medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (9. February) is also the feast day of:
Sabinus of Abellinum (d. early 6th cent.) Abellinum was the Roman
predecessor of today's Avellino (Campania), which kept the name when it
changed location in the early Middle Ages. Outside late antique Abellinum
was a necropolis, some of whose Christian burials were honored in a
hypogeum called "the martyrs' grotto" (_specus martyrum_). A small church
was built on the site and around this there grew the settlement that became
medieval and modern Atripalda (first attested to in 1086). Located in the
grotto, now incorporated in the crypt under Atripalda's 12th-century church
of St. Hippolystus (S. Ippolisto), are the graves of Sabinus, bishop of
Abellinum, and of his associate, the deacon Romulus, who outlived him. We
know nothing about either other than what their funerary inscriptions tell
us: these data include Sabinus' date of death, 9 February, and that he
followed a bishop Timotheus (documented as being still in office in
499). Both inscriptions include verse epitaphs in elegiac distichs; that
for Sabinus (_Corpus Inscriptionum Latinorum_ X. 1194; also in Carnandet's
ed. novissima of the _Acta Sanctorum_ at Feb. tom. II., p. 333) is
particularly fine and gives a nice, idealizing portrait of a late antique
bishop.
See Giovanni Mongelli, "Sabino, vescovo di Avellino, e Romolo, diacono,
santi," in _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, vol. 11 (1968), cols. 558-60; also
Nicola Gambino, "Cenni storici. Il cristianesimo in Irpinia" on the
website of the Diocese of Avellino at:
http://www.diocesi.avellino.it/index.asp?sez=Storia
AND
Sabinus of Canosa (d. 566?) Bishop of Canosa (ancient Canusium) in Apulia,
this Sabinus is known from several mentions in the _Dialogues_ of Gregory
the Great as a friend of St. Benedict of Montecassino. He is thought to
have accompanied Pope John I on a mission to Constantinople in 525 and is
recorded as the head of a papal delegation in that city in 535-36. He has
an early 9th-century Life and a complicated translation history bound up in
part with ecclesiastical politics in late 11th-century Bari, whose
cathedral is dedicated to him. John the Archdeacon, better known as the
author of the diocesan account of the translation of St. Nicholas of Myra
to Bari, has an interesting narration of S.'s translation to this city;
also ascribed to John is a metrical Life of Sabinus in mostly epanaleptic
elegiac distichs.
See Ada Campione, "Sabino di Canosa tra storia e leggenda," in Salvatore
Palese, ed., _La tradizione barese di s. Sabino di Canosa_ (Bari:
Edipuglia, 2001), pp. 23-77, and contributions by others in the same
volume. See also Jean-Marie Martin, "Note sur la Vie de saint Sabin de
Canosa et le prince de Benevent Grimoald IV," _Vetera Christianorum_ 24
(1987), 399-405; Ada Campione, "Note sulla _Vita_ di Sabino di Canosa:
_inventio_ e _translatio_," ibid. 25 (1988), 617-39; and Reginald Gregoire,
"La presenza di San Savino nella letteratura agiografica," in Liana
Bertoldi Lenoci, ed., _San Sabino uomo di dialogo e di pace tra Oriente ed
Occidente Anno Domini 2002, Atti del Convegno di Studi in occasione del XII
Centenario della traslazione del corpo di San Sabino e per i 900 anni di
dedicazione della Chiesa Cattedrale di Canosa, Canosa 26-28 ottobre 2001_
(Trieste: Edizioni Universita' di Trieste, 2002), pp. 21-24.
Best,
John Dillon
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join 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: leave 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/lists/medieval-religion.html
|