medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
At Wed, 18 Feb 2004 17:26:08 -0800, Phyllis wrote:
>Today (19. February) is the feast day of:
>
> Conrad of Piacenza (d. 1354) Conrad was a noble of Piacenza whose
> religious life started with an accident: while out hunting he started a
> forest fire. A poor man was blamed for it and executed. Conrad was upset,
> gave away his possessions, sent his wife off to join the Poor Clares, and
> became a hermit for the rest of his life.
It would be hard to deduce from the foregoing that C. (in Italian,
Corrado), although he is now also celebrated in and about Piacenza (esp. in
Carpaneto, the seat of his family, the Confalonieri), is primarily a
_Sicilian_ saint, that his cult originated in Noto and at nearby Avola,
that a canonization inquiry began here almost immediately after his death
(though his cult was approved by Leo X in 1515, he was formally beatified
by Paul III only in 1544 and elevated to sainthood by Urban VIII in 1615),
and that our information about him during his lifetime derives from
documentation collected early in the aforementioned campaign. After
becoming a Franciscan tertiary in northern Italy C. is said to have
traveled on pilgrimage to Rome and thence to the Holy Land; thereafter he
spent the remainder of his life in the insular kingdom of Sicily, first in
Malta and then for thirty years in the Hyblaean Mountains of the Val di
Noto. At both the beginning and the end of this period he was again a
hermit but for the majority of this time he tended the sick in the city of
Noto's hospital of St. Martin. The year of his death is variously given as
1351, 1354, or between 1351 and 1354. C. (whose name in Sicilian is a
three-syllabled Currau) is the patron of Noto and of Avola. His cult is
widespread in southeastern Sicily and he is a fixture in the region's
folklore. For reasons that should now be obvious, he is sometimes referred
to in the scholarly literature as C. of Noto.
If a fourteenth-century Englishman had become a Franciscan tertiary at home
and then (after pilgrimage to remoter parts) settled down in Scotland,
spent his last thirty-plus years performing works of charity and living a
life of exemplary sanctity in that kingdom, been proposed for beatification
by Scottish clerics, enjoyed a major cult in one part of Scotland and only
a very minor and much more recent one in England, would Phyllis' source
have found it appropriate to pass over in silence his association with
Scotland?
Best,
John Dillon
PS: For general background, see Henri Bresc, "L'eremitisme franciscain en
Sicile," in _Francescanesimo e cultura in Sicilia (secc. XIII-XVI). Atti
del Convegno internazionale di studio nell'ottavo centenario della nascita
di San Francesco d'Assisi, Palermo, 7-12 marzo 1982_ (Palermo: Officina di
Studi medievali, 1987; = _Schede Medievali_, no. 12-13), pp. 37-44.
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