Odilia, the patron saint of Alsace, whose name is a household word among her own countrymen, and about whom Goethe grew enthusiastic, was an undoubted Guelph.] Hence, also, their connection with the whilom country of the Burgundians, among the nobles of which land we find a Guelph chief, in 605, standing up manfully against the aggressive usurpations of Protadius, a Frankish major-domo, and acting as spokesman. As _missi cameræ_ the Guelphs had a serious brush with the Church--the only tiff, practically speaking, which ever occurred between them and Rome. Of this quarrel, in which the Guelphs were probably in the right, we find a tradition kept up for some centuries. The Abbot of St. Gall figured in those days in Germany as the exact counterpart to the rich and grasping "Abbot of Canterbury" of our ballad. For some pilfering of crown lands the Guelph Warin, as a conscientious _missus cameræ_, had Abbot Othmar imprisoned, which brought about the Abbot's death. Rome at once canonized her "martyr," and exacted heavy retribution from his "persecutors," not merely in the shape of severe penances and the foundation of masses, but by the more substantial satisfaction of large transfers of landed estates to the injured abbey--Affeltangen and Wiesendangen, and I know not how many properties more, till even to the pious Guelphs the demands appeared to grow beyond all measure of reason. It is true, they recouped themselves elsewhere--_quod si cui minus credibile videatur_, say the monkish chroniclers--"which, if to any it appear a little incredible, let him read the ancient histories, and he will find nearly all their territories to have been violently taken and held by them of others."