Wunibald
Saint Wunibald (also Wynnebald , Winnebald ) (* 701 in Wessex , † December 18, 761 in Heidenheim ) was the founder and first abbot of the Heidenheim monastery on the Hahnenkamm .
Life
Descent, career, stays in Rome
Wunibald was one of four sons of a wealthy Anglo-Saxon in southern England, who was venerated as Saint Richard from the 12th century . The mother's name is unknown; she is venerated as holy Wuna from the Middle Ages . He lost his mother early; the name of his stepmother has also not been passed down. Of his at least five (step) siblings, including two sisters, only his brother Willibald (* 700) and his sister Walburga (* around 710) are known by name. The family was probably related to Winfried Bonifatius . While Willibald was brought to the Waldheim monastery at the age of five, Wunibald stayed at home.
In 720/21 Wunibald undertook a pilgrimage to Rome with Willibald and his father, renouncing "his father's inheritance" (Vita) . After his father's death in Lucca and his brother's departure for Palestine in the spring of 723 , Wunibald completed a theological training in Rome and received the tonsure .
From 727 he stayed in England to recruit countrymen. In 730 he returned to Rome with a younger brother, where he stayed until 738.
Missionary activity in Germania
Around 738 he was called by Boniface during his third trip to Rome together with Willibald for missionary work in Bavaria and Thuringia . Bonifatius then consecrated him the following year in Sülzenbrücken, Thuringia, as a priest and appointed him as administrator of a district of seven churches, including Sülzenbrücken.
In 744 he stayed with the Bavarian Duke Odilo of Bavaria , who bequeathed goods to him. From approx. 744 to 747 he stayed as a missionary at the Nordfiluse (in today's Upper Palatinate). Then he was a preacher in Mainz until 751 .
Abbot in Heidenheim
In the spring of 752, after acquiring land, he founded the Heidenheim monastery in Sualagau with Willibald, who had been monastery bishop in Eichstätt since 741, and presided over him as abbot.
Shortly before his death, Wunibald, who suffered from a serious rheumatic disease throughout his life , traveled to Würzburg and Fulda . In 761 he decided to enter the Montecassino monastery , in whose reconstruction Willibald played a key role from 729 to 739, but on the advice of his relatives, he did not realize this decision. He died on December 18, 761 in Heidenheim Monastery in the presence of Willibald. After his death, the management of the Heidenheim Abbey, which was expanded into a double monastery, was transferred to Walburga under the Franconian fief law; but already around 790 Bishop Gerhoh occupied Heidenheim with secular canons .
Canonization, biography and devotion
The elevation and translation of Wunibald's bones by Willibald into the crypt of the new building of the monastery church on the day of the second equinox on September 24, 777 and the consecration of the church on the anniversary of the transfer on September 24, 778 were tantamount to a local canonization of Wunibald. In September 879 the bones were raised again and - together with the relics of St. Walburga - transferred to Eichstätt, but brought back after three days. In 889, King Arnulf gave the Eichstätter Church the previously unlocatable place Sezzi, which Bonifatius, Willibald, Sola and also Wunibald are said to have often visited. Gundekar II , from 1057 to 1075 Bishop of Eichstätt, set the day of Wunibald's commemoration on December 18 and accepted him in his pontifical , the Gundekarianum , under the twelve diocesan patrons. In the period that followed, several churches received the Wunibald patronage and Wunibald was devoted to veneration in several calendars outside the diocese. However, his devotion was never as widespread as that of St. Willibald and especially that of St. Walburga.
The Benedictine monastery in Heidenheim was rebuilt from 1152 to 1555. Between 1182 and 1196 the relics were translated by Bishop Otto into the new monastery church. In 1256 the Wunibald relics were once again in Eichstätt for a short time. In 1363 they were buried in the new choir of the Heidenheim church. It is questionable whether they were ever reburied in the late Gothic tumba built in 1483/84 at the entrance to the high altar ; when the Tumba opened in 1969 there was only earth in it. It is proven that in 1606 the margraves Christian and Joachim-Ernst von Ansbach handed over the head of the saint to Scheer (Württemberg) to truchess Christoph von Waldburg; there it is still venerated today in a precious reliquary . After the last Heidenheim abbot resigned and married in 1529, the Protestant church service was introduced in 1533 and the monastery was dissolved in 1537.
After 778 the nun Hugeburc from Heidenheim drew the biography of her relative Wunibald based on reports from Walburga and Willibald and summarized it with that of Willibald to a double vita . Her “Vita Wynnebaldi” gives a good insight into the thinking and work of an English traveling missionary at the time of the founding of the Central German dioceses, even if one cannot expect precise dates and descriptions.
Remembrance day
The day of remembrance of St. Wunibald in the liturgy of the Catholic , Protestant and Greek Orthodox Churches is December 18th .
The following peasant rules apply to the day of the saint's remembrance :
- Around the day of Wunibald, it usually gets really cold.
literature
- Andreas Bauch: Riddle about the Wunibald grave. In: Church newspaper for the diocese of Eichstätt. 32nd volume (1969), No. 24 of June 15, 1969, p. 7.
- Andreas Bauch: Sources on the history of the Diocese of Eichstätt. Volume I. Biographies of the early days. 2nd, revised edition. Pustet, Regensburg 1984, ISBN 3-7917-0898-8 .
- Xaver Buchner: S. Wunnibald. Apostle of the North and Sualafeldgau. I. His vita of the contemporary Hugeburg, II. His admiration inside and outside the diocese of Eichstätt. M. Lassleben, Kallmünz 1951.
- Bernd Goebel : Wynnebald. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 22, Bautz, Nordhausen 2003, ISBN 3-88309-133-2 , Sp. 1577-1580.
- Klaus Guth: Willibald's pilgrimage to the Holy Land (723-727 / 29). Analysis of an early medieval travel report. In: Collection sheet of the Historical Association Eichstätt. 75: 13-28 (1982).
- Heinrich Hahn : Wynnebald . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 45, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1900, p. 643 f.
- Johann Baptist Kurz: The own monasteries in the diocese of Eichstätt. Brönner & Däntler, Eichstätt 1923.
- St. Wunibald. A simple saintly life. In: St. Willibalds-Bote Eichstätt. December 16, 1962, p. [6] f.
- St. Willibald 787–1987 (exhibition catalog). Eichstatt 1987.
Web links
supporting documents
- ↑ Church newspaper for the diocese of Eichstätt, 32nd year (1969), No. 24, p. 7.
- ↑ Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints: Wunibald von Heidenheim
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wunibald |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Saint, Abbot of Heidenheim |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 701 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Wessex |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 18, 761 |
| Place of death | Heidenheim |