De laudabili vita cujusdam fratris de Kunigsbergk.
A Brother's Marian Devotion and Merciful Deed
Brother Hermann of Königsberg, renowned for his deep love of the Blessed Virgin Mary, releases a captured knight who appeals to him in her name, sparing him without ransom.
At this time there was a brother in the convent of the brothers at Königsberg Castle, Hermann by name, called the Saracen, born in Swabia, who, while he was still a man of the world, loved the blessed Virgin Mary so deeply that he would refuse nothing to anyone who asked him in her name. And so it happened that when a certain knight captured by him in war was being pressed either to pay a fixed sum of money, which he was unable to hand over, or to face a death sentence, the knight, having been advised by someone, asked him —12 — that for the reverence he bore the blessed Virgin Mary he would spare him. And that prayer being heard, he released him at once without any demand for payment.3
Read the original Latin
Hoc tempore in conventu fratrum de Castro Kunigsbergk fuit frater Hermannus dictus Sarracenus, natus deSwevia, qui cum adhuc esset secularis tantum dilexit beatam virginem Mariam, ut nulli petenti in nomine ipsius aliquid denegaret. Unde accidit, quod dum quidam miles captus ab eo in bello artaretur, ut aut certam summam pecuniec, quam solvere non poterat, daret, aut capitalem sentenciamd subiret, instructus per quendam, rogavit eum dictus miles,. ut ob reverenciam beate virginis Mariee parceret ei, quaf prece audita, statim sine omni exactione absolvit eum.
Notes
- 1 ↩artaretur: rare verb, sense uncertain; rendered as 'was being pressed/constrained' based on context of ransom negotiation.
- 2 ↩pecuniec / sentenciamd: uncertain morphology in the source; rendered according to the most plausible intended sense (genitive of money, accusative of sentence).
- 3 ↩quaf: uncertain form, possibly qua (ablative); rendered as 'that' connecting the prayer to its answer.
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