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 WENRICH

588

WERBtTRGH

every state of the I'nion, preaching to vast multi- tudes in Enghsh, French, or German, as best suited the nationahty of his hearers. In the year 1854 alone he delivered nearly a thousand sermons, and in 1864 he preached about forty-five missions. His zeal also prompted Father Weninger to win souls with the pen and he published forty works in German, sixteen in English, eight in French, three in Latin. Among his principal works are: "Manual of the Catholic Re- ligion" (Ratisbon, 1858); "Easter in Heaven" (Cin- cinnati, 1862); "Sermons" (Mainz, 1881-86).

Woodstock- Letlers, XVIII, 43-68; Hchter, Nomenclator, III, 1217 aqq.

A. C. Cotter.

Wenrich of Trier, German ecclesiastico-political writer of the eleventh century. He was a canon at Verdun, and afterwards scholasticus at Trier. Sige- bert of Gerabloux (P. L., CXL, 584 sq.) calls him also Bishop of Vercelli, but the early documents of the diocese leave no place for him in the list of bishops. Wenrich is the author of an able controversial treatise on behalf of Henry IV during his struggle with Gregory VII (see Investitures, Conflict op). It was probably written in the summer of 1081, at the urgency of Bishop Dietrich of Verdun, to whom it has also been ascribed. The form is that of an open letter to the pope; the tone is friendly, as though what he had to say was painful to the author. Wenrich disputes the efficiency of the emperor's excommunication (1080), opposes the law of cehbacy promulgated by the pope, condemns the inciting of the people against the em- peror, defends investitures by texts of Scripture and the history of the Church, upbraids Gregory for being an accomplice in the setting up of a rival king, and reminds the pope that he himself has been accused of unlawful striving after the papal dignity, and even of the use of force to attain this end. A reply was WTit- ten by Mannegold of Lautenbach.

Wenricus, Epislota sitb The^dorici episcopi Virdunensis no- mine conscripta in A/on. Germ, Hist.: Libelli de lite imperalorum et pontificum. I (Hanover, 1891), 280-99; Mever von Knonau, JahTbiicher der deutschen Gesch. unter Heinrich IV. u. V., Ill (Leipzig, 1900), 406-15; Miubt. Die PubUzistik im Zeitalter GregoTS VII (Leipzig, 1894), passim.

Klemens Loffler.

Werburgh (Wereburga, Wereburg, Verbourg), Saint, Benedictine, patroness of Chester, Abbess of Weedon, Trentham, Hanbury, Minster in Sheppey, and Ely, b. in Staffordshire early in the seventh cen- tury; d. at Trentham, 3 Feb., 699 or 700. Her mother was St. Ermenilda, daughter of Ercombert, King of Kent, and St. Sexburga, and her father, Wulfhere, son of Penda, the fiercest of the Mercian kings. St. Werburgh thus united in her veins the blood of two very difTcrent races: one fiercely cruel and pagan; the other a tjiie of gentle valour and Christian sanctity. In her, likewise, centred the royal blood of all the chief Saxon kings, while her father on the assassination of his elder brother Peada, who had been converted to Christianity, succeeded to the largest kingdom of the heptarchy. Whether Wulfhere was an obstinate pagan who delayed his promised conversion, or a relapsed Christian, is con- troverted, but the legend of the terrible and unnatu- ral crime which has lieen imputed to him by some writers must here be dismissed on the authority of ;dl earlier and contemporary chroniclers, as the Bolland- ists have pointed out. The martyrs, Sts. Wulfald and Rufhn, were not sons of Wulfhere and St. Er- menilda, nor victims of that king's tyranny. Er- menilda at once won the hearts of her subjects, and her zeal bore fruit in the conversion of many among them, while her influence on the passionate character of her husband changed him into a model Christian king. Werburgh inherited her mother's tempera- ment and gifts. On account of her beauty and grace the princess was eagerly sought in marriage, chief among her suitors being Werebode, a headstrong

warrior, to whom Wulfhere was much indebted; but the constancy of Werburgh overcame all obstacles so that at length she obtained her father's consent to enter the Abbey of Ely, which had been founded by her great-aunt, St. Ethieldreda, and the fame of which was widespread.

Wulfhere did not long survive his daughter's con- secration. On his death, St. Ermenilda took the veil at Ely, where she eventually succeeded her mother, St. Sexburga, as abbess. Kenred, Werburgh's brother, being a mere child at his father's death, his uncle Ethelred succeeded to the throne. This king in- vited St. Werburgh to assume the direction of all the monasteries of nuns in his dominion, in order that she might bring them to that high level of discipHne and perfection which had so often edified him at Ely. The saint with some difficulty consented to sacrifice the seclusion she prized, and undertook the work of re- forming the existing Mercian monasteries, and of founding new ones which King Ethelred generously endowed, namely, Trentham and Hanbury, in Staf- fordshire, and Weedon, in Northamptonshire. It had been the privilege of St. Werburgh to be trained by saints; at home by St. Chad (afterwards Bishop of Lichfield), and by her mother, and in the cloister by her aunt and her grandmother. Her position worked no change in the himiility which had always char- acterized her, so that in devotedness to all committed to her care she seemed rather the servant than the mistress. Her sole thought was to excel her sisters in the practice of religious perfection. God rewarded her childlike trust by many miracles, which have made St. Werburgh one of the best known and loved of the Saxon saints. That of the stolen goose appealed most to the popular imagination. The story, im- mortalized in the iconography of St. Werburgh, re- lates that by a simple command she banished a flock of wild geese that was working havoc in the cornfields of Weedon, and that since then none of these birds has been seen in those parts. She was also endowed with the gifts of prophecy and of reading the secrets of hearts. Knowing how devoted her different com- munities were to her and how each would endeavour to secure the possession of her body after death, she determined to forestall such pious rivalry by choosing Hanbury as her place of burial. But the nuns of the monastery of Trentham determined to keep the re- mains. "They not only refused to deliver them to those who came from Hanbury, but they even locked up the coffin in a crypt and set a guard to watch it. The people of Hanbury sent out anew a large party to make good their claims. Reaching Trentham at midnight all the bolts and bars yielded at their touch, while the guards were overpowered by sleep and knew not that the coffin was being carried to Hanbury.

So numerous and marvellous were the cures worked at the saint's tomb that in 708 her body was solemnly translated to a more conspicuous place in the church, in presence of her brother, Kenred, who had now suc- ceeded King Ethelred. In spite of having been nine years in the tomb, the body was intact. So great was the impression made on Kenred that he resolved to resign his crown and followed in his sister's footsteps. In 875, through fear of the Danes and in order to show greater honour to the saint, the bodv was removed to Chester. The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, on the site of the present cathedral of Chester, w-as re- dedicated to St. \A'erburgh and St. Oswald, most probably in the reign of Athelstan. The great Leo- fric. Earl of Mercia (who was likewise styled Earl of Chester), and his wife, Liidy (!odiv:i. repaired and en- larged the church, and in lOO.'i, Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, richly endowed the abbe\- and its church. By the instrumentality of this noble, Chester, which had been in the hands of secular canons, became a great Beneflictine abbey, the name of St. Anselm, then a monk at Bee, being associated with this trans-