medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I should have checked this out before my other posting:
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/sainte05.htm
Apparently, according to this source, he was disemboweled and his
representation is the windlass, but no discussion of any confusion in
popular belief.
MG
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> I suspect that responses to this query will span centuries, places, and be
> quite difficult to formulate. For instance, I have *heard* that Saint Elmo
> (Erasmus) is patron of those suffering from stomach distress for the
> following reason: the saint was usually depicted with the instrument of
> his/her martyrdom (if à propos) and, since Saint Elmo was already patron
> of sailors, he was accompanied by a winch with a rope coiled around it. In
> popular belief, this represented his intestines and he was thus alleged to
> have been disemboweled to death. Hence his patronage of those suffering
> intestinal distress. IF this is true, and if so, WHEN the belief sprang
> up, would be beyond my ability - and, I suspect, anyone else's - to
> pinpoint. I hope I'm wrong since I'd love a definitive response to your
> question.
> MG
>> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
>> culture
>>
>> Thanks to all who responded to my request for Reformation Martyrs! I now
>> have
>> a good collection of possibilities to present to my student. My next
>> query
>> concerns "official" patronage, by which I mean patronage announced by
>> the
>> papacy
>> in connection with canonization. As we all know, the dictionaries of
>> saints
>> contain lots of info. about who is patron of what, but no indication of
>> the
>> age of the tradition. I have noticed that some post-reformation
>> canonizations
>> are quite explicit: the new Saint X is declared patron(ess) of the
>> Americas,
>> or whatever. My query: How old is this practice? Is Thomas Becket, for
>> example,
>> explicitly stated in the canonization process to be patron of anything
>> in
>> particular? Could any of you who do happen to run across such explicit
>> statements
>> establishing a patronage of some sort please let me know, on or off
>> list?
>> Thanks,
>> Meg
>>
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>
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