Saint Erhard of Regensburg

The sources agree that very little is certain. santiebeati names only three things it calls firm: that he lived at Regensburg in the years around 700, that he died there, and that he was venerated, above all in Bavaria, where many places carry his name. ³ katolsk.no adds that the proof of his existence rests on a strong local tradition, witnessed by names like Erhardsbrunnen and Erhardicrypta around Regensburg, and that his cult appears in calendars from the eighth century. ²

The Catholic Encyclopedia sets out what "seems reliable." Erhard was born in Ireland, then called Scotia, and like many Irishmen he went to the Continent as a missionary bishop or chorepiscopus, a bishop without a fixed see. ¹ It thinks he is probably the Abbot Erhard of Ebersheimmünster in Alsace named in a Merovingian charter of 684, and records that old documents also spell his name Erard and Herhard. ¹ The current Roman Martyrology, as the Italian bishops publish it, describes him as Scottish by origin, using the old name for the Irish, a man burning to preach the Gospel who came to that region and served there as bishop. ¹⁴

Where he was a bishop before, and who made him one, is disputed. katolsk.no and santiebeati report that some scholars make him bishop of Ardagh in Ireland; santiebeati adds that others think he was a traveling bishop ordained by Saint Boniface. ²³

The legends give him two brothers who were also saints. ¹² In the Vosges, the encyclopedia says, he met Saint Hildulf, who was said to have been archbishop of Trier and was living there as a hermit between 666 and 671; Hildulf is called Erhard's brother, "but very likely spiritual relationship was meant." ¹ Each of them, it is said, founded seven monasteries. ¹

katolsk.no and santiebeati are more skeptical. Neither finds solid evidence of the kinship: the word "frater" in some texts may mean only a companion in the faith, though some hagiographers took it literally, and katolsk.no notes that no Hildulf appears in the list of the bishops of Trier. ²³ The other brother, Albert of Cashel, is said to have traveled with Erhard to Rome and then gone on to Jerusalem; katolsk.no observes that the real evidence puts the two men about two hundred years apart. ²³

From the Vosges, the encyclopedia continues, Erhard went to Regensburg and founded the convent of Niedermünster. ¹ katolsk.no gives a different story of how he got there: that he fled Trier after his brother Hildulf died, for fear of being chosen to succeed him, and wandered through Germany preaching with Albert. ²

The episode that made him famous comes from the Life of Saint Odile, the patron saint of Alsace. ²³ She was born blind, the story goes, and received her sight when the bishop Erhard of Regensburg baptized her. ²³ In the encyclopedia's version Erhard was called back to the Rhineland by divine inspiration to baptize her, and afterward sent a messenger to her father, Duke Attich, and reconciled him with the daughter he had disowned. ¹

Another account, which both the encyclopedia and katolsk.no record, says it was Hildulf who baptized her and that Erhard was her sponsor. ¹² santiebeati notes that the hagiographers read the cure as a sign of healing from the blindness of error. ³ Both katolsk.no and santiebeati say it is the part of his life that most caught the popular imagination and most influenced the artists who painted him. ²³ In art, katolsk.no says, he is always shown as a bishop, often baptizing Odile, and often with a book on which lie two eyes. ²

The year of his death is unknown, according to the encyclopedia. ¹ katolsk.no suggests about 686, with a question mark, or 715. ² He was buried at Niedermünster, and the encyclopedia says the crypt that bears his name still survives; katolsk.no places his grave in the north wall of the church, where it has been since Merovingian times. ¹²

Miracles were reported at the grave, and in the Middle Ages it was watched over by a community of women called the "Erhardinonnen," who kept up a perpetual round of prayer there. ¹ katolsk.no says Pope Leo IX approved them and that they lasted until the Reformation. ² In 974 the emperor Otto II gave lands in the Danube valley to the convent "where the holy confessor Erhard rests." ¹

In 1052 Leo IX, in the presence of the emperor Henry III and many bishops, raised the relics of Erhard and of Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg, a ceremony then equivalent to canonization; the encyclopedia dates it October 7, katolsk.no October 8. ¹² Both add that the documents of Regensburg mention only Wolfgang's. ¹² Late in the eleventh century Paul of Bernried wrote a life of Erhard for the abbess of Niedermünster, with a second book of miracles. ¹

Niedermünster, now a parish church, keeps what is said to be his crosier, made of black buffalo horn. ¹² A bone of his skull was set in a precious reliquary in 1866, and the encyclopedia records that on his feast it was placed on the heads of the faithful. ¹

According to katolsk.no, Saint Erhard is co-patron of the diocese of Regensburg with Saints Wolfgang and Emmeram, patron of cattle and those who herd them, and patron of shoemakers, smiths and bakers. ² He is invoked against diseases of the eyes, a patronage that follows from the story of Odile, and against plague and cattle disease. ² katolsk.no adds that he is shown with an axe because he felled the sacred tree of the pagans, and that he is called on in every kind of need. ²

Saint Erhard's feast day is January 8. ¹²³ The current Roman Martyrology, as the Italian bishops publish it, remembers him at Regensburg on that day. ⁴ katolsk.no says the day is kept as a feast in the diocese of Regensburg, which also celebrates the translation of his relics on October 8, and that three ancient Latin lives of him are printed in the Acta Sanctorum under January 8. ²

Almost nothing about him can be proved, and the sources say so plainly. ¹²³ What lasted was a grave, a church, and people who came to pray at it for a thousand years. ¹²

He left one country to preach in another, as many Irish monks did. ¹ The legends give him companions and brothers, and the historians are not sure he had any. ¹²

The story of Odile is about a child her father did not want, who was given sight at her baptism. ¹² It is told in more than one way, and in every version the bishop is part of what brought her back. ¹²³