Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Disibod
DISIBOD, Saint (594?–674), bishop, was the son of one of the lesser chieftains in Ireland. In his boyhood, a warlike ruler having subjugated the neighbouring chieftains, his parents removed for safety to a distant part of the territory, ‘near a river flowing from the sea.’ Here they placed the boy in charge of some religious men to be instructed in ‘letters and other liberal arts.’ When arrived at the age of thirty he was ordained, and shortly after, as it would seem, the bishop of the place died, and an assembly of the people of all ranks was held, according to custom, to elect a successor. Disibod was chosen in spite of objections to his taciturn and ascetic habits, and was compelled against his will to accept the office. According to his life, by the Abbess Hildegardis, ‘great scandals prevailed all over Ireland at this time; some rejected the Old and New Testament and denied Christ; others embraced heresies; very many went over to Judaism; some relapsed into paganism, and others desired to live like beasts, not men.’ Disibod contended for many years with these evils, ‘not without bodily danger,’ but at length he was wearied out and resolved to resign his bishopric. Collecting a few religious men, he left Ireland and travelled through many regions. At length he arrived in Alemannia, which corresponded nearly to the present territory of Baden. In a vision of the night he was told he should find a suitable place for settlement. Hearing a good report of the people dwelling on the left bank of the Rhine, he went in that direction, and, crossing the river Glan, perceived a lofty hill clothed with forest. Here, after ten years' wandering, he resolved to settle with his three friends, and forming a separate place of abode for himself he led the life of a hermit, subsisting on roots and herbs. His dress was the same as that he wore when leaving Ireland, of coarse material, and his food scarcely sufficient to sustain life. The tidings of his strange manner of life spread abroad. He had been a diligent student of the language of the people since his arrival in Germany, and now he was able to speak to his visitors ‘the word of life and salvation.’ When his community was finally established, the monks occupied a range of huts in Irish fashion on the brow of the declivity, while he dwelt in his cell lower down and apart from them. The reason assigned for this is that they followed the rule of St. Benedict, while he, living according to the much severer Egyptian manner, did not wish to have a contrast drawn to the disadvantage of his brethren. Though a bishop in his own country, he never after his expulsion celebrated the eucharist ‘after the order appointed for bishops, but according to the usage of poor presbyters.’ He still, however, according to the custom in such cases, acted as a bishop in his own monastery, being, according to Dr. Todd, an episcopus regionarius, or abbot-bishop, without jurisdiction out of his abbacy. He frequently wished to appoint a head over the community, but the monks strenuously objected, and would have none while he lived. Thirty years he served God on that mountain, and when his death was manifestly at hand, he was permitted by his sorrowing monks to place an abbot over them. He was buried at his own desire, not on the higher ground, but in the lowly shade of his oratory, where as a solitary he had served God. His death took place in the eighty-first year of his age. His remains were enshrined in the following century by Boniface, archbishop of Mentz. Some continental writers have questioned his right to the title of bishop because Hildegardis only terms him ‘an anchorite and a solitary,’ and Rabanus Maurus only ‘a confessor;’ but bishops in Ireland occupied a different position from those abroad, where diocesan episcopacy existed, and they were very often hermits. He is, however, expressly styled a bishop, not only by Hildegardis, but in the chronicle of Marianus Scotus. There is also incidental evidence of it in the representations of the saint on a curious bronze frame discovered in the seventeenth century, and which is figured in the ‘Acta Sanctorum.’ In this work, supposed to be of the twelfth century, he appears wearing a crown, which was the episcopal headdress in Ireland, as also in the eastern church. Some uncertainty has been expressed as to his date, chiefly in consequence of the statement of Hildegardis that when he arrived in Germany St. Benedict had died ‘quite lately’ (nuperrime), and as that event took place in 534, the inference would be that Disibod flourished in the sixth century. But the life written by the Abbess Hildegardis is not such a composition as inspires the reader with confidence in her accuracy. She was an enthusiast who heard a divine voice desiring her to write, and the life is a mere rhapsody, giving fantastic interpretations of scripture, and leading to the conclusion that she was scarcely sane. At any rate, it cannot outweigh the testimony of Marianus Scotus, if his words are rightly interpreted. The entry in his ‘Chronicle’ at the year 674 is ‘egressio St Disibodi.’ This is understood by Colgan and others to mean his death, and no doubt correctly. If so he must have been born about 594. The extensive ruins of Disibodenberg may still be seen. They are situated on the tongue of land south of the rivers Nahe and Glan, affluents of the Rhine, and about two miles south-east of Creuznach.
[Bollandists' Acta Sanct. Julii, ii. 581, &c.; Dr. Todd's St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, p. 109; Surius, iv. 141; Warren's Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church, p. 128.]