Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Macarius

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1452044Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 34 — Macarius1893William Hunt

MACARIUS, called Scotus (d. 1153), abbot, is said to have migrated from Scotland to Germany in 1139, and to have in that year been appointed the first abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St. James, which had just been built in a suburb of Würzburg by Bishop Embrich. He is described as eminently holy, given to asceticism, constant in prayer, and both in life and after death a great worker of miracles. His most famous miracle, the turning of water into wine, was recorded on his tomb in his abbey church. It is said to have caused Bishop Embrich to make over a prebend in his cathedral to the Scottish monks of St. James's, and the prebend remained attached to the monastery until the sixteenth century. Macarius visited Rome, and was honourably received by the pope. He died in 1153. He wrote a book, ‘De Laude Martyrum’ (Eysengrein). Dempster, followed by Tanner, also ascribes to him ‘De Scotorum in Germania Monasteriis,’ and ‘Epistolæ ad Eugenium III papam.’

[Eysengrein's Catalogus Testium, ff. 95 b, 96; Tritheim's Ann. Hersaugienses, i. 400, 425; Dempster's Hist. Eccl. Gentis Scotorum, vol. xii. sec. 828 (Bannatyne Club edit. ii. 446).]

W. H.