medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (30. December) is the feast day of:
1) Felix I, pope (d. 274). Felix succeeded the recently celebrated pope St. Dionysius (26. December) on 3. January 269. The _Liber Pontificalis_ says that he was a native of Rome and that his father was named Constantius. Like his predecessor, he will have dealt with the heresy of Paul of Samosata concerning the nature of Christ. Apart from that, nothing is known of Felix' pontificate. His presence in the _Depositio episcoporum_ of the Chronographer of 354 and not in the corresponding _Depositio martyrum_ undercuts the assertion of the _Liber Pontificalis_ that Felix died a martyr. According to the so-called Liberian Catalogue (compiled shortly after 352), he was buried in the cemetery of Callistus.
Expandable views of Felix as depicted in a later fourteenth-century lectionary (1377) and in two earlier fifteenth-century breviaries (ca. 1414; ca. 1430) are here:
http://tinyurl.com/y87bg6p
2) Hermes the Exorcist (d. early 4th cent.?). The later fourth-century Syriac Martyrology records under this day Hermes, an exorcist who suffered at a place whose name is translated into English as Bononia. As he is not said to have been one of the ancients -- this martyrology's term for those who perished prior to the Great Persecution --, the presumption is that he suffered in the earlier fourth century. Entries in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology under 31. December and 4. January for a Hermes who may or not have been identical with today's Hermes (the editors of the revised RM of 2001 seem to think them not identical) suggest very strongly that the Bononia in question was the one in Moesia (today's Vidin in Bulgaria) and not the one in Italy.
3) Anysius (d. 407?). Anysius became metropolitan of Thessalonica / Thessaloniki in 383, at a time when the holders of that see were also papal vicars in Illyricum. A letter of congratulation from St. Ambrose of Milan in that year and laudatory comments by several popes perhaps say more about the importance of the office than about the virtues of the occupant. Anysius is now remembered chiefly for his appeal to pope St. Innocent I in 404 on behalf of the recently exiled St. John Chrysostom.
4) Perpetuus of Tours (d. 490 or 491). The Gallo-Roman prelate Perpetuus was a friend and correspondent of St. Sidonius Apollinaris and of Paulinus of Périgueux. But we know about him chiefly from St. Gregory of Tours (esp. _Historia Francorum_, 2. 14, 2. 26, and 10. 31). During his thirty years as bishop of Tours he presided over at least one and probably two regional synods, built a new church of St. Martin into which that saint was translated in 473 _non sine miraculis_, built other churches, and devoted much attention to elaborating liturgical practices in his diocese. Though Perpetuus' epitaph in eight elegiac distichs mentions his noble ancestors and his own senatorial rank, it focuses primarily on his great church for St. Martin and on his burial at Martin's feet.
Perpetuus leading the procession at the translation of St. Martin as depicted in a later fifteenth-century copy (1463) of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 393v):
http://tinyurl.com/ckocnr2
5) Jucundus of Aosta (d. earlier 6th cent.). Jucundus (also Jocundus, Jocondus; in French, Joconde; in Italian, Giocondo) is historically attested as the bishop of Aosta who participated in synods at Rome in 501 and 502. From 529 to 546 that city's bishop was one Gallus (attested by his surviving epitaph). Jucundus appears in the extremely unreliable late thirteenth-century Vita of bishop St. Gratus of Aosta as the latter's early ninth-century companion both on pilgrimage and later in retirement at an hermitage. To judge from the extracts that have been published, his own seemingly late medieval Vita (no BHL number? the eighteenth-century Bollandist Joannes Stiltingh thought it recent) preserved in a legendary now in the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique (cod. 18947-52, fols. 117-30) is based chiefly upon that of Gratus. Remains believed to be Jucundus' repose in Aosta's cathedral.
Jucundus as depicted in his late fifteenth-century window in the cathedral of Aosta:
http://tinyurl.com/yacqw2n
An Italian-language account of this window:
http://tinyurl.com/ya7tehs
6) Geremarus of Fly (d. ca. 658). Geremarus (also Germerus; in French, Germer) is remembered as the founder of the abbey at Flaviacum, later Flay, and now Saint-Germer-de-Fly (Oise) in Picardy. He has two related, full-length Vitae (the earlier attested but seemingly later BHL 3437 and the seemingly earlier but later attested BHL 3441) as well as a number of shorter ones that the BHL classifies as abbreviations. According to BHL 3441 (thought to have been written in the ninth century), at the time of his entry into into religion Geremarus was a high-ranking noble under Dagobert I who had married and had borne a son who later was instructed at the court by St. Audoenus. It was Audoenus as well who at Geremarus' request tonsured him and made him abbot of a monastery in the territory of Rouen. Leaving his wife and son, Geremarus went off to this place, where he lived very prayerfully and ascetically but was in time driven out by monks who found his rule too strict. Taking a few monks with him, he withdrew to a cave near the Seine and devoted himself to good works, clothing the naked, healing the infirm, burying the dead, consoling those in difficulty, and furnishing alms on a daily basis to travelers and to the poor. During this time Audoenus elevated Geremarus to the priesthood.
Geremarus lived at this cave for five years and three months. Learning that his son had died in the territory of Beauvais, he went there with his monks, recovered the son's body, and gave it ceremonious and tearful sepulture at a place not far from the rugged and isolated spot where soon, with Audoenus' support and not without miracles, he established an abbey for his community. Geremarus lived there for another three and one half years, was buried there by his monks, and rests there happily. No woman may enter the place and it is renowned for miracles: the blind are given sight, the deaf regain their hearing, demons are driven away, and thieves do not lurk there. Those who come bound in iron return without their shackles. The Lord performs uncountable other miracles there through his servant Geremarus. Thus far this Vita.
A translation account from 1132 (BHL 3442) provides a later history of the abbey and relates how in that year an arm from Geremarus' relics, which at this time were in the cathedral of Beauvais, was returned to Flaviacum on 24. September. By the middle of the sixteenth century that was the day of Geremarus' principal feast at Beauvais; he also had a translation feast there on 20. May (commemorating an initial translation from Flaviacum). Prior to its revision of 2001 the RM entered Geremarus under 24. September.
Illustrated, English-language and French-language pages on the former abbey of Saint-Germer-de-Flay:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Germer-de-Fly_Abbey
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbaye_Saint-Germer-de-Fly
A set of views of the former abbey church:
http://www.romanes.com/StGermerdeFly/
7) Ecgwine (d. 717?). Ecgwine (also Egwine, Egwin; in Latin, Ecgwinus and Egwinus) is recorded as bishop of Worcester from the years 692 to 717 in rewritten charters whose degree of fidelity to their lost originals is hard to gauge, in a largely fictional, early eleventh-century Vita by Byrhtferth, a monk of Ramsey (BHL 2432; the ancestor a varied hagiographic progeny over the next several centuries), and in the twelfth-century chronicle of John of Worcester. E. is considered the founder of the abbey at today's Evesham (Worcs), where his miracle-working remains were housed in a shrine completed in the later twelfth century by Adam of Evesham (Adam de Senlis). Liturgical calendars from the eleventh century onward give today as that of his laying to rest.
The Victoria County History account of the abbey of St Mary the Virgin and St Egwin at Evesham is reproduced here:
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=36469
There's not much left of the abbey other than its earlier sixteenth-century belltower:
http://tinyurl.com/ylm74d6
A view of the originally early fifteenth-century home of the abbey's almoner:
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/41098
The mostly nineteenth-century St Egwins Church at Norton (Worcs) preserves a lectern said to have been unearthed in 1813 in the churchyard of Evesham Abbey:
http://www.richardiiiworcs.co.uk/images/lectern.jpg
http://www.crsbi.ac.uk/search/county/site/ed-wo-norto.html
A view of the Crucifixion illumination in the mid-thirteenth-century Evesham Psalter (London, British Library, MS Addit. 44874, fol. 6r):
http://www.artfund.org/artwork/1070/the-evesham-psalter
This statue of a bishop on the early sixteenth-century (1502-1504) Prince Arthur’s chantry chapel in Worcester cathedral is thought to represent Ecgwine (standing above the swine of Evesham's legendary etymon, the swineherd Eof or Eoves):
http://www.richardiiiworcs.co.uk/images/worcester/1003202.jpg
8) Rayner of Forcona (d. 1077). Today's first less well known saint of the Regno, Rayner (in Italian: Raniero or Ranieri) was from 1059 bishop of Forcona in what is now Abruzzo; he is credited with completing its cathedral dedicated to St. Maximus of Aveia. In 1225, prompted by the then bishop of Forcona, Honorius III asked the bishop of Penne to verify miracles that had been attributed to Rayner. We are not informed about the outcome of this inquiry.
In 1257 the see of Forcona was transferred to L'Aquila; Forcona itself, probably already in decline, became just a rural outlier of the latter. But its cathedral remained in local use until 1703, when it fell victim to an earthquake. In 1413 the relics of St. Maximus and of Rayner were translated to the cathedral of L'Aquila. Whereas the ancient martyr Maximus stayed on as L'Aquila's patron saint, the more recent Rayner was soon returned to Forcona. He continued to be celebrated there, just as he is in Forcona's present-day successor, Civita di Bagno (AQ), a _frazione_ of L'Aquila. Herewith some expandable views of the remains of R.'s cathedral:
http://tinyurl.com/bplxxfg
Those remains were further damaged by terrible earthquake of April 2009 in the Aquilano. Compare with the foregoing the views here (most of which, despite some variation in captioning, are of the same ex-cathedral):
http://tinyurl.com/yazqg3x
9) Roger of Canne (d. 1129?). This less well known saint of the Regno appears to have been a bishop of what now is Canne della Battaglia (BT) in Apulia. We know practically nothing about him as a person. But the transfer of his remains in the thirteenth century from Canne to Barletta, where Roger is still venerated, is not without interest. The primary evidence comes from a letter of Innocent V on 17 April 1276 in which he orders an investigation into a complaint of Theobald, bishop of Canne to the effect that clerics and lay persons from Barletta had violated his cathedral, removed relics from the main altar, and taken away the body of saint Roger which had been buried next to it. Although the investigation verified the occurrence of these _furta sacra_, and although some relics were restored to Canne, Roger remained at Barletta, where he wound up in the convent church of Santo Stefano (today's San Ruggero).
In the Apulian economy of inland towns and their associated ports, Barletta is the port of Canne; during the kingdom's first two centuries it grew while Canne rapidly declined. By the time of Roger's translation Canne, though still an episcopal seat, had been largely abandoned and the bulk of the population with historic ties to the place probably lived in and about Barletta. So there would seem to have been good practical justification for not restoring this saint to his former hill town. In the fourteenth century, after the bishops of Canne had transferred their residence to Barletta, Roger became one of that city's patron saints. Whereas today is his proper feast, his _patrocinio_ at Barletta is celebrated in the second week of July (better weather; more tourists).
Toponomastic evidence suggests that Roger had been venerated at Canne since at least the late twelfth century. But when did he live and who was he? Though his name suggests Norman parentage, it hardly proves it (in the wake of the eleventh-century Norman-led conquest of Byzantine southern Italy "Roger" became a popular name in this region). In the absence of pertinent diocesan records, historians have settled on the Roger documented from other cities as bishop of Canne in the first two decades of the twelfth century. Given our limited information, this seems a very reasonable guess.
There is a fourteenth-century Office for Roger from Canne (BHL 7284t) and a sixteenth-century one from Barletta (BHL 7285); the latter is the one published in the _Acta Sanctorum_ (Oct. tom. 7.). A very late and obviously unreliable Vita places Roger in the sixth century.
Some views of the remains of two adjoining late antique basilicas at Canne that in the tenth- or eleventh-century were remodeled into the cathedral that Roger would have known (a sarcophagus thought to have been his has been found in this complex's crypt):
http://tinyurl.com/a9dohwq
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/14370616.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/24epfy
http://tinyurl.com/39c5y3e
http://tinyurl.com/9wsy3py
http://tinyurl.com/awgbtgh
The sarcophagus said to have been Roger's:
http://tinyurl.com/3xqr2j2
An illustrated, Italian-language page on Barletta's originally twelfth- / fourteenth-century cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore, now a co-cathedral of the archdiocese of Trani-Barletta-Bisceglie:
http://tinyurl.com/3a9za5j
The page on this church at Italia nell'Arte Medievale:
http://tinyurl.com/bea4gcw
Remains of the late antique basilica underneath the cathedral:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22350215@N04/4046780284/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/giovy/152092071/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/giovy/152093140/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/giovy/152090866/
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/26207450.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/giovy/152094614/
10) Lawrence of Frazzanò (d. 1162). Like Nicholas Politi (17. August), Sylvester of Troina (2. January), and Conus or Cono of Naso (Conon or Cono of Nesi; 28. March), Lawrence of Frazzanò is a poorly documented Greek saint from insular Sicily during its period of Norman and Swabian rule. The account that follows is derived from his very legendary late medieval Acta.
Lawrence was born at Acri, a Greek designation for today's Frazzanò (ME) in northern Sicily. He entered religion at the monastery of St. Michael the Archangel at Troina but at about age 29 left with his abbot's blessing to become an hermit on the slopes of Mt. Etna. Lawrence remained there for six years, growing in spiritual virtue and successfully resisting diabolic temptation. He then returned to his monastery at Troina. Later he moved on to the monastery of St. Philip at Agira and finally, in about 1155, to that of St. Philip at Fragalà. Called in 1158 to preach in Calabria, Lawrence performed various miracles there, especially at Reggio, where he healed people afflicted with the "plague" and where upon his departure he was acclaimed by notables and by a great crowd of ordinary folk.
A later trip to the mainland allowed Lawrence to preach at Stilo in extreme southern Calabria. Returning to Frazzanò, he oversaw the construction of a new church and died shortly afterwards. His relics repose in Frazzanò's early modern church dedicated to him. Today is Lawrence's _dies natalis_ and the day of his commemoration in the RM (to whose august pages he was only recently admitted). In the diocese of Patti Lawrence of Frazzanò is celebrated liturgically on 22. October.
Some expandable views of the restored monastery of San Filippo di Fragalà (or San Filippo di Demenna) are here (in the second set they are a little less than halfway down the black column at left):
http://tinyurl.com/3seh3
http://www.medioevosicilia.eu/markIII/monastero-di-san-filippo-di-demenna/
Views of the also restored eleventh-century cattolica (as its name implies, once the katholikon of a Greek monastery) at Stilo (RC) in Calabria. Together with other Greek churches in its vicinity it has been designated by UNESCO a World Heritage Site:
http://tinyurl.com/89cjuz
http://tinyurl.com/88vxgy
http://tinyurl.com/99vf8o
http://www.calabriaintour.it/images/stilo07.jpg
http://www.umdiewelt.de/photos/336/2489/12/157965.jpg
http://www.umdiewelt.de/photos/336/2489/12/157966.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/23p4a3w
http://tinyurl.com/39tsq6a
http://www.locride.altervista.org/stilo_interno_cattolica.jpg
11) Margherita Colonna (Bl.; d. 1280). A member of one of the leading families of later medieval Rome, Margherita Colonna is the subject of a closely posthumous Vita by her older brother Giovanni, twice senator of Rome (BHL 513d) and of another Vita and a following Miracula by Stephania, abbess of the Colonna-patronized San Silvestro in Capite (BHL 513f, 513g). After losing her father at a very early age and her mother when she was barely twelve Margherita decided to remain virginal; she affirmed that decision in 1272 when she refused an arranged marriage. In the following year she experienced a celestial vision that caused her to retire with two companions from her household to Monte Prenestino (now Castel San Pietro Romano) in the Colli Romani. With the assistance of another brother, Giacomo (who was now a cardinal), they formed a small community and Margherita began a process that led to her becoming a Poor Clare, first at Assisi but later, for reasons of health, at places in the vicinity of Rome. She had been back at Monte Prenestino for at least three years when she succumbed to her final illness on this day. Buried at first in the local church, which according to our obviously interested sources quickly became a place of pilgrimage, Margherita was translated to Rome once her community had moved there.
Margherita's cult was confirmed papally for the Franciscans in 1847 at the level of Beata; in 1883 it was extended to the diocese of Palestrina. She entered the RM in its revision of 2001. A canonization inquest was opened recently on her behalf.
Best,
John Dillon
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