medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Maternus (in French, Materne) is the first bishop of Köln whose name has been transmitted. He took part both in a council in Rome in 313 dealing with the Donatist schism in Africa and in the synod of Arles in 314. And that's all that is known about him. A successor named Euphrates is attested from 343.
A legend that appears initially in the eighth-century Vita of St. Maximinus of Trier and that was developed in the tenth-century _Vita Eucharii, Valerii et Materni_ (BHL 2655), soon expanded by Heriger of Lobbes (BHL 2658), presents Maternus and Trier's first two bishops, Sts. Eucharius and Valerius, as missionaries sent by Peter who founded the dioceses of Tongeren / Tongres-Maastricht, Trier, and Köln, with Maternus becoming bishop of the latter city. Rooted in these dioceses (but seemingly earliest at Trier), Maternus' cult spread widely in German-speaking Europe. The legend appears in the _Annolied_ celebrating Köln's archbishop Anno II (d. 1075), in the _Gesta Treverorum_ (finished 1101) dealing with the archiepiscopal and other history of Trier, and, with further elaborations (one making him the resurrected son of Nain from Luke 7:11-15), in numerous later texts. In a well-known element of the story when Eucharius, Valerius, and Maternus were journeying through Alsace Maternus died. His fellow missionaries went back to Rome, obtained from St. Peter the latter's staff, then returned to Maternus' grave in Alsace and used the staff to restore him to life. This very staff (who could doubt it?) is now preserved in the Treasury of Köln's cathedral:
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Maternus-Stab.jpg
Except, perhaps, for the substantial piece or pieces of wood, said to be part of Maternus' staff, preserved in a mid-eighteenth-century silver casing in the treasury of the Basiliek van Onze-Lieve-Vrouw in Tongeren:
http://balat.kikirpa.be/object/39202
Today (14. September) is Maternus' day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology. In Köln his feast is celebrated on 11. September. That is also the day in which he is commemorated in other German dioceses.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Maternus of Köln:
a) as depicted in the later tenth-century Egbert Psalter, made at Reichenau for an archbishop of Trier (ca. 980; Cividale, Museo archeologico nazionale, cod. 136):
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Maternus_von_Koeln,_Egbert_Psalter.jpg
b) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Peter) in an earlier fourteenth-century glass window (ca. 1330) in Köln's Hohe Domkirche Sankt Petrus und Maria:
http://koelner-dom.de/index.php?id=17426&L=1
Detail view (Maternus):
http://tinyurl.com/nv6czf8
c) as portrayed (at left) in a silver statuette in the base of a late fourteenth-century processional cross (ca. 1381-1400) in the treasury of the Basiliek van Onze-Lieve-Vrouw in Tongeren:
http://balat.kikirpa.be/image/thumbnail/Z012291.jpg
The cross:
http://balat.kikirpa.be/object/38031
d) as portrayed in relief on a fifteenth-century grave slab in the église Saint-Laurent in Benfeld (Bas-Rhin):
http://tinyurl.com/qx7zjoj
e) as depicted (at center, between St. Helena and St. Gereon) in an earlier sixteenth-century glass window panel (ca. 1520-1530) in the church of St. Maria (in) Lyskirchen in Köln:
http://www.romanische-kirchen-koeln.de/index.php?id=689
f) as portrayed in an earlier sixteenth-century polychromed wooden statue (ca. 1530-1540) in the treasury of the Basiliek van Onze-Lieve-Vrouw in Tongeren:
http://tinyurl.com/p8jxpgk
g) as portrayed in an earlier sixteenth-century stone statuette (ca. 1530-1540) in the treasury of the Basiliek van Onze-Lieve-Vrouw in Tongeren:
http://balat.kikirpa.be/object/40656
http://balat.kikirpa.be/image/thumbnail/B149201.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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