Confessor Gothard

Saint Gothard, also rendered Gotthard or Godehard, was a Benedictine monk and bishop of the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, venerated in the Latin Church as a confessor. Traditional accounts place his birth around the middle of the tenth century at Reichersdorf (called Ritenbach in some older sources), a village near the abbey of Niederaltaich in Bavaria. His father Ratmund was connected with that monastery, and Gothard received his education there. He entered the Benedictine community of Niederaltaich, was ordained priest, and became associated with the Gorze movement of monastic reform, which sought a stricter return to the Rule of Saint Benedict.

In 996 he was made abbot of Niederaltaich, with the support of Bishop Pilgrim of Passau and of Duke Henry of Bavaria, later Emperor Henry II. As abbot he restored regular observance and learning at Niederaltaich. Henry subsequently charged him with reforming other houses, among them Tegernsee, Hersfeld, and Kremsmünster. That work occupied much of the first two decades of the eleventh century and established Gothard’s reputation as a restorer of monastic discipline. In 1022, after the death of Saint Bernward, Henry II appointed him Bishop of Hildesheim. He was consecrated the same year and governed the see until his death.

As bishop he continued the building and liturgical life of the cathedral church of Hildesheim, founded or restored religious houses including a monastery of Saint Maurice, and was remembered for pastoral care of the poor and the sick. He kept close ties with the imperial court and with the reformed Benedictine network he had helped to shape. Gothard died at Hildesheim on 5 May 1038 and was buried in the cathedral. Veneration at his tomb developed in the following decades.

Bishop Bernard of Hildesheim obtained Gothard’s canonization from Pope Innocent II in 1131. His feast is observed on 5 May. A hospice chapel dedicated to him on the alpine route between Uri and Ticino in the twelfth century gave its name to the St. Gotthard Pass, and he came to be invoked by travelers in mountain country. He is counted among the patrons of Hildesheim and has been invoked against fever, gout, hail, childhood illness, and dropsy, and as a patron of masons.