ON THE BLESSED EUPHEMIA, ABBESS OF THE CONVENT OF VIRGINS OF S. ALTO, IN BAVARIA.
>IN THE YEAR 1180
HISTORICAL COLLECTION
Concerning her birth, sanctity, age, title of Blessed.
Euphemia, Abbess of the convent of Virgins of S. Alto, in Bavaria (B.)
G. H. & D. P.
The deeds of St. Alto the Abbot we have set down on the day of his birth (to heaven), the 9th of February; and we said, that the monastery founded by him, in the eighth century of Christ, in upper Bavaria, situated between Augsburg and Munich; and that in it at the beginning Monks lived; who being translated to Altorf, there were introduced Nuns, professing virginity under some Abbess set over them. Such was there the Blessed Euphemia, of the most noble Andechs family, born of her father Berthold, and her mother Sophia, The noble Andechs family. sister of Gisala; who was the mother of four Bishops, and of B. Mathildis the Virgin Nun in the Diessen monastery of the same Bavaria: at whose Life, illustrated on the 31st of May, we treated of the antiquity of the Andechs family. This B. Euphemia desired to be buried with her sister B. Mathildis in the Diessen convent; Epitaph. where the epitaph in German words is read with this sense: Here under a smaller stone lies buried the Blessed Euphemia the Virgin, Abbess of the monastery of S. Alto, sister of the Divine Mathildis, and daughter of Berthold the Count of Andechs, our founder. Death on the 17th of June. She died in the year 1180. This was submitted to us by the Lord Simon Provost of Diessen, asserting, that in a most ancient Manuscript Calendar of his monastery, the day of her death is noted as this 17th of June. And he added this synopsis of her Life.
[2] Synopsis of her Life Our Blessed Mechtildis had as her own sister the Blessed Euphemia: who, wisely reckoning of little account that she was equal to her in illustrious blood, and, at the Apostle's exhortation striving to emulate better gifts, rather strove in the perfect manner of living to assimilate herself to her in every way. And so, having entered the monastery of S. Alto in Bavaria, under the rule of St. Benedict, she fully attained this, that to her sister she might seem a true sister no less in virtues, than in the splendor of her birth: inasmuch as she proved her own innocence to the Sisters excellently, by the constant exercise of pious actions. Whence in a short time it came about, that by the common votes of the same she was substituted into the place of the deceased Abbess. Which office when she had for a long time fulfilled both piously and prudently, full of the merits of good works, she is called to her rewards in heaven, on the seventeenth of June, in the year of salvation one thousand one hundred and eighty; having obtained a burial fitting her own desire, in the monastery of her parents, Diessen, with the Blessed Mechtildis; made the diligent imitator of her, as she herself of Christ. Thus he.
[3] Matthaeus Raderus in the second volume of Holy Bavaria published a small elogium on page 289 under this title, S. Euphemia Abbess of the convent of Virgins of S. Alto. she is called Saint by Raderus, The rest are more accurately set forth in the synopsis submitted to us, with which alone we give the title of Blessed. Andreas Brunner, when in part 3 of the Annals of the virtue and fortune of the Bavarians, book 12 num. 9, he had described the virtues and miracles of B. Mechtildis, at the end adds these things: With equal sanctity her sister Euphemia, set over the monastery of the Divine Alto, lived, but the records of her have not found a writer, or by the fault of the times they perished. For the rest, from the silence of Raderus and of the Provost Simon himself, we are compelled to believe; that all worship of B. Euphemia, if any once existed in her monastery, the worship, if there was any, being abolished. through the neglect of posterity has died out, only the title of Blessed or Saint remaining: which defect the extreme negligence of the preceding centuries readily renders credible to us, concerning the worship of the native Saints, through Germany even in those provinces, which the Lutheran heresy raging everywhere they somehow repelled from themselves; as was done in Bavaria, we rejoice indeed, but not therefore less do we grieve over the many monuments of ancient Religion either lost, or not sought after, while for the highest interest of the Catholic cause against the heretics by religious men watch is kept more zealously, and by princes more laboriously it is contended.