medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Saturday, November 27, 2010, at 5:53 pm, I wrote:
> 3) Jacob of Beth Lapat (d. 421 or 422, supposedly [Jacobus Intercisus])...
> tenth- or eleventh-century). According to a narrative written soon
> after 1103 (BHL 4102), J.'s head was brought to the abbey of Cormery
> near Tours by a monk of that house who had been in Constantinople,
> Nicomedia, and Jerusalem in 1190...
More precisely, it was given to Cormery in 1103 by a former monk of that house who was now bishop of Salpi (in Latin: Salapia) in Apulia and who had purchased it at great expense froma monastery in Nicomedia. See Jonathan Shepard, "'How St James the Persian's Head was Brought to Cormery'. A Relic Collector Around the Time of the First Crusade," in Lars Martin Hoffmann, ed., _Zwischen Polis, Provinz und Peripherie. Beiträge zur byzantinischen Geschichte und Kultur_ (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005), pp. 287-336.
While we're here, an illustrated, French-language page on the abbey of Cormery and some other pages of views of its remains:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormery
http://tinyurl.com/26uv7j4
http://fr.nomao.com/741067.html
> ... Like other great saints,
> J. seems to have been polycephalous. BHL 4101d records a translation
> of a different head to Braga in Portugal
This one is said to have come to Braga from Rome in 1110.
> and in the late thirteenth
> century the Russian Anonymus reported the presence of yet another one
> in Constantinople's Pantrocrator monastery.
Er, Pantocrator monastery (obviously). Apologies for the slip.
27. November is also the feast day of:
Eusicius of Selles-sur-Cher (d. earlier 6th cent.). We first hear of E. (also Eusichius, Eusitius; in Modern French usually Eusice) from St. Gregory of Tours, who devotes cap. 81 of his _In gloria confessorum_ to this recluse in the territory of Bourges. According to Gregory, he had the power to cure sore throats and quartan fevers. One night he caught a thief stealing one of his beehives, reproved him, and then sent him away with the honeycomb. Still according to Gregory, when king Childebert came by on an expedition to Spain (there were two of these: one in 531 and another in ca. 541) he offered fifty pieces of gold to E., then an old man. But E. demurred, asking that the money be distributed to the poor and adding a prediction of victory for the king. The king gave the gold to the poor and vowed, should he be given the grace to return, to build a church in which E.'s body might be buried.
Thus far Gregory. The abbaye Saint-Eusice at today's Selles-sur-Cher (Loir-et-Cher) claimed in two rather legendary, seemingly originally ninth-century Vitae of E. (BHL 2754 and the longer BHL 2755) to have grown up around the church in question, where prior to his death E., who had attracted followers, served as the first abbot. Its originally twelfth-century church, now called the abbatiale Notre-Dame-la-Blanche, preserves in its crypt a sarcophagus said to be C.'s. Here's a view of it, atop a rather later altar:
http://tinyurl.com/33bdnew
The sarcophagus has been dated to the sixth century. But -- perish the thought! -- it may just be within the realm of possibility that this dating was arrived at not by stylistic considerations alone but also under the influence of Gregory and the Vitae.
The church retains a twelfth-century chevet bearing two figured friezes, the upper one carved with scenes from one of E.'s Vitae:
http://fr.structurae.de/files/photos/64/selles_sur_cher/dscf0284.jpg
The nave is said date from the late thirteenth century but much of the ornamental stonework is clearly earlier (eleventh- and twelfth-century); there are fourteenth-century additions; the originally twelfth-century facade and the choir were reworked during a nineteenth-century rebuilding. Here's a view of the facade and another of its lower portion, showing spoliated columns:
http://fr.structurae.de/photos/index.cfm?JS=42967
http://tinyurl.com/32mclep
A distance view of the church:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/5rMjeDhFUqo_D4l44d6NgQ
A brief, French-language description, followed by many pages of expandable views:
http://tinyurl.com/22rvukj
Ground plans are on p. 5, which is also where several pages of views of the two friezes begin.
Other pages of views:
http://tinyurl.com/2dvod5b
http://tinyurl.com/388rv7f
Best again,
John Dillon
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