CONRAD OF BAVARIA, BL.

Cistercian monk; b. c. 1105; d. Modugno, Italy, March 17, 1154. He was the son of Henry the Black (d.1126), duke of Bavaria. Conrad studied in cologne and entered the Abbey of morimond in 1125. St. bernard took him to clairvaux when Abbot Arnold of Morimond left the monastery without his superiors' permission, to make a new foundation in the Holy Land. In Clairvaux Conrad led a virtuous life under Bernard's tutelage. Years later Conrad was permitted by the abbot to go to the Holy Land and live there as a hermit, but he remained in contact with Clairvaux. Toward the end of his life, he left Palestine for the West, hoping to die with Bernard at his bedside. On landing in bari he learned of the death of the saint, whereupon he took up residence at a Marian shrine in Modugno, where he lived as an anchorite and awaited death. His relics rest in a silver shrine under his altar in the cathedral of Molfetta. A mass in Conrad's honor was celebrated already in the 13th century, but his cult was approved only on April 7, 1832. Apart from veneration among the Cistercians, his cult is observed in Molfetta, Bari, and Venosa.

Feast: Feb. 14.

Bibliography: Historia Welforum, ed. e. kÖnig (Stuttgart 1938). a. m. zimmermann, Kalendarium Benedictinum: Die Heiligen und Seligen des Benediktinerorderns und seiner Zweige, 4 v. (Metten 1933–38) 1:211, 213. s. lenssen, Hagiologium cisterciense, 2 v. (Tilburg 1948–49; sup. 1951) 1:88. j. m. canivez, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. a. baudrillart (Paris 1912–) 13:480. l. grill, "Der hl. Bernhardv. Clairvaux…," in Festschrift zum 800 Jahrgedächtnis des Todes Bernhards von Clairvaux (Vienna 1953) 31–118. a. butler, The Lives of the Saints, ed. h. thurston and d. attwater, 4 v. (New York 1956) 1:337–338.

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