Tyrol (Austria) -- Description and travel; Tyrol (Austria) -- History
One of the most famous of the old-time inmates of the Abbey was
Petermann, once a lover of the licentious Margaret of Tyrol, yclept
"Pocket-Mouthed Meg." After her abdication in 1367, Petermann entered
the monastery to expiate the sins and follies of his youth. He endowed
the Abbey with an estate, but he showed his business capacity by
having an agreement drawn up with the Abbot setting forth the terms
upon which he joined the brotherhood. Amongst other things he was,
firstly, to derive benefit from all the masses said by the monks, and
the good works performed by them; secondly, was to have two servants
to wait upon him, who were to share the meals of the brethren;
thirdly, he, himself, was to have food similar to that served to the
Abbot and wines from the monastic cellar. Apparently the arrangement
did not, after all, fit in with the views of Petermann, for we find he
afterwards insisted upon an increase in his food allowance to the
extent of a capon, four fowls, forty eggs, and four pounds of butter,
with sufficient hay for the feeding of his three horses.
[Illustration: A PINE WOOD NEAR INNSBRUCK]
[Sidenote: A LEGEND OF WILTEN]
The other church at Wilten (the Parish Church), which stands on the
opposite side of Leopold-Strasse, dates only from the latter part of
the eighteenth century, and was built as a secular church in
conformity with the decree of the Emperor Joseph II., by Franz Penz of
Telfs, in the Rococo style of architecture. On the high altar of the
church is a very ancient and quaint Madonna known as "Mutter Gottes
unter den vier Saülen" carved in sandstone, the legend relating to
which is as follows: The "Thundering Legion" of Marcus Aurelius, when
stationed at Veldidena about the year 137, brought this image with
them, which they are stated to have worshipped, and on one occasion,
when departing for an expedition to a distant part of the country,
they buried it under four trees, and as they did not return had no
opportunity of resurrecting it. There it lay for many years, until
one, Rathold Von Aiblingen, after making a pilgrimage to Rome, where
he heard the story of its burying and the place of its concealment,
dug it up and set it upon the altar in a _baldachino_, which was
supported by four pillars, where it has always been an object of much
veneration. Amongst its many famous devotees was Frederick of the
Empty Purse, who, during his wanderings through Tyrol with his trusty
Hans Von Müllinen, when under the ban of the church, came and knelt
before the shrine and prayed for a blessing. Afterwards, when he had
regained his possessions, he attributed his success to the
intervention of the Madonna at Wilten and caused a picture to be
painted of himself and his esquire, in which they are shown kneeling
at the shrine under the protective mantle of the Virgin. This quaint
picture is now hung in the church amongst many other curious and often
pathetic votive offerings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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