Exemplary Lives: Selected Sermons On The Saints From Rheinau (reforamtion Text In Translation: Theology And Piety)

There is a common structural pattern to be seen in al the saints' sermons from Rheinau, each saint's life demonstrates a particular aspect of holiness and a unique manner through which the cause of the Church is furthered and/or defended. These exemplary lives deserved their places in the original Rheinauer Predigtsammlung and warrant their inclusion in this selection of Medieval Swiss-German sermons with translation from Rheinau. Located on an island in the Rhine River in Switzerland, near Schaffhausen, Rheinau was the site of a Benedictine abbey with the original patrons St. Mary and St. Peter, and, at a later date, St. Catherine. Rheinau Abbey was founded around 780 AD, with monastic activities of varying degrees of intensity continuing there until 1862. The abbey's scriptorium flourished in the twelfth century. In a fifteenth-century Swiss-German manuscript there is a collection of sermons associated with Rheinau Abbey entitled Die Rheinauer Predigtsammlung. As it is stated in 50 of the Dogmatic Constitution on th