It is a remarkable fact that in the
history of the development of the human mind the great spiritual movements
did not always proceed from the most famous and the most powerful nations
or cities, the so-called centres of intelligence, but, similar to the
mighty rivers of the world, had their sources in localities small, hidden
and unknown. Eisleben and Haddington were joined to Nazareth, Marbach to
Stratford, Ecclefechan to Königsberg.
This being true, it need not excite
our astonishment when we observe how the ecclesiastical and religious life
of the Vth, VIth and VIIth Centuries in Europe, from Iceland to Italy,
from Paris to the Alps, was fanned by an almost unknown country, filled by
half-savages—Ireland. Not only was ecclesiastical art in the North of
Ireland at a very early time in a remarkably flourishing condition, but
the spirit of Christianity itself; combined with the fiery and venturesome
spirit of the Celts, had
produced a number of Christian men, who in zealous enthusiasm sailed
across the sea, and with wallet and staff traversed France, Germany,
Switzerland and Italy. Thus St Catald, the Patron Saint of Tarentum, left
the seminary of Lismore; his brother Donat (Donncadh) becoming Bishop of
Lupice in Naples. St Columbanus (615) founded the monasteries of Luxeuil
in France and Bobbio in the Appennines. The Irish monk Gallus gave his
name not only to a town but to a whole canton of Switzerland, while St
Kilian (ab. 689) is inseparably connected with Wurzburg, Marianus with
Ratisbon.
There can hardly be any
doubt that the oldest of the so-called Scottish Monasteries on the
Continent owe their origin to the Irish "Scoti." At the same time, we must
not forget the fact that these "Scoti" soon crossed the narrow water that
divided their country from what we to-day call Scotland, but was then
named Albania, and settled in the Highlands and the county of Argyle, with
the far-famed lona as their centre. In the course of centuries they became
amalgamated with the Picts and formed the great nation which gave their
name to the country, while the Scoti of Ireland, a small remnant excepted,
soon succumbed. There may have been, therefore, Scotch as well as Irish
among the "Scoti," who in later years entered the Scotch Monasteries in
Germany. In tradition and popular history, however, these foundations were
never separated from the inhabitants of Scotland proper, and when quarrels
arose among the new arrivals and were referred to arbitration, the
decision of the superior courts was always given in favour of the
Scottish.
During the XIVth and XVth
Centuries, however, these monasteries were entirely filled with Irishmen,
and their gradual decay is chiefly attributed to this cause. Obedient and
gentle at first, they became proud and overbearing, enriching themselves
with the property of others. Their buildings and their morals showed an
equal decline in spite of the Councils of the Church at Basle and
Constance. In the Scottish Monastery of Nurnberg in 1418 they sold wine;
mitre and staff of the abbot were pawned; the library contained only two
volumes and no vestments. If a husband was looking for his wife, the
common reply was: Go and find her "apud Scotos." Nor was the state of
matters better in Vienna. Here the buildings of the monastery were in a
ruinous condition, bells and chalices in pawn. Both these foundations were
therefore transferred to the German monks. Ratisbon alone and its
Monastery of St James of the Scottish Benedictines outlasted the storms of
the Reformation and the mismanagement of Irish Abbots, and it was only in
1862 that the Bavarian Government bought it from the Scottish for the low
price of £10,000, to convert the building into a clerical seminary. There
had been only Scottish Abbots at Ratisbon from the year 1515 onward.
After these general remarks
we must now follow the history of this monastery, the head and mother of
so many other religious houses, a little closer.
About 1067 Marianus Scotus,
along with some other monks, came from Ireland to Bamberg in Bavaria,
where be became a Benedictine. On his later pilgrimage to Rome he passed
through Ratisbon, where he was prevailed upon by his countryman the monk
and "inclusus" Mercherdach to make a short stay. When he was about to
continue his journey with his companions, his friend advised him first to
seek a revelation from God by prayer and fasting. In the last night, the
legend continues, Marianus received the divine command to set out very
early on the next day, and to remain where he should first see the light
of the sun. In obedience to this vision he took up his staff long before
daybreak, and walking along he came to a very old church, built in honour
of St Peter. Here he entered to say his prayers. Scarcely had he risen to
go on his way comforted when the first rays of the sun shone across his
path. Marianus then settled permanently in Ratisbon, to the great joy of
the city, in which the Benedictines were then in great favour, on account
of their strict obedience to religious duties and their love of learning.
The pious Abbess of Obermunster handed over to him the church and a plot
of ground, and thus arose, aided by rich contributions in money from other
quarters, the first monastery of the Scottish Benedictines in Germany, the
so-called Priory of Weih St Peter (1075). In the course of time the
settlement increased, and already in
1090 the larger Monastery of St James was
founded and taken under his special protection by the Emperor Henry V.
Another letter of protection, dated March 26, 1112, endowed it with the
estate of Monespach and freed it from all imposts and services. Nor were
the popes behindhand. Calixtus (1120) and Eugen III (1148) issued bulls in
favour of the new establishment, according to which the monastery was
immediately subject to the Holy See only. In the year 1152
Abbot Christian set out for Scotland (‘ad
nostrum regem’) to King David I in order to collect further sums for the
building of a new church and the enlargement of the abbey, which was
afterwards rebuilt "lapidibus quadris ac politis." With rich presents and
accompanied by several monks he returned in 1153, and it was not long
before the very beautiful church of St James, one of the finest specimens
of the Norman style of architecture and of Celtic ornament in Germany, was
built. Then there began a time of great prosperity. A monk completed the
"Vita Sti Mariani," valuable as the oldest source of information
concerning the Scottish foundations at Ratisbon; the abbots tried to
preserve discipline and the dignity of the monastery; presents and pious
donations were received from many parts. But above all the mother-house
renewed itself in a number of young foundations. As such are mentioned,
the monasteries of the Virgin and St. Gregory at Vienna; the St. James’
monasteries at Erfurt and Wurzburg; St. Giles at Nurnberg; St. James again
at Constance; St. Nicholas at Memmingen; the monastery "Sanctae Crucis" at
Eichstadt, and the priories of St. John at Kehlheim and Altenfurt near
Nurnberg. These eleven monasteries were formed into one body at the
Lateran Council of 1215. Every three years the combined Chapter assembled
with the Abbot of Ratisbon as president. He also became the provincial of
the Order and the "General Visitator" (head inspector); the right to wear
the Mitre and the other Pontificalia was granted to him in
1286.
Unfortunately this flourishing
condition was not of long duration. Vienna was handed over to the German
Benedictines by order of the Council of Constance for reasons already
alluded to (1418); Constance
ceased to exist in 1530. The half ruinous buildings were pulled down by
the Magistrate, the garden made into a burial-ground. The last abbot,
John, signed an agreement in 1533
waiving all his claims for an annual payment of 40
gulden. Nor did the priories fare better. Weih
St Peter at Ratisbon was razed to the ground by the troopers of Count
Eberstein in the Schmalkaldian War "for military reasons." Only the bells
and the altar were saved. In St James’s prosperity had been succeeded by a
period of decay. Two abbots, named Macrobius, are mentioned towards the
end of the XIIIth century as "yin vere prodigi et bonorum monasterii
dilapidatores," i.e. as great prodigals and squanderers of the
property of the monastery. Then matters changed for the better for some
time; the monastery recovered under the honest and energetic
administration of one Henry of Rotteneck. The small estate of Einbach and
some houses in the city were acquired as donations. But then a series of
Irish abbots followed and the mismanagement steadily increased up to the
time of the Reformation. The first of them was called Nicolaus
(1326-1332). Of him it is said:
"Those Irish had been received by the Scottish for some years past; but
latterly they had increased to such an extent, that they were able to
elect their countryman Nicolaus abbot. He was deposed by the Bishop of
Ratisbon as a prodigal and banished." Of his successors, Nicolaus II,
Eugenius and Matthaeus V, we are told that they assumed the title
"prince," though neither emperor nor king had given permission. Philippus
II (1401-1418) and Mauritius II (1446) were again prodigals, and
Benedictus (1442-1444), "multa mala fecit," did much evil. Thus the
disgraceful catalogue continues to the last Irish abbot, Walterus or
Gualterus (1449-1515),
who was not only deposed on account of his misrule, but
was kept a prisoner in the bishop’s castle at Worth. Add to this a
destructive fire in 1433, and it does not surprise us, that at the
beginning of the end of the Reformation the once wealthy monastery was
nearly reduced to beggary. To stave off complete ruin the hand of an
energetic and upright ruler was wanted. To accomplish this object Pope Leo
X took the important step of giving back the monastery to the Scottish and
of appointing a very able Scotsman, John Thomson, who had hitherto lived
at Rome, to fill the vacancy as abbot; "being," as the Bull of
Confirmation has it, "the true and legitimate owner of the Monastery,
since he is Scottish by birth and not an Irishman." Serious dissensions
arising out of Walterus’s protests were quelled by the firmness of Leo and
the Duke of Bavaria. Joannes called around him monks from Dunfermline,
Inchcolm and Paisley, and thus gradually the condition of the Scottish
Benedictine Abbey began to improve. Unfortunately the number of monks
still remained small, falling as low as two during the rule of Abbot
Thomas (Anderson). To remedy this help was forthcoming from Scotland,
whence help was least expected. There the rapid spread of the Reformation
had been followed by wholesale banishment and flight of the adherents of
the old faith. A great number of monks were driven out of the country, and
sought refuge on the Continent. Among them was one of the most zealous and
gifted defenders of the Catholic Religion, a man blameless in life and
famed for scholarship: Ninian Winzet, formerly schoolmaster of Linlithgow.
He had been born in 1518 at Renfrew in the diocese of Glasgow, obtained
his degree of Master of Arts, and was made priest in 1540. Eleven years
later we find him again holding school in the old royal residence of
Linlithgow, the birthplace of King James V, and then a centre of
ecclesiastical activity. Expelled in 1566, he sought an asylum with Queen
Mary at Edinburgh, who probably made him her chaplain and confessor also.
It was here that he entered the arena against John Knox, and while the
palace resounded with the blows, cuts and thrusts of theological
disputants, Queen Mary was reading Livy every day after dinner with her
teacher Buchanan. Here also he wrote his first book entitled, Four
Score and three Questions, a work which, on account of its outspoken
concessions on the one hand, and its unshaken firmness on the other,
exercised no small influence on vacillating minds at that time. The author
of such a book could not long remain unmolested in Edinburgh. The
magistrate endeavoured to seize him, and it was only with great difficulty
that Ninian escaped to Flanders on board a ship. Thence he went to Louvain,
the place of refuge for many Roman Catholics (1562). Later, he visited
Paris, in order to finish his studies, and Douay, a university then newly
founded, where he obtained the degree of licentiate of theology (1575).
In the same year he accompanied Bishop Leslie, Mary’s ambassador, to
Rome, at the express desire of the Queen.
Two years afterwards, when the death
of the abbot of Ratisbon, Thomas Anderson, became known in the Vatican,
both the Pope himself and the Bishop of Ross being convinced of the
necessity of placing an energetic, and withal a prudent and moderate man
at the head of the monastery, a man who might bring about a new season of
prosperity, Ninian Winzet was elected abbot and duly confirmed (1577).
Nor did he disappoint his superiors in their expectations. For the
present, indeed, there were but few monks to welcome him at St James’s,
and the condition of the buildings was still deplorable. But the new abbot
soon succeeded in mending matters. A secular seminary was opened where he
not only supervised the teachers conscientiously, but taught the higher
branches of education himself. In the year
1583, the estate of
Hopfengarton was acquired for the monastery, the purchase-money amounting
to 2000 guldens, and an agreement was concluded with the Abbess of
Obermunster concerning the revenues of Weih St Peter. To all these efforts
must be added Winzet’s unwearied exertions on behalf of those religious
houses in Germany, which had formerly belonged to Scotland. In this he was
supported by Queen Mary herself; his friend and patron, Bishop Leslie, and
many crowned heads. It was Leslie’s special mission to obtain from the
Emperor and the other Catholic Princes of Germany, protection for the
Scots who were exiled on account of their faith, and at the same time to
urge the restoration of these monasteries. In a letter dated April 30th
1578, the
unfortunate Queen explained her wishes to the Emperor Rudolph, and the
latter answered by sanctioning the claims of the Scots with regard to
Ratisbon, Würzburg and Erfurt, they being the "original owners." But he
refused the prayers of Abbot Ninian, which he had laid before the Emperor
in a pamphlet, entitled, "Eleven reasons for the restitution of the
Scottish Monastery at Vienna." Nor could Nurnberg or Constance be resumed.
In Nurnberg the magistracy held out promises to Leslie, and revelled in
polite words,—but nothing more. As to Constance, new negotiations were
entered upon in 1608, when Joannes VII was Abbot of Ratisbon. But the
magistracy answered, that there was not a stone left of the old monastery,
the former revenues had been expended "ad pias causas." The only result
was a sum of 1500 guldens which was paid to the Monastery of Ratisbon as
compensation, and that the duty entered upon by the city of Constance of
maintaining regular divine worship in the "Friedhofskapelle" (Mortuary
Chapel).
Winzet displayed a like energy in
the affairs of the Scottish monastery at Erfurt. He restored the buildings
and gave it an excellent abbot in the person of John Hamilton. In the
meantime the Pope had interceded on his behalf with the German Emperor,
the Dukes of Bavaria, and the Bishop of Ratisbon, whilst Queen Mary wrote
again recommending him to the Archbishop of Mainz, Duke Albert of Bavaria
and his consort, a princess of Lorraine. All these high dignitaries of
Church and State replied in terms of friendship and commiseration, and
promised their protection to the new abbot.
With all his labours in Ratisbon and
elsewhere, Ninian did not neglect his literary work. In 1581 he published
at Ingolstadt his commentaries on the Epistles of St Paul, and in 1582
his polemical "Flagellum sectarium," the
Sectarians’ scourge, which he dedicated to the Duke of Bavaria. Besides
this he wrote epigrams and occasional verses in his leisure hours and
translated the large Catechism of Canisius, the Jesuit, into the Scottish
vernacular. With his friend Professor Robert Turner of Ingolstadt, a
Scotsman by extraction, if not by birth, he frequently exchanged letters
until death put an end to his active life in 1592. In him the Catholics
lost a candid friend, the Protestants an honest foe, and the world of
letters an independent thinker; an advocate of practical reform, though a
faithful adherent of the old Church.
Winzet’s successor was Joannes VII,
whose family name was White or Wight. He discharged his office till 1623,
when he retired. The chroniclers call him "a scholarly man and one well
versed in polemics." It was during his rule that those negotiations with
Constance took place of which we have spoken. Renewed appeals to the
Emperor for the purpose of regaining the Scottish establishment at Vienna
were again fruitless; in spite of the assistance of Cardinal Berberini and
the Bull of Pope Urban VIII of April 27th, 1624 in which the Emperor was
called upon to restore the monastery to its owners, German Benedictines
retained possession of it. Wurzburg, however, which since the year 1497
had been occupied by the Germans, was returned to the Scots by Bishop
Julius, whose statue adorns the place in front of the Hospital, and
peopled with six monks from Ratisbon.
Then there came the Thirty Years’
War with its frightful train of plague and plunder, of war contributions
and impoverishment. Ratisbon was occupied by the Swedes under Duke
Bernhard of Weimar in 1633 and great damage was done to the town
and the Monastery. Of the 75,000 florins exacted from the clergy, the
Scottish abbey of St James had to pay 1000 gulden. The buildings decayed,
a great number of monks died, the revenues were reduced to 1200 gulden a
year or a little more, scarcely sufficient for the maintenance of four "patres."
During ten years, from 1630-1640, there were no abbots but only managers
(‘administratores’).
It was not till 1646 that an attempt
was made to improve this sad state of matters. In that year the energetic
and learned Alex. Bayllaeus (Baillie), who had formerly been Abbot of
Erfurt, was chosen for the same dignity at Ratisbon. He took pains first
of all to redeem such of the monastery’s property as had been pawned, to
restore the buildings and to buy new Church vessels. Then he turned his
attention to the political interests of the Monastery. Owing to his skill
the attempts of Ferdinand III and IV to hand it over to the Carmelites
(1641), or even to the Irish (1653), failed, and Pope Urban VIII as well
as Innocent X expressed themselves again in favour of the Scottish
Benedictines. With the University of Salzburg, excellently conducted by
the Benedictines, an agreement was concluded by which the Abbot of St
James’s at Ratisbon was to take the place of the Abbot of St Peter’s,
Salzburg, at the time of the election of a new Rector.
After Baillie the most eminent abbot
was Placidus Fleming (Flaminius), under whose long and beneficent rule the
monastery greatly recovered its former flourishing condition. He was born
at Kirkoswald in Ayrshire, and was related to the Earls of Wigton. In his
youth he is said to have been a naval officer and to have been once
captured by pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. As Abbot of St James’s he
showed uncommon energy, learning and zeal in matters of education. The
library owed, if not its existence, its rich book-treasures to him. He
founded a professorship of Philosophy at Erfurt, always to be held by a
Scotsman. He built a Seminary for young Scottish boys of better families,
first at a small place called Griesstätten (1713) and later in Ratisbon
(1719); and finally he formed the three remaining Scottish
Religious Houses of Ratisbon, Erfurt and Wflrzburg into a closer union, in
which the abbot of the first-named should always take the highest rank on
account of the "great age of the Monastery and its many privileges granted
by Popes and Emperors."
It was during Fleming’s rule that
the Monastery of St James’s began to be used as an asylum for members of
the old Scottish aristocracy, who, like George Gordon, the brother of the
Earl of Aboyne, desired to spend their last years in peaceful retirement,
or who used their utmost efforts secretly to restore the Stuart dynasty.
Between Paris, Ratisbon and Rome an unceasing communication took place;
but all the Stuart letters were lost, when Strahlheim, one of the estates
of the monastery, where these documents had been deposited, was consumed
by fire.
Fleming’s successor was the leaned
Maurus Stuart. During sixteen years he had been a professor at Erfurt. He
died before his consecration and was succeeded by Bernard Baillie. Well
versed in history and philosophy he had likewise filled a professor’s
chair at Erfurt, but had been recalled by Fleming to superintend some
improvements and additions to the buildings of the monastery at Ratisbon.
He took a great interest in the library and gained the affection of his
monks. After his death in 1742 Bernard Stuart, a nephew of the above-named
Maurus, was raised to the dignity of abbot. He was a man of great natural
gifts, but of a character little noble or loveable. Excelling in provinces
of learning far removed from the requirements of his office, he very
frequently absented himself from Ratisbon. Born in Scotland in 1706, he
early showed great aptitude for mathematics. He was educated at St James’s
seminary, and became priest in 1726. Some years after he obtained the
chaplaincy of the Nonnberg near Salzburg, which enabled him to prosecute
his studies in that University with a view mainly to perfect himself in
Canon law. During 1733-1741 he himself taught as professor of mathematics,
filling at the same time a number of other important offices. Thus the
Prince-Archbishop appointed him his clerical adviser and inspector of
buildings (‘rei aedilis director’). As such he successfully drained a
large bog near Salzburg after a labour of three years, and drew the plan
of the Archbishop’s castle Leopoldskron. In 1742 he visited at St
Petersburg his brother, who was a general in the Russian service. After
his return the city of Augsburg nominated him her "director aedilitiae"
with a salary attached of 1800 florins. A theatre or public-hall for the
pupils of the Jesuit seminary is his work; more useful was a strong
embankment which he built on the river Lech, and which can be seen to this
day. For this the grateful city presented him with a gold cup. The
Imperial Court of Vienna likewise employed him as Inspector of Fortresses
in Swabia. In 1743 he was chosen Abbot of St James’s at Ratisbon. During
his term of office the above-mentioned estate of Strahlfeld was acquired
for the monastery after a long law-suit, and the Jacobite intrigues
culminated in 1745, when a messenger from the monastery to the "King" at
Rome, Father Macdonnell, actually proposed the raising of a regiment of
Bavarians to assert the rights of the Royal Stuart. The "King" was prudent
enough to thank the messenger for his good intentions, but to decline the
proposal. Another priest of St James’s accompanied the Pretender on his
invasion of England as confessor, and was wounded at Culloden. Only with
great difficulty and after many adventures he succeeded finally in
escaping to the Continent disguised as the servant of the Bavarian
ambassador’s secretary. This was Gallus Leith. Born in 1709 he had early
entered the Ratisbon seminary. After having professed he studied divinity
and Canon law at Salzburg, and was then sent to Rome on business (1736).
In 1756 he was chosen abbot and proved himself a capable ruler, only "too
narrow-minded with regard to himself and others," as the chronicler puts
it.
In brilliant gifts, aristocratic
bearing and a lofty and amiable disposition however, he is far surpassed
by Benedict Arbuthnot the last abbot, a true prince of the Church. The
long period (1775-1820) during which he held office was very eventful for
Ratisbon. For no sooner had the Diet meeting within its walls roused
deeper interest in science, literature and art, promoting at the same time
a refined social intercourse, than the troublous events in the world of
politics made the country resound with the tumult and rumours of war, and
brought the French within the very gates of the city. We possess a graphic
account of the life in Ratisbon then from the pen of Thomas Campbell, the
poet, who was, at the beginning of the century, the guest of the
monastery; and the skirmish, which he witnessed under the walls of the
building, gave rise to one of the most famous lyrical poems of the
language.
Particularly interesting is
Campbell’s description of Arbuthnot himself as we find it in his letters.
After praising his unusually tolerant views he adds: "Dr. Arbuthnot is one
of the handsomest and strongest men I have ever seen." . . . "Not to love
him was impossible."... "The whole of Bavaria," they told me, "lamented
his death. When I knew him, he was the most commanding human figure I ever
beheld. His head was then quite white, but his complexion was fresh and
his features were regular and handsome. In manners he had a perpetual
suavity and benevolence. I think I see him still in the cathedral with the
golden cross on his fine chest, and hear him chanting the service with his
full, deep voice."
Our sketch of the abbot would be
incomplete, however, without having mentioned his scientific achievements.
He was especially learned in mathematics and chemistry. His lectures on
these subjects were well attended, and several of his essays were printed
in the Publications of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, of which he
was a member. Well stricken in years, he died in 1820, after having ruled
the monastery for forty-four years.
Two other remarkable men, who lived
at St James’s during his government, were P. Archibald M’Ivor and Romana
Robertson. M’Ivor was a teacher of the Crown Prince of Bavaria and later
Dean of Ratisbon Cathedral; Robertson served his monastery and England on
several occasions in matters of political import. It is said of him that,
when Napoleon decreed the secularisation of monasteries in 1803, Robertson
wrote a petition, which he personally presented to Napoleon at Paris, and
thus gained a postponement of the measure for the benefit of his Order.
But according to tradition of a more trustworthy kind, it was Marshal
Macdonald, Duke of Taranto, one of Napoleon’s most famous generals, that
successfully interceded for the monastery of his countrymen.
The second affair in which Robertson
was implicated is as well attested as it is strange. There was at that
time a Spanish general, called the Marquis of Romaña, a fearless man,
whose intense love of liberty had lost him the favour of Napoleon, then
about to conquer Spain. In order to get rid of the patriot and his troops,
he sent him to the Danish island of Funen, in the far north of Europe,
ostensibly with the purpose of co-operating with Bernadotte. Here the
proud Marquis wasted away his days in hateful inactivity. To rescue him
from this ignominious position, England accepted the services of
Robertson, whose fitness for a mission of daring and secrecy had strongly
impressed itself on the Duke of Richmond, then on a visit to the Scottish
monastery at Ratisbon. He had proposed the name of the humble prior to the
Duke of Wellington, and after an interview in London, when Robertson’s
reward was fixed and also the promise given to provide for his mother and
two sisters in Scotland in case of failure, the bold messenger started on
his journey (1808). His message to the general was that. English ships
were ready to carry him and his troops to any port he wished, and that, if
an insurrection against the usurper should take place in Spain, England
would be ready to throw in her lot with that country. After many
adventures Robertson left Heligoland, then English, and landed in Germany
on board a smuggling vessel. A revenue cutter, the captain of which had
been bribed, next brought him to Bremen, a city then in the hands of the
French. Here he succeeded in procuring a passport under the name of an
acquaintance of his, a German, who had died lately. On he went on his
journey, heeding no warnings, by way of Lubeck to Kiel. Having laid in a
stock of cigars and chocolate, he resolved to continue his expedition as a
commercial traveller. At last Fünen was reached. But now the difficulty
was to approach the Marquis so as not to rouse suspicion. After some
futile attempts he in the end succeeded in obtaining an audience for the
purpose of effecting a sale of his wares. Having given an account of
himself by producing his papers, he was told by the Marquis, after some
hesitation, that he accepted the English proposals. Robertson’s mission
was effected, and Romafia, making use of the opportunity of a grand parade
of troops, which had been ordered by Bernadotte, and at which he himself
intended to be present, collected as many soldiers as possible at Nyborg,
his headquarters; and when the Commander-in-Chief arrived there, already
some 10,000 men had embarked on English ships, which had been lying ready
opposite the little town. They sailed first to England, thence to Spain,
where Romafla’s assistance was highly welcome. As to Robertson, he reached
the coast of Germany and London after many escapes and on all sorts of
round-about ways cleverly contrived. He had been closely but ineffectually
pursued by the French.
Arbuthnot was the last abbot of the Scottish Monastery
of Ratisbon. After him there were only priors, the number of monks
gradually decreased, and, although a few Scotch boys were still taught at
the seminary, the final extinction could no longer be staved off. All
appeals to the fact that the monastery for centuries had done good work in
secular education also, were of no avail. Primate Dalberg prohibited the
further reception of novices or pupils. This prohibition was withdrawn by
King Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1827, but when the Bishop of Ratisbon declared
that he wanted the buildings of the monastery for the extension of the
clerical seminary, the Scottish Episcopacy acquiesced, an agreement was at
last arrived at between Bavaria and the Vatican, and the Monastery was
dissolved by a Breve of Pope Pius IX on the 2nd of September 1862 for the
sum mentioned above. The old, time-honoured foundation of Marianus passed
into German hands.
With regard to the "Schottenkloster" at Erfurt, the
foundation of which is likewise lost in the obscurity of the XIth Century,
we have to add that its existence, much chequered by the reverses of
fortune, never produced any deep and lasting impression on its
surroundings except in its connection with the University. In 1198 it was
granted a privilege, afterwards confirmed by the Emperor Rudolf of
Habsburg, according to which every damage done to its present or future
property was punished by a fine of 100 talents "of pure gold." Towards the
end of the XVth Century it was, as one of the chroniclers relates, "almost
entirely ruinous," so that nobody trusted himself to live in it. About the
same time Irish monks seem to have been received. There was a series of
Irish abbots from the end of the XIVth Century. In the year 1450,
Thaddaeus II, the last of them, presented a pamphlet to all the teachers
of the University, in which he defended himself against a certain Magister
Heynemann, and others, who had publicly maintained that the monastery did
as much belong to them as to him, he being Irish. Abbot Matthaeus
commenced the building of a new monastery; but this edifice was burned
down to the ground, together with the church, at the time "when the fatal
conflagration took place" at Erfurt in 1472. Then, indeed, misery and
distress reached their height. "The abbot, however, did not become
discouraged," the old chronicler continues; "he collected contributions
from his countrymen in Germany and received a ‘considerable’ writing, with
seals attached to it, from the abbots of Ratisbon, Wurzburg and Constance
and other prelates, who all of them spoke in moving terms of the pitiable
condition of the Scottish Monastery at Erfurt, exhorting pious Christians
to contribute their donations. The sum collected, however, was not
sufficient to repair the damage in any way. The abbot therefore saw
himself obliged to pawn fields, vineyards, houses and other property of
the Monastery, in order to make the most urgent repairs and to have a roof
over his head again."
At the beginning of the next century Abbot Benedictus
was in a similar plight. He also was anxious to rebuild the ruined edifice
(1510), but not having the means, and the "great Lords rather putting him
off with letters of recommendation than affording him any real assistance,
he likewise resorted to the sale of monastic property, by which means he
was able to restore the church in the way it remained until the year
1724."
In 1514 the altar dedicated to St Ninian and given and
endowed by two citizens of Erfurt, Scotsmen by birth, named Balthasar
Barding (?) and Jacob Flamingk (Fleming), was erected.
During the period of the Reformation there was
temporarily only one monk in the monastery. But he continued regularly to
say mass. Matters became still worse after the occupation of Erfurt by the
Swedes in 1632. The monastery of the Scots was then made a present to the
community and afterwards sold by the magistrates. It had, however, to be
given back to the Order after the Peace of Prague in 1635.
Finally, the use of the church of the monastery was
granted to the congregation of St Nicholaus in 1744; the definite property
of which it became in 1820 when the secularisation took place. Joseph
Hamilton was the last prior, a man whose great benevolence is repeatedly
mentioned. Every morning between nine and ten o’clock he gave free advice
to the sick, and tried to cure them with the help of electricity. He also
willingly paid visits to poor patients in their houses, carrying with him
his electric machine.
The former monastery served for some time as military
store-house; afterwards the military academy was built on its site (1858).
We are better informed of the history of the Scottish
monastery at Würzburg (Herbipolis) in Bavaria. To the north of the
Marienberg, afterwards strongly fortified, on the western banks of the
Main River, rises the hill of Girsberg or Geiersberg. At the time of the
foundation of the monastery in the XIIth century there was no human
dwelling on it; a bare and bleak mountain, waiting for its cultivation
from the industrious hands of the monks. Here then Bishop Embricho, in
answer to the prayer of an Irish-Scottish monk, named Christian, granted
the foreign pilgrims a home for the sake of St Kilian, the apostle and
martyr of Franconia. Thus the primary destination of the building appears
to have been a resting place (hospitium) for the Irish pilgrims to Rome
and for the missionaries. As coat-of-arms the young foundation showed a
shield with a scallop-shell and two crossed pilgrim-staves. Pope Coelestin
in 1195, Clement IV in 1348, and the Emperor Charles IV in 1355, confirmed
all its privileges, liberties and possessions.
And these were already large. Embricho had given his
estate of Wolfsthal, with all its "meadows, forests and waters," to the
monastery, and endowed the chapel with a "meadow along the Main," and with
the river itself, "as wide as the meadow" (1142). Other pious men and
women left other estates, houses and vineyards. Sums of money also were
forthcoming, nay, even serfs and their services were handed over to the
monastery as legacy.
The political events of the times, however, did not
allow this flourishing condition to continue long. Already the year 1400
proved disastrous to the free development of the new foundation, in
consequence of a war waged by the citizens of Wurzburg against their
Bishop Gerhard. How severe these losses must have been appears from a
convention arrived at by Bishop Johann and the citizens of Wurzburg in
1402, when the latter agreed to pay the sum of 40,000 pounds’ weight of
pence for damage done to various religious houses. On other occasions also
rapacious hands tried to possess themselves of monastic property. It
required a bull of Pope Martin V in 1418 to stem this course of
spoliation.
An important resolution was arrived at by the Abbots of
Würzburg and Erfurt, and the Prior and Monks of St James’s at Ratisbon,
after the death of their Abbot John in 1479 (October 22nd); according to
which the Abbot of Wurzburg had the right to nominate a candidate for the
abbacies of Constance and Memmingen with the consent of the other Scottish
abbots. If he had no other suitable individual, the monastery of Ratisbon
was to furnish one. Other paragraphs aimed at the restriction of the power
of the Abbot of Ratisbon, who, it would appear, had exercised it somewhat
arbitrarily and too severely. It was further agreed, that no prelate
should be allowed to sell any property of the house, except with the
consent of the other prelates; that no benefice of the Scottish nation
should be given to a German, and that all the elections for vacant offices
had to take place at Ratisbon.
In spite of all these efforts the tide of decay that
set in towards the end of the XVth Century, could not be stemmed. At the
death of Abbot Philip (1497), there was not a single monk left; there was
no grain nor wine in barn or cellar, and the walls of the building
threatened to come down. The reason of this seems to have been partly the
mismanagement of the abbots, partly the unruly times, partly the ignorance
of the foreign monks of German law in their frequent legal difficulties
arising out of property, tithes, and other questions.
Be this as it may, Pope Alexander VI, taking charge of
the deserted monastery, tried to mend matters by introducing German monks.
But his hopes were doomed to disappointment. The Peasants’ War had
plundered and destroyed the sacred buildings, and the Germans in 1547
arrived at the same end, after an administration of only about fifty
years, as the Scots after three hundred.
It was then that a new helper arose in the person of
the excellent Bishop Julius. When attending the Diet of Ratisbon in 1594,
he took up his quarters in the Monastery of St James, and was received and
entertained with princely honours by its abbot John James White (Albus), a
scholarly and generous man, who did not lose the opportunity of pressing
the claims of the Scots to the foundation of Würzburg, with his noble
visitor. This reason would have been quite sufficient to explain the
Bishop’s later actions with reference to the Scottish monastery. But the
people’s mind in those days required more than cold logic; it loved to
trace back every great event, every ancient foundation of Church or
Cloister to a miracle, a direct interference of Providence. It was a dream
that once led the old Irish monk to build his narrow cell at Ratisbon; it
was an illness unto death that made Bishop Julius vow to restore the
monastery at Würzburg to its rightful owners, and thus become its second
founder in the case of his recovery. The violent fever left him, he
returned to Würzburg, restored the monastery, paid its debts, and
requested the Abbot of Ratisbon to send some learned Scottish monks. These
were most solemnly, in the presence of the most noble men of Franconia,
reintroduced into their own. After this time the existence of the
monastery was no longer disturbed, although it continued to suffer much
from the war. Many good abbots directed their attention to missionary and
educational work; the library was increased; a guest-house built, the
other buildings were enlarged and improved. At the same time the
fortifications of Wurzburg gradually encroached upon the Girberg. One
large vineyard after another was lost, besides many houses and properties,
which paid their rents to the monastery. The owners, of course, were
compensated, but the fact of being now placed within the rayon of
fortifications led to many hardships. At various periods the precincts of
the monastery were requisitioned by the military for their stores.
Latterly the difficulty of obtaining monks and novices from Scotland was
experienced as in Ratisbon, so here also. In 1803 the old foundation was
secularised; the books were incorporated with the Royal University
Library; the archives now formed a part of the Royal Archives; the
wonder-working relics of St Macanus, the first abbot, were transferred to
St Mary’s Chapel on the Market Square, and the whole buildings were
converted into a military hospital.
To this short sketch of the history of the "Schottenkloster"
at Wurzburg, we now add some biographical notices of its monks and abbots.
The first abbot was Makarius; he was early reverenced as a saint, and died
in 1153. His burial place was for a long time unknown, until it was
miraculously rediscovered in 1614 by a monk Gabriel. Abbot Philippus was
made chaplain to Charles IV (1355), and showed great diplomatic skill.
Franciscus Hamilton, one of his successors, obtained his degree of
divinity at the University of Wurzburg, and was elected Abbot in 1602. As
such he worked hard to pay off the debt of the monastery. In 1609 he
resigned and went to Munich in the service of William and Maximilian of
Bavaria. He was followed by Guilelmus Ogilbaeus (Ogilvie), who increased
the number of monks and decorated the buildings. It was during his tenure
of office that the town was besieged by Gustavus Adolfus, and after a last
desperate resistance surrendered. Ogilvie met the conqueror with the keys
of the city in his hands, and by his pleading succeeded in assuaging the
anger of the King (1631).
A man of equally high character and untiring energy was
Abbot John Audomarus Asloan. A friend of the Bishop he ruled wisely and
well, always mindful to have the account-books and the tithe-rolls of the
house in good order. So well known were his excellent business qualities,
that the monks at Ratisbon desired him for their abbot, when in 1639
Algacus had left their monastery in a deplorable condition. For a time he
seems to have gone and assisted there as temporary "administrator." He
died in 1661.
Ambrosius Cook, who ruled the monastery from 1689-1703,
was a man of a very different type. He showed a weak, vacillating, worldly
character; now rigorous, now lax; often abroad, preferring the intercourse
with boon companions to the solitary life of a religious house. In 1697,
when one of the Patres, Macanus Brown, had died in Scotland and left a
legacy to Wurzburg, he set out himself for that country, to receive it.
But instead of four weeks he stayed a year, without writing a single line
either to his monks or to the Bishop. When summoned (Feb. 18, 1699) to
appear in person before his superiors, he replied from Paris, that he
intended to enter the religious fraternity at La Trappe, asking at the
same time that his post might be kept open for him during his novitiate.
But the severity of the Trappist rules appears to have been too great for
him. He returned to Wurzburg and for a time seems to have lived soberly
and honestly. But he relapsed again; his way of living became so
offensive, that after having been shut up in the fortress for his
misdeeds, he was deposed in 1703. Towards the end of his life he travelled
much and finally retired to the Cistercian Monastery of Dusselthal, in the
diocese of Cologne, where, piously obedient to the strictest rules, he at
last found peace. He died in 1727.
There were no abbots from 1703-1713 nor from 1753-1756.
The last two filled their office worthily. Augustine Duff from
Fochabers in Scotland is called the type "of a good shepherd." He was an
excellent scholar and a patron of the library. His death in 1753 prevented
him from finishing the reconstruction of the chapel of St Makarius.
Placidus Hamilton, finally, the last abbot, was of noble descent and
united great prudence with scholarly attainments and a large experience of
men and manners, which he had gathered on extensive travels. But as a
ruler he was scarcely successful. Having retired to London in 1763 with a
pension of 200 gulden from the Prince-Bishop, he died there in 1786.
From this time to the dissolution of the monastery
there were only priors at the head of it.
Among the monks, a list of whom is given in the
Appendix, Gabriel Wallace deserves a special notice. He is described as a
man of great humility and excelling in the mortification of the body. He
slept only three or four hours and was girt with a heavy, stout
iron-chain. Like many other ascetic monks he was given to visions and
dreams. During one of his prayerful nights he heard, as the story goes,
repeatedly and long continued "music of angels’ voices" issuing from a
certain place of the church, where it was said, but now forgotten, that St
Makarius slept his last sleep. Having reported the matter to his superior
he received permission to make a search, and when he had raised the floor
he came upon a stone with the inscription: "Hic jacet Macanus, primus
Abbas hujus ecclesiae, per quem Deus vinum in aquam convertit." He also
found other written documents testifying the same thing (1614). Bishop
Julius then had the relics with great solemnity transferred to the main
church and deposited in a stone coffin (1615).
Of monks and priors, who excelled in literature, we
shall have to speak elsewhere. It only remains to mention the sad fate of
Marianus Gordon of Banff, who, a descendant of the Marquis of Huntly and
the Dukes of Gordon, entered the monastery in the 14th year of his age as
a pupil. He showed great aptitude for learning, and having obtained a
degree in arts as well as in theology, he went to St Gall for the study of
Oriental languages, and remained there about a year and a half. After his
return to Würzburg he was made a priest. It appears that Marianus had for
some time past corresponded with Protestants, and not only read Protestant
books, but taken steps to escape from the monastery and embrace the
Lutheran doctrine. Some of his letters to Protestant authors were
intercepted; Protestant books were discovered in his cell together with
writings of his own, which were sufficient to convict him of heresy. He
was sentenced to imprisonment for three years (1732). At first he was
detained in St James’s Monastery, but, when new letters of his to his
Protestant friends were discovered, his prison was changed to the
so-called "Pfaffenthurm" (Priest’s-tower) in the fortress of Marienberg.
Here the unfortunate young man, against whose moral conduct not a voice
was raised, died by his own hand on the 12th of November 1734.
At the time of the secularisation of the monastery in
1803 there were still eight patres in it, viz.: Placidus Geddes from
Edinburgh, prior; Kilian Pepper from Crieff, for some time missionary in
England; Columban Macgowen from Balquhain, an excellent disciplinarian and
a zealous monk, who was prior twice; Gallus Carmichael from Perth, who
died as octogenarian at Wurzburg in 1824; Andreas Geddes from Cairnfield;
Maurus Macdonald from the Hebrides, a good botanist; Joannes Bapt.
Anderson, who during an eventful life had been a slave in Africa, and who
died at Würzburg in 1828, reverenced and loved for his piety; and lastly,
Benedictus Ingram, who removed to Frankfort-on-the-Main.
The last prior, and also the last Scottish monk in
Wurzburg, was Placidus Geddes, who died at Wurzburg at the ripe age of 82,
in 1839.
Once again at the time of the Reformation an intimate
intercourse in matters of religion, a mutual giving and taking, took place
between Scotland and Germany. In the early centuries of the Middle Ages
the question was one of working out a monastic ideal to the glory of Rome;
now scores of Scottish pilgrims went to Wittenberg to enrich their armoury
and to sharpen their swords in defence of a new doctrine.
Already in 1525 (July 17th) the Scottish Parliament had
passed an Act prohibiting the introduction and the reading of "Luthyr’s"
books. In August of the same year the King issued an order to the
Magistrates of Aberdeen (the University of which town was then upholding
the Erasmian teaching), mentioning not only strangers in possession of
Luther’s, the heretic’s, books, as did the Act of Parliament, but others
as well. The law is to be rigorously enforced. All those that favour the
new doctrine are to be deprived of their goods. To this the Lords of
Council, disquieted at the rapid spreading of the reformer’s opinions,
added two riders in 1527, explaining that all subjects of the King being
"assisters" to the heresy should likewise be punishable, and that the
permission formerly granted of "disputing and rehersing" those "opunyeouns"
should be restricted to "clerkis of the sculls alanerlie."
But no restriction could quench the new spirit.
One of the first that felt its influence and was to
seal it with his blood was that noble Patrick Hamilton, the precursor of
Knox and the protomartyr of the Scottish Church. The year of his birth
cannot now exactly be fixed; generally 1504 is adopted as such. During
1524-25 Hamilton studied at St Andrews where he incurred the suspicion and
the hatred of Cardinal Beaton. He had formerly, probably during his stay
at Paris, become acquainted with Luther’s writings, but not till 1525 did
he publicly express his adherence or at least his sympathy with the
prescribed doctrines. To study these at their source and to avoid further
proceedings on the part of the Cardinal, he left Scotland in 1526,
accompanied by John Hamilton, Gilbert Winram, and a servant. In Wittenberg
he made the acquaintance of Luther and Melanchthon. As, however, his name
as "cives academicus" does not occur in the album of that University, but
appears as the thirty-fourth among the names of the one hundred and four
students who signed the roll at the opening of the newly-founded
University of Marburg, the hypothesis "that he left Wittenberg on account
of the plague which raged in the city and necessitated even a temporary
removal of the University," seems to be deserving of some credit. Hamilton
stayed at Marburg for six months only; a time too short, one would think,
to commence the study of theology, but long enough for him to receive
powerful impressions and to purify and strengthen his faith. He was
particularly influenced by the venerable Lambert of Avignon, then
Professor of Theology, and by Hermann von dem Busch; one of the leading
humanists of the day. It was Lambert that persuaded him to write the only
little treatise we possess from his pen, his so-called "loci" or "theses,"
in which he explains Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith in the
words of the New Testament. He had much intercourse besides with Tyndale
and Frith, his friend, who having left Worms had sought the protection of
the Hessian prince. It is a remarkable fact that the small town, so
picturesquely perched .on a hill above the Lahn River, should thus have
harboured at the same time three future martyrs of the New Faith within
its walls. Tyndale died at the stake at Vilvoerde on the 6th of August
1536; Frith suffered martyrdom three years earlier.
In the meantime there arose in Hamilton, after he had
strengthened his views in personal contact and friendly communion with the
greatest reformers of Germany, the ardent wish to speak and to proclaim
this faith to his countrymen. His time of flight and of preservation of
life was followed now by the time of fight and self-sacrifice. He left
Marburg, in spite of the urgent advice of his remaining Scottish friends,
in the autumn of 1527. His fate is known. On the 28th of February 1528 he
gave up the ghost after long-continued terrible sufferings at the stake.
Lambert says of him: "His learning was for one so young uncommonly great,
and his judgments in matters of divine truth extremely clear and well
founded. His intention in coming to Marburg was to become still more
rooted in the truth, and I can honestly say that I seldom met anyone that
could talk of the Word of God with greater depth of insight and with a
firmer conviction. We often conversed about these subjects."
In close connection with Hamilton the history of the
Scottish Reformation mentions Alexander Alesius, whose proper name was
Alane. He was born on the 23rd of April 1500 at Edinburgh, and was in his
youth a canon of the St Augustinian Monastery at St Andrews, and a zealous
opponent of Luther. He even undertook to convert the imprisoned Hamilton.
But the contrary happened; he himself, profoundly moved by the firmness of
the martyr, began to be doubtful about the truth of the Roman doctrines.
More and more convinced of his own errors, he attacked the luxurious life
of the priests, especially that of his prior Hepburn, who, having been
educated in France, had grown up a proud and prodigal prelate. As a
consequence he was several times cast into prison by his enraged superior,
from which finally not even the intercession of the King could save him.
With the help of his fellow-canons he succeeded, however, to escape and to
gain the shores of the Firth under the protection of night. Neither did
his hope of meeting a vessel there deceive him. Before daybreak he was on
board, and when the troopers of his enemy appeared on the scene he was
already on his way to Dieppe. A violent storm, however, carried the ship
away to the north, as far as the Sound and the town of Malmoe in Sweden.
Here Alesius encountered, to his astonishment, a community of Scottish
merchants who, as they commonly did in foreign lands, kept their own
preacher and had accepted the new teaching two years ago. At last the ship
reached Antwerp and Bruges, from which latter place our exile went to
Cologne (1532). But in spite of the friendly reception of Hermann von Wied
he did not stay long. He was drawn towards Wittenberg. There in the
enjoyment of most familiar intercourse with the great reformers,
especially with Melanchthon, who confessed to a predilection for the
Scots, he declared his adhesion to the Articles of the Augsburg
Confession, or, in other words to the Lutheran Church, although, as he
expressed himself, "in some things he missed moderation and a certain
sense of justice," remaining an advocate of conciliation to the end.
During this his first stay at the University he chiefly studied Greek and
Hebrew and composed his treatise against the prohibition of the Scottish
bishops to read the Bible in the mother tongue. It was this pamphlet that
prepared the victory of the Reformation in Scotland, although the right
which Alesius claimed was only granted to the people of Scotland ten years
later, in 1543. It was this pamphlet also which drew upon him the censure
of the famous controversialist on the Catholic side, Dobeneck or Cochlaeus,
against whom he frequently entered the lists with his pen or his spoken
word. In 1535 he went to England as the
bearer of Melanchthon’s letters to King Henry VIII and Archbishop Cranmer.
He was well received, the Court at that time being anxious for a union
with the Protestant princes of Germany. The post of public lecturer at
Cambridge was given to him, and he taught Hebrew and Greek in the same
college where Erasmus had been lecturing before him. Soon, however, on his
friendship with Melanchthon becoming known, he was subjected to all kinds
of indignities. A leader of the Roman Catholic party, who had challenged
him to a public debate, but had failed to appear on the appointed day, now
secretly agitated against him. Riots among the students followed, and
Alesius’ life was in danger. Thus compelled, he returned to London, where
for about three years he gained a scanty livelihood by the practice of
medicine, to the study of which he had already given some attention. But
when the King tried to enforce the doctrine of transubstantiation and the
celibacy of the priests, he resigned his office as public teacher, sold
whatever he possessed, and, being timely warned by the Archbishop, fled to
the house of a German sailor, who conveyed him in the disguise of a sailor
on board a vessel bound for Holland. Two friends, John Macalpine and John
Fyffe or Fidelis, accompanied him. Having safely reached Wittenberg, he
accompanied Melanchthon soon afterwards to Worms. But the greatest service
that his friend rendered him was that of procuring for him the appointment
as Professor of Divinity at Frankfurt on the Oder. Thus Alesius became
the first academical teacher of the new doctrine in Brandenburg. In
his inaugural dissertation, "De restituendis scholis," he energetically
advocated the necessity of a University training for clergymen. After a
stay of two years the "perfervidum ingenium" attributed to Scotsmen led
him into what seems to have been an unseemly quarrel with the magistrates
of the city on the subject of the suppression of prostitution. Being
thwarted, he resigned his office suddenly, much to the disgust of his
friend Melanchthon, and went to Leipzig, where he was honourably received
and made Professor of Theology in 1544. Now at last the "wanderer" was at
rest. The remaining twenty-one years of his life he spent at this famous
University. Twice, in 1555 and 1561, he was chosen Rector. Here he
published most of his exegetical and apologetical writings, one of the
most important of which was his Cobortatio ad concordiam pietatis
("Exhortation to unity in love"), dedicated to the Scottish nation, its
barons and prelates. In it he eloquently pleads for brotherly union, a
cause which Knox took up after him with much energy. The whole tendency of
his mind in religious matters was, indeed, one of conciliation, like that
of his great German teacher and friend. The extreme views of the Lutheran
party he disliked. Accordingly, when at the Diet of Ratisbon in 1541 a
mutual approach of the two hostile parties among the Evangelicals appeared
possible, we find him heading a deputation, which was sent to Luther at
the instigation of the two brothers Georg and Joachim of Brandenburg, to
try and make this man of iron yield.
Honoured by his colleagues and his Prince, loved by
Melanchthon; courageous, where courage was needed, and yet showing a
moderation rare among the reformers of his adopted country, Alesius died
in 1565 on the 17th of March. His only son had at a tender age preceded
him. Probably the father rests in the same grave in the church of St Paul,
though there is no stone to mark his last resting-place. Ben says of him:
"He was dear to all scholars and beloved by them, and would have been an
ornament to Scotland if the light of the Gospel had been granted earlier
to that country. Rejected by Scotland and England, he was warmly welcomed
by the Evangelical Church of Saxony, and highly esteemed to the end of his
life."
As to the above-mentioned friends of Alesius, they also
obtained high positions among the scholars of the age. Macalpine, or
Maccabaeus, as Melanchthon had christened him, became Doctor of Divinity
at Wittenberg, Luther himself presiding at the ceremony, and afterwards
accepted a call from King Christian III to his University of Kopenhagen,
having been recommended by the two German reformers. There he laboured as
Professor of Divinity till his death in 1557. He was a very learned, pious
and moderate theologian. Denmark owes to him and some of his friends the
Bible translated into Danish.
Joannes Fidelis, alias Faithus or Fyffe, was for a time
evangelical preacher at Liegnitz in Silesia, after having obtained a
thorough mastery of the German tongue. Afterwards he was called to
Frankfurt-on-the-Oder as the successor of Alesius. |