Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.
RUPERT (HRUOBERT, RUPRECHT), Saint. - First bishop of Salzburg, d. 27 March 718 (?). A monk, Irish or Scottish by birth or at least in education and spiritual formation, he was summoned, in the early years of Childeric III, king of the Franks (691-711), to Regensburg by Duke Theodo of Bavaria for the conversion of his people. R. was bishop at Worms, or at least a chorepiscopus.
R. established the first episcopal see on the banks of Wallersee, building a church in honor of St. Peter, patron of the cathedral of Worms (the present Seekirchen, Upper Austria); but soon he received from Theodo a more suitable location, on the Salzach, among the ruins of ancient Iuvavum (now Salzburg). R. energetically devoted himself to the work of converting and civilizing the vast subalpine and alpine regions (as far as the Tauern and the Enns), establishing as centers of irradiation the abbey of St. Peter (Sankt Peter, in Salzburg), and that of nuns, dedicated to St. Mary (Nonnberg), headed by his niece St. Erentrude.
The figure and work of the Saint survived in the veneration of the people; one of his first successors, St. Virgil, transferred the relics of R. to the new cathedral (24 Sept. 774), which, according to the practice of the time, amounted to a true canonization. R. is the patron saint of the city, diocese and province of Salzburg, greatly venerated also in Bavaria, patron of the salt mines, the wealth of those regions, for which he is almost always represented with a small barrel of salt in his hand. Feast day 27 March.
BIBL.: Sources: earliest life (c. 870), i.e., the beginning of the Libellus de conversione Bagoariorum et Carantanorum, in MGH, Scriptores, XI, pp. 4-5; to be framed with the older but very summary notices of the Notitia Arnonis and the Breves notitiae (history of the bishopric of Salzburg, c. 790), in Salisburger Urkundenbuch, I, Salzburg 1910, p. 1 ff.; Vita or Gesta Hruoberti (c. 740, but according to others c. 850), in MGH, Script. rerum Meroving., VI, p. 140 ff. The literature on R. is very extensive, especially because of the question of the time in which he lived. Recent treatments in E. Tomek, Kirchengesch. Österr., I, Innsbruck 1935, pp. 65-70; W. Hauthaler, Die dem hl. R., Apostel V. Bayern, geweihten Kirchen u. Kapellen, Salzburg 1885; J. Braun, Tracht u. Attribute der Heiligen in der deutschen Kunst, Stuttgart 1943, pp. 636-37. Giuseppe Löw
Cite this article
“RUPERTO (HRUOBERT, RUPRECHT), SANTO.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. X (1953), p. 859. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/ruperto-hruobert-ruprecht-santo.
