with self-reproach and shame, he retired. Adalbert died the following year after having been bled, and S. Ulric regarded this as a judgment on what had been attempted. He died a month or two later, of advanced old age. His death was painless and peaceful. According to his request, he was buried in the church of S. Afra, where his crypt and monument remain, and are visited daily by the faithfuL It lies on the S. Procopius.
right hand of the east end of the nave. The church has been entirely re-built in late German Gothic, since his days, and little or nothing of the original structure remains. Nearly the whole of the body of S. Ulric is preserved in the church of SS. Ulric and Afra at Augsburg, together with his episcopal vestments, some of his hair, the handkerchief which covered his head as he lay dying; his comb, a silver chalice which had been buried with him, out of which pregnant women are allowed to drink to give them easy child-birth; also a wooden cup, his pastoral cross, the late legend concerning which has been mentioned. The cross is applied for the healing of persons bitten by mad dogs. The earth in which S. Ulric was laid is popularly believed to drive mice away, and is carried off for that purpose.
S. Ulric is represented with an angel bringing him a cross, or with a mad dog at his side.
