medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (21. October) is the feast day of:
Asterius (d. c. 223) Asterius was a Roman priest. When Pope Callistus was
martyred, A. buried his body---upon which he was arrested, convicted, and
thrown into the Tiber at Ostia. His body was recovered and enshrined in
Ostia.
Ursula and a whole lot of companions (4th cent.) This extremely popular
medieval cult was suppressed in 1969. The fully-developed legend of ursula
tells that she was a British virgin (beautiful, of course) who was on her
way to marriage when a storm drove her and her 11,000 (virgin and
beautiful) companions to the Low Countries. They decided to keep going and
went to Rome on pilgrimage, and on their way back to Britain were all
martyred by Huns (!) in Cologne. The story does have a historical
foundation: an inscription of c. 400 records the restoration of a church in
honor of some early virgin-martyrs (unnamed and unnumbered). By the 9th
century they had become a large number of virgins martyred in the reign of
Maximian. Then the discovery of an old cemetery in Cologne in 1155 was too
good to resist---a massive relic store, clearly those of Ursula and co.
Hilarion the Great (d. c. 371) Hilarion was a native of Gaza who went to
Egypt to study and ended up becoming a Christian and a disciple of St.
Antony. When he returned to Gaza he became the first hermit in the nearby
desert, and ended up attracting so many disciples that he founded a number
of monasteries. He seems to have spent a lot of his life trying to escape
from the crowds that came to gawk at him and beg for miracles---he ended up
living on Mt. Sinai, in Egypt, Sicily, Dalmatia, and finally Cyprus. In
the Latin rite his cult was confined to particular calendars in 1969.
Malchus of Chalcis (d. c. 390) Malchus was a Syrian monk who, after about
20 years in the monastery, was kidnapped by Bedouin and sold as a slave.
His new master married him off to a fellow-slave, but the two lived
asexually until they escaped after about seven years. M. then went back to
Chalcis. Jerome knew him and wrote his biography.
Fintan Munnu (d. c. 635) The highly ascetic Fintan served under Comgall at
Bangor, spent time at Iona, and then founded a monastery at Kilmun on he
Firth of Clyde (Scotland). Later he went back to Ireland and founded
Taghmon. He was a defender of the Irish calculation for when to celebrate
Easter.
James of Strepa (blessed) (d. c. 1409) James was a Pole. He became a
Franciscan and in time vicar-general of the Franciscan missions to the
Orthodox church and non-Christians of what is now western Ukraine. In 1392
he became archbishop of Halicz, with his headquarters at Lviv.
Gundisalvus of Lagos (blessed) (d. 1422) Gundisalvus was a native of Lagos
(Portugal). He was an Augustinian friar and a very famous preacher
throughout Portugal.
Dr. Phyllis G. Jestice
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