Meinrad von Einsiedeln

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Statue at Einsiedeln train station

Meinrad von Einsiedeln OSB (* around 797 near Rottenburg (Württemberg); † January 21, 861 in Einsiedeln ) was a hermit who founded the Einsiedeln monastery .

Life

St. Meinrad chapel on the Etzelpass
Meinrad and the two robbers on a historical illustration
St. Meinrad Chapel in Bollingen on the upper Lake of Zurich

According to legend, Meinrad, from the family of the Counts of Hohenzollern , was taught by the abbots Haito and Erlebald at the monastery school of the Benedictine Abbey of Reichenau in Lake Constance . He entered the order and became a monk. After a few years on the Reichenau and in the dependent priory "Babinchova" (corresponds to today's Benken , southeast of Lake Zurich ), he decided to live a hermit and retired in 828 to the Etzelpass . He was carrying a miraculous figure of the Madonna that Abbess Hildegard of Zurich had given him. In the year 835 he is at the point where today the chapel stands in the monastery church of the monastery of Einsiedeln, a hermitage and a chapel erected to serve God in the hermitage.

According to legend, Meinrad was slain on January 21, 861 by two vagrants who coveted the treasures deposited by devout pilgrims at the shrine. Thereupon two ravens are said to have pursued the murderers and brought them to court, where they were sentenced to death at the stake under the presidency of Count Adalbert the Illustrious . For this reason, two ravens are depicted on the coat of arms of the monastery and village of Einsiedeln.

During the following eighty years the hermitage was never "in the dark forest", as this area was called at the time, without one or more hermits who followed Meinrad's example. One of them, called Eberhard, previously provost of Strasbourg , built a monastery in 934, of which he became the first abbot .

After Meinrad was buried on the monastery island of Reichenau after his murder , the Reichenau abbot of Bern arranged for the relics to be translated to Einsiedeln in 1039, more than 170 years after the death of Meinrad, who was now venerated as a martyr .

The oldest biography was probably written down on the Reichenau in the 9th century. Meinrad has been part of the liturgical tradition there since the 10th century. The oldest known manuscript is in the Abbey Library in Einsiedeln (codex 249).

The legend of St. Meinrad was popularized by the early Basel printing press, independently of one another, by two printing works there from the incunable period. The first edition was published around 1481/1482 by Bernhard Richel (GW-Ms K 248; ISTC il-00121500: copies in Freiburg im Breisgau, Munich, Nuremberg). Michael Furter published a German-language edition around 1491/1495 and four further editions as illustrated prints from 1496 to 1505, as well as two editions in Latin in 1496 and around 1505. The prints were preceded by a hundred-year-old handwritten tradition (manuscripts in the St. Gallen Abbey Library, cod. 598, dat. 1432; Zentralbibliothek Zürich Ms. A 116), as well as the richly illustrated block book , which was possibly also produced in Basel around 1450/1460. At the time of going to print, the hermit Benedictines succeeded in combining the pilgrimage to the Marian Chapel of Mercy with the veneration of their monastery founder.

Dedications

Swiss churches

additional

The Meinradweg

Information at the Süchenkirche

The Meinradweg is a cycle path named after the Saint Meinrad and connects the birthplace Sülchen , a desert in the northeast of the city of Rottenburg am Neckar with the Einsiedeln monastery, the largest pilgrimage site in Switzerland , with a total distance of 275 km . There are about 3300 vertical meters to be mastered on the entire route, there are extreme climbs on the last stage between Fischingen and Einsiedeln. The entire route can be covered in four to five daily stages at a moderate cruising speed. It goes from the Sülchenkirche via Archabbey Beuron , stage 1 with 80 km over the island Reichenau, stage 2 with also 80 km to the Benedictine monastery Fischingen with 60 km as stage 3. The fourth stage between Fischingen and Einsiedeln with another 60 km is due to the pass heights Hufftegg (934 m) and Etzelpass (950 m) the most demanding stage of the route.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Adalbert the Illuminated, at Genealogy Middle Ages
  2. ↑ Walter Berschin : Eremus and Insula. St. Gallen and Reichenau in the Middle Ages - a model of a Latin literary landscape . 2., ext. Ed. Reichert, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-89500-433-2 , p. 42.
  3. ↑ edition of the Vita Sancti Meginrati in: Sankt Meginrat commemorative twelfth centenary of his birth , ed. by Odo Lang; Bavarian Benedictine Academy, Munich 2000; (= Studies and communications on the history of the Benedictine order and its branches, Vol. 111 (2000) ), pp. 10–23.
  4. ^ Romy Günthart: German-language literature in early Basel book printing (approx. 1470-1510) ; Waxmann, Münster 2007; ( Studies and texts on the Middle Ages and early modern times ; 11), esp. Pp. 160–186 Micro-study: A hermit is made popular, the Basler Meinradsleben (with illustrations), as well as index pp. 347–348.
  5. ↑ Welcome to the Meinradweg. Retrieved October 16, 2019 (German).

literature

Web links

Commons : Saint Meinrad  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Meinrad von Einsiedeln
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hermit, to whom the foundation of the Einsiedeln monastery goes back
DATE OF BIRTH at 797
PLACE OF BIRTH near Rottenburg
DATE OF DEATH January 21, 861
Place of death Einsiedeln