medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Leander of Seville (d. 600 or 601). The leading light of his time in the Visigothic church, Leander was an older brother of St. Isidore of Seville whose education he oversaw and whom he preceded as archbishop. He was also a friend and correspondent of pope St. Gregory the Great, whom he had gotten to know ca. 580 when they were both in Constantinople. The author of anti-Arian treatises that have not survived, Leander was credited with the conversion to Catholicism of king Leovigild's son St. Hermenigild (whose wife and whose mother were both Catholic) and also with that of Leovigild's successor, king Reccared I. His surviving writings are the closing sermon of the third council of Toledo (589) and a treatise _De institutione virginum et de contemptu mundi_ dedicated to his sister, St. Florentina of Cartagena.
In the Roman Martyrology as revised in 2001 Leander is commemorated on his _dies natalis_, 13 March.
Some medieval images of Leander of Seville:
Gregory the Great's _Moralia in Iob_ is addressed to Leander. Here's an illumination from an early twelfth-century manuscript (Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 168, fol. 5r; dated 1111) showing both of them at the head of Gregory's prefatory letter:
http://tinyurl.com/2u7nk5
And here they are again (lower register), at the head of the same letter in a mid-twelfth-century manuscript, Tours, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 321, fol. 2r):
http://tinyurl.com/m22wnv6
And here they are yet again, at the opening of the same letter in yet another twelfth-century manuscript, Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque de l’agglomération, ms. 12):
http://www.bml.firenze.sbn.it/gregorio/preview/img_schede_big/24.jpg
And here they are yet again, at the head of the same letter in an earlier fourteenth-century manuscript, Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 172, fol. 2r):
http://tinyurl.com/q7vjxfk
Best,
John Dillon
(matter from an older post revised)
On 02/27/15, Matt Heintzelman wrote:
>
> https://www.facebook.com/604882972899463/photos/a.624764970911263.1073741830.604882972899463/783024465085312/?type=1&theater
>
>
>
> “Leander, enjoying an elite position in the secure surroundings of tolerated Catholic culture in Seville, became at first a Benedictine monk, and then in 579 he was appointed bishop of Seville. In the meantime he founded a celebrated school, which soon became a center of Catholic learning. As Bishop he had access to the Catholic Merovingian princess Ingunthis, who had come as a bride for the kingdom's heir, and he worked tirelessly with her to convert her husband St. Hermenegild, the eldest son of Liuvigild, an act of court intrigue that cannot honestly be divorced from a political context. Leander defended the new convert even when he went to war with his father "against his father's cruel reprisals," the Catholic Encyclopedia puts it. "In endeavoring to save his country from Arianism, Leander showed himself an orthodox Christian and a far-sighted patriot."” (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leander_of_Seville)
>
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: subscribe medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: unsubscribe medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/medieval-religion
|