November 4
BD EMERIC (A.D. 1031)
The ninth centenary of the death of Bd Emeric (Imre) was kept with solemnity in Hungary in 1931, but not many reliable particulars of his short life are available. He was the only son of St. Stephen, King of Hungary, born in the year 1007, and was educated by St Gerard Sagredo. When the Emperor Conrad II planned to disendow the diocese of Bamberg he proposed to give the young prince Emeric an interest in the spoliation, but this St Stephen would not allow. The authenticity of Stepen's "instructions" to his son is denied, but he was desirous of handing over some of his responsibilities to Emeric (it is not true that he resigned his crown to him); before this could be done Emeric was killed while hunting. "God loved him, and so He took him away soon", exclaimed St Stephen when the news was brought to him. The prince was buried in the church at Székesfehérvár, and many marvels were wrought at his tomb. The bodies of father and son were "elevated" together in 1083, and he is generally referred to as Saint Emeric, but he is called only beatus in the Roman Martyrology.
There is a Latin life which was written by some ecclesiastic whose name is not recorded, but who compiled it when Emeric had been dead for nearly a century. The text has been critically edited by Father Poncelet in the Acta Sanctorum, November, vol. ii. As a historical document this life is not very reliable, but it may be supplemented by information derived from such sources as the Annales Hildesheimenses, the Life of St Stephen, etc. Cf. C.A. Macartney, The Medieval Hungarian Historians (1953).
(Butler's Lives of the Saints, Christian Classics, 1995, vol. iv, p. 266)
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(Butler's Lives of the Saints, Christian Classics, 1995)
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