Suitbert

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St. Suitbertus, fictional representation
Speech for the eleven centenary feast of St. Suitbertus. 1817

Suitbert (* around 637 ; † 713 , also Switbert, Swidbert, Suidbert, Suibert) was an Anglo-Saxon missionary , founder and first abbot of the Kaiserswerth monastery , who is venerated as a saint .

life and work

The Anglo-Saxon Suitbert was one of the men who accompanied the missionary Willibrord († 739) from the Irish monastery of Rathmelsigi to the mainland in 690 .

We only find out more about him from Beda Venerabilis (* around 673; † 735), while the so-called Marcellinus Vita of the late Middle Ages is bursting with inventions. Beda, after all, highlights Suitbert from among Willibrord's companions and dedicates a separate section to him in his church history. According to the Anglo-Saxon scholar, Willibrord was probably on his first trip to Rome in 692, when some of his comrades-in-arms - in opposition to the Frisian missionary? - determined to have Suitbert raised to bishop.

Suitbert returned to England and was consecrated by Wilfrid (* around 634; † 709/710). The separation (?) From Willibrord was complete and Suitbert turned to the conversion of the Franconian Brukterer between Ruhr and Lippe . There he must have worked successfully when this tribe was subjugated by invading Saxons - probably around 695.

Suitbert was then able to establish a monastery near the Frankish-Saxon border zone on a Rhine island, later Kaiserswerth , with the support of the Frankish housekeeper Pippin the Middle (680 / 687-714) and at the instigation of his wife Plektrud . As equipment of the monastery we can accept goods of the house dairy or royal estate; the Herrenhof Rinthusen is said to have been below it. After Kaiserswerth, his “place to stay” (mansio) , Suitbert now withdrew, and Beda does not report any further proselytizing or proselytizing attempts.

Later sources give supposed information about the work of the saint in Rheinbrohl , near Jülich and in the Bergisches Land , but only the Suitbertus tradition of the Ratinger church ( Dumeklemmer saga ) and the possibly into the 8th century age of a previous church on mission and Point out the church organization of Suitbert's successors in the Kaiserswerther Vorfeld on the right bank of the Rhine.

On March 1st, 713, Suitbert probably died in Kaiserswerth and was safely buried there. His relics are now in the former collegiate church in an artfully decorated shrine, the Suitbertus shrine . This is the most important reliquary shrine in the entire Lower Rhine and is similar to the - somewhat larger - famous Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne. Willibrord recorded the day of his death in his festival calendar, Alkuin called Suitbert in his "Poem on the Saints of the Church of York " "particularly outstanding". Bishop Radbod of Utrecht (901–917), a later successor to Willibrord, wrote a homily on the saint.

After all, what happened around Suitbert illuminates something that can be described as political spatial planning in the Lower Rhine region of Austrasia (also known as Austria) in the late Merovingian period. In this context it is worth remembering the advance of the Saxons towards the Rhine, which began increasingly after the death of King Dagobert I and towards the end of the 7th century - as we have seen - to subdue the Brukterians (Boruktuarians), from 715 to Saxon attacks led to hattuaries . The Chattuarian - Ripuarian area on the lower Ruhr, therefore Kaiserswerth, was now in an exposed border position to the Saxons , of which Einhard († 840), the biographer of Charlemagne (768-814), knows how to report in the early 9th century . The Saxon War of this Frankish king (772–804) freed the area from its border location between Ripuarien and Saxony and, among other things, paved the way for the establishment of Werdens by Liudger (* around 742; † 809). The sources of the Werden monastery attest that Christians had lived in the lower Ruhr for at least two generations . Perhaps Christianity there goes back to Suitbert and his companions.

symbol

A biography of Suitbert, published around 1500, reports that the parents were prophesied of their son and his missionary vocation through a star apparition. Therefore, Suitbertus is symbolized with a star on many depictions .

Remembrance day

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Website of the Angerland-Kaiserswerth Parish Association (Archdiocese of Cologne) , accessed on May 11, 2011

literature

  • First speech at the eleven-hundred-year jubilee celebration of the holy bishop Suitbertus, apostle of the local area and the neighboring countries, delivered on the 6th of the month of Julius 1817 in the parish church of Kaiserswerth by Franz Xavier Jägers, dean of Christianity Düsseldorf and pastor in Mündelheim . With the approval of the Most Reverend Arch-Abbey of Cologne General Vicariate. Düsseldorf, printed by Franz Friedrich Stahl, court printer. (together with the 2nd to 8th speeches in one volume, n.d. probably 1817) ( digitized version )
  • Second speech ... delivered on the 7th of the month of Julius 1817 ... by Heinrich Joseph Saur ... ( digitized version )
  • Third speech ... delivered on the 8th of the month of Julius 1817 ... by Mathias Wilhelm Mürckens ... ( digitized version )
  • Fourth speech ... delivered on the 9th of the month of Julius 1817 ... by Johann Ferdinand Heubes ... ( digitized version )
  • Fifth speech ... delivered on the 10th of the month of Julius 1817 ... by Christian Pohl ... ( digitized version )
  • Sixth speech ... delivered on the 11th of the month of Julius 1817 ... by Anton Joseph Binterim ... ( digitized version )
  • Seventh speech ... delivered on the 12th of Julius 1817 ... by Philipp Schulten ... ( digitized version )
  • Eighth speech ... delivered on the 13th of Julius 1817 ... by Aloys Sebastian Arens ... ( digitized version )
  • Bede the Venerable : Church History of the English People . Translated by Günter Spitzbart. 2 volumes. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2nd edition 1997, ISBN 3-534-13422-2 (German translation of Bedas Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum )
  • Franz Flaskamp: Suidbercht, apostle of the Brukterer, founder of Kaiserswerth . (= Mission history of the German tribes and landscapes; 2). A. Mecke, Duderstadt 1930
  • Vita S. Swiberti Episcopi Werdensis Frisiorum, Saxonum, Westphalorum & in primis Urbis Monasteriensis Apostoli / primùm scripta â Beato Marcellino Presbytero Coaevo & Socio ejus, expost aucta â S. Ludgero I.mo Monasteriensi Episcopo Fidâ relatione de miraculis .. & Canonization . [Ricfridus]. - Stahl, Dusseldorpii 1717. Digitized edition
  • Johann Joseph Süss: Suitbertus the first Bothe of the Gospel in the land of the mountains and the market. In addition to historical news about the Catholic Church in Barmen, and an explanation of the ceremonies that will take place at the inauguration of the new parish church in Barmen on May 16, 1829. Stahl, Elberfeld 1829. Digitized
  • Vita S. Swiberti episcopi Werdensis Frisiorum, Saxonum, Westphalorum ... / primum scripta a beato Marcellino Presbytero ..., expost aucta a S. Ludgero I.mo Monasteriensi episcopo ... - Stahl, Dusseldorpii 1767. Digitized edition of the university and State Library Düsseldorf
  • Franz Flaskamp : The early Frisian and Saxon mission from a Northumbrian perspective. The testimony of Bede ; in: Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 51 (1969), pp. 183-209
  • Catholic parish St. Suitbertus et al. (Ed.): Life, miracles, and virtues of the h. Swiberti, patrons of the collegiate churches in Kayserswerth, bishops and apostles of Holland, Friesland, Saxony, Westphalia, and other neighboring countries, which he brought to Christianity - described by the h. Marcellino to his fellow companion, and journeyman; and h. Ludgero first bishop of Münster in Westphalia - reissued in the fiftieth year after the death of this holy apostle . Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth 1998
  • Johannes Madey:  Suitbert (also called Suicbert, Swidbert). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 11, Bautz, Herzberg 1996, ISBN 3-88309-064-6 , Sp. 241-242.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Franz Wachter:  Suidbert, the apostle of the Bergisches Land . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 37, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1894, p. 143 f.
  • Christa-Maria Zimmermann, Hans Stöcker (ed.): Kayserswerth. 1300 years of saints, emperors, reformers . Triltsch, Düsseldorf 2nd edition 1981, ISBN 3-7998-0005-0

Web links

Commons : Suibert von Kaiserswerth  - Collection of images, videos and audio files


personal data
SURNAME Suitbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Swidbert; Suitbertus; Suidbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Anglo-Saxon missionary, founder and first abbot of the Kaiserswerth monastery
DATE OF BIRTH at 637
DATE OF DEATH 713