BERTHOLD OF RATISBON. - The best German preacher of the Middle Ages, b. at Ratisbon shortly before 1210, d. there on 14 Dec. 1272. Having entered the Franciscans in the Bavarian custody of the province of Argentina or Upper Germany, he became one of the greatest popular preachers and apostles of the 13th century, practical and most lively. Out of humility and love of the people, he called himself Rusticama; the people called him "the holy friar" and "the new Elijah." He had as friend and companion in preaching, if not as master of novices, the ascetic Friar David of Augsburg (v.). As a popular preacher he traveled all over southern Germany, Switzerland, Moravia, Bohemia, Austria and Hungary. Urban IV designated him, together with Albert the Great, preacher of the Crusade. His preaching marked a clear departure (and for this reason was appreciated also by his great confrere Roger Bacon) from the preaching then in vogue, abstract, scholastic and for that reason less effective. That of B., joined to holiness of life and to miraculous works, was plain, always adhering to the doctrinal foundations of dogma, nourished on Holy Scripture, and responsive to the needs of the people. And the people flocked in immense crowds (up to 40, 60 and 100 thousand persons, according to the chroniclers of the time: cf. Salimbene, Chronica, ed. Holder-Egger, in MGH, XXXII, pp. 559-63). Uninterrupted cult was rendered to him down to Napoleonic times, and the title of blessed is still given him in his Order and in Bavaria.
His writings, besides a lost commentary on the Apocalypse, mentioned by Salimbene, and perhaps a De institutione vitae religiosae mentioned by Mariano da Firenze (which, however, seems to have to be identified with the De exterioris et interioris hominis compositione of David of Augsburg), embrace various books of Sermons, in Latin and German, of great interest for the oratory and the ascetic doctrine contained in them. Besides the German discourses, fragmentary, certainly collected and retouched by other hands, there are counted about 400 Latin Sermones, of which 58 de Dominicis, 125 de Sanctis, 75 de communi Sanctorum, 87 Sermones ad religiosos and 48 Sermones speciales vel extravagantes. They were published several times, wholly or in part (G. Jakob, Die lateinischen Reden des sel. Berthold v. R., Ratisbon 1880). For the German sermons: edition by F. Pfeiffer and J. Strobl (2 vols., Vienna 1862-80); anthology by O. H. Brandt (Leipzig 1924); cf. F. Göbel, Die Missionspredigen des Franziskaners Berthold v. R. in jetziger Schriftsprache (Ratisbon 1873, 5th ed. 1929). The critical edition is being prepared by the Capuchins of Fribourg (Switzerland).
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