medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
In 1112 Odard, bishop of Cambrai formally elevated within the collegiate church of Sts. Peter and Paul at Anderlecht in Brabant the remains of Guy of Anderlecht (also Guido, Guidon, Wido, Wye, Winand; d. early 11th cent.?), a local holy person for whom no documentation exists prior to this event. At some unknown time between then and the writing in the fourteenth century of our earliest surviving liturgical manuscripts from Anderlecht a Vita was written for Guy (BHL 8870, 8871).
According to this account (which exists in several versions), Guy was the very pious and very charitable son of poor rustics. Wishing to devote his life to God, he left home and traveled to Laeken (now a part of Brussels), where he became a model sacristan at a church dedicated to the BVM and where he spent his free time in prayer and penance. Eager to have more money to distribute to the needy, Guy was persuaded to join a seafaring merchant venture. But immediately the ship had put out into the Senne it sank with all its cargo, Guy's valiant efforts to prevent disaster notwithstanding. Whereupon Guy gave up being a merchant and returned to his life as a sacristan.
Some time later Guy undertook a pilgrimage first to Rome and then to the Holy Land. Returning to Brabant in a time of pestilence he fell ill at Anderlecht and died there on this day in some unspecified year. On the evening before his death a divine light in the form of a dove appeared over Guy and a voice was heard to command that the beloved man of God come to receive the crown of eternal happiness. The canons of that place took Guy's body and buried it outside their church. In time his grave was neglected by humans; farm animals resting there would be afflicted by disease and a horse that struck his tomb with its hoof was driven mad and smashed its head fatally against the tomb's wall. Thereafter Guy's tomb was surrounded by a hedge as a precaution. Time passed and subsequent miracles confirmed the presence there of a saint.
One of those miracles involved the finding, years later, of Guy's apparently unmarked grave, the church at which he had been buried having fallen into ruin. When this happened, Gerard the bishop of Cambrai (Gerard II, 1076-92) ordered that the saint's remains be translated to a place of honor within that church's newly built successor. More miracles ensued and in 1112 the aforementioned Elevatio took place. Thus far the Vita, whose largely fictional character appears to have eluded not a few modern authors of notices of Guy.
Today (12. September) is Guy's feast day in the église collégiale Saints-Pierre-(et-Paul)-et-Guidon in Anderlecht and his day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Guy of Anderlecht:
a) as depicted in a fifteenth-century mural painting (watercolor on plaster) in the église collégiale Saints-Pierre-(et-Paul)-et-Guidon in Anderlecht:
http://balat.kikirpa.be/object/20004444
http://balat.kikirpa.be/image/thumbnail/X054467.jpg
b) as portrayed in relief (upper register at far left) on the earlier fifteenth-century epitaph (ca. 1426-1450) of canon Albert Ditmar of Bremen in the église collégiale Saints-Pierre-(et-Paul)-et-Guidon in Anderlecht:
http://balat.kikirpa.be/object/20004854
http://balat.kikirpa.be/image/thumbnail/B058287.jpg
The horse and the cow at lower left are frequent attributes of Guy, who is considered a patron of horned farm animals and of horses.
c) in a late fifteenth- or earlier sixteenth-century Book of Hours (Syracuse, NY, Syracuse University Library, ms. 7, fol. 206r):
http://tinyurl.com/4csvca
d) as portrayed in a late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century statue (ca. 1490-1510) on the west portal of the église collégiale Saints-Pierre-(et-Paul)-et-Guidon in Anderlecht:
http://balat.kikirpa.be/object/20037541
http://balat.kikirpa.be/image/thumbnail/Z004266.jpg
in position on the portal:
http://balat.kikirpa.be/object/20004392
e) as portrayed in an earlier sixteenth-century statue (ca. 1501-1525) in the kerk Sint-Leonardus in Zoutleeuw (Vlaams Brabant):
http://balat.kikirpa.be/object/29197
http://balat.kikirpa.be/image/thumbnail/M254902.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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