Utto (abbot)

Utto meets Charlemagne (fresco in the vestibule of the Metten monastery church)

Blessed Utto (attested to around 770/784) was the first abbot of the Bavarian Benedictine monastery in Metten . His feast day is October 3rd.

Live and act

Utto was probably initially a monk in Reichenau Monastery ; his place of birth is unknown. According to tradition, he was a relative and the godchild of the priest and landlord Gamelbert in the Bavarian Michaelsbuch , which is a few kilometers before the confluence of the Isar on the right side of the Danube (near today's town of Plattling ). When Gamelbert founded the Metten Monastery on his property around 766, he is said to have entrusted his relative Utto with the settlement. Utto, who came to Metten with twelve other monks from Reichenau, was appointed by him as the first abbot of the monastery. The name of Abbot Utto von Metten appears in 772 in the fraternity book of the Synod of Dingolfing and 784 in the fraternity book of the Abbey of St. Peter in Salzburg.

Legend

When the late medieval legend made Charlemagne the founder of the Metten Monastery, Utto became a hermit in the woods near Metten. Charlemagne met him on the hunt and, at the request of the pious man, had promised to found a monastery in honor of St. Michael (after 788). A small church ( Uttobrunn ) has been remembering the place of this alleged meeting at a spring since the 17th century . This legend also owes the (historically untenable) date of the death of Blessed Utto to the year 829.

In 1911, Max Kanzlsperger (1886–1963) composed a “religious cantata with living images” on the life and legend of Blessed Utto based on a text by the Metten conventual Bonifaz Rauch .

Relics

Shrine with the relics of Blessed Utto in the monastery church of Metten

A medieval abbot's staff, which is venerated as the staff of Blessed Utto, is kept in Metten Monastery to this day . The Curva from walrus tusk in the form of a dragon surrounding a lamb with flag of victory, but can not be dated before the start of the 13th century because of comparable properties. The staff itself could be older, as a bronze ribbon below the curva bears the Latin inscription in Roman capitals: QVOD DŇS [= Dominus] PETRO, PETRVS TIBI CONTVLIT, VTTO (“What the Lord has given Peter, Peter has given you, Utto ").

literature

Bernhard Ponschab: The blessed Utto and Gamelbert. The story of their worship and their life , Regensburg 1910.
Uwe Puschner : Utto. In: Karl Bosl (ed.): Bosls Bavarian biography. Pustet, Regensburg 1983, ISBN 3-7917-0792-2 , p. 798 ( digitized version ).
Ekkart Sauser : Utto (abbot). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 19, Bautz, Nordhausen 2001, ISBN 3-88309-089-1 , Sp. 1462-1464. ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )

Web links

Illustration and brief description of the Utto staff in the Real Lexicon for German Art History

Remarks

↑ year of death, for example, mentioned in: Utto, B. . In: Johann E. Stadler , Franz Joseph Heim, Johann N. Ginal (eds.): Complete Lexicon of Saints ... , Volume 5 (Q-Z), B. Schmid'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung (A. Manz), Augsburg 1882, pp. 631-632 .

personal data
SURNAME	Utto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Abbot Utto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Bavarian head of the monastery, founder abbot von Metten
DATE OF BIRTH	around 770
DATE OF DEATH	8th century or 9th century

[1] year of death, for example, mentioned in: Utto, B. . In: Johann E. Stadler , Franz Joseph Heim, Johann N. Ginal (eds.): Complete Lexicon of Saints ... , Volume 5 (Q-Z), B. Schmid'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung (A. Manz), Augsburg 1882, pp. 631-632 .