Item de eodem.
Hermann's First Victory for Mary
Brother Hermann, newly received into the Teutonic Order, encounters a mounted knight at a joust, unhorses him in the name of the Virgin Mary, and gives the spoils to the poor.
This brother Hermann, after he had already been received into the order of the Teutonic house and was on his way to the place where he was to be clothed, came upon in a certain field a great military force gathered for a joust, and one of them was already mounted on horseback in full armor, prepared with reverence for his own Virgin. When this was heard, brother Hermann — who had promised to serve his Virgin Mary, trusting in her — approached him, and at the very first encounter threw him to the ground, and gave his horse and armor to the poor.
Mary's Lament over the Brothers' Vanity
The blessed Virgin Mary appears to Hermann with a sorrowful countenance, grieving that the brothers of the Teutonic house now speak only of worldly vanities rather than of Christ, herself, and the saints.
Likewise concerning the same. When this brother Hermann had already professed in the order and was advancing wonderfully from virtue to virtue, the blessed Virgin Mary often spoke with him privately and intimately. And it happened at a certain time that the blessed Virgin appeared to him with a troubled countenance, and he more diligently inquired into the cause of her sorrow. She answered: 'This moves me to grief — that my beloved sons, your brothers of the Teutonic house, once used to speak in their discourses not only about my Son and me and the deeds of the saints, but now they report nothing except the deeds of kings and princes and the vanity of the world, so that my Son and I and the life of the saints are rarely or never recounted.'✦
Read the original Latin
Hic frater Hermannus cum jam receptus esset ad ordinem domus Theutonice, et iret ad locum, ubi vestiendus fuit, invenit in quodam campo multam miliciam in hastiludio congregatam, quorum unus jam paratus in equo et armis et reverencia virginis sue. Quo audito frater Hermannus de virgine sua Maria, cui se serviturum promisit, confisus, accessit ad ipsum, et in primo congressu dejecit ad terram, et equum et arma pauperibus erogavit. Item de eodem. si (78) Cum isto fratre Hermanno jam professo in ordine et proficiente mirabiliter de virtute in virtutem, beata virgo Maria sepius secrete et familiariter loquebatur, et accidit quodam tempore, dum beata virgo ei turbato vultu appareret, et ipse tristicie causam diligencius investigaret, ipsa respondit: hoc movet me ad turbacionem, quod dilecti filii mei, fratres tui, de domo Theutonica non referebant quondam in collacionibus suis, nisi de filio meo et me et de gestis sanctorum; modo non referunt, nisi de factis regum et principum et seculi vanitate, ita quod filius meus et ego et sanctorum vita raro vel nunquam recitatur.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.83.8 — Gebal and Ammon and Amalek, Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre
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