medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (14. May) is also the feast day of:
Constantius (Costanzo) of Capri. According to regional tradition
represented by
A) two probably early eleventh-century sermons preserved incomplete in a
manuscript of Neapolitan provenance dated by subscription to the year 1174
and
B) an extract by the early 17th-century hagiographer Filippo Ferrari from a
manuscript said to have been at Benevento,
Constantius was a bishop of Constantinople who successfully combatted
heresy and either died in that city, with his corpse later being brought to
Capri, or else arrived at Capri by chance when already at death's
door. From these dubious indications a late 8th-century date has been
inferred for him. He is Capri's patron saint.
C. is celebrated for having saved Capri from a Muslim raid in 991. More
impressive, though, is his vindication of a pregnant young woman of Capri
whose lover had reneged on a promise to marry her. As recounted in the
_Sermo de transito s. Constantii_, she prayed to the saint for retribution
as a warning to others, whereupon the cad, who at that very moment was
entering Capri's cathedral (dedicated to C. and sanctified by his remains),
was instantly struck by lightning and so burned up that not an ash remained
of his miserable body (_Qui cum templi limen attingeret pede, igneo
protinus fulmine tactus, ita concrematus est, ut nec cinis eius ex
miserabili corpore remaneret._).
The two sermons on Constantius were edited by Adolf Hofmeister in his "Aus
Capri und Amalfi: Der Sermo de virtute und der Sermo de transito s.
Constantii und der Sarazenenzug von 991," _Muenchener Museum fuer
Philologie des Mittelalters und der Renaissance_ 4 (1924; reprint, Nendeln:
Kraus Reprint, 1972), 233-72. To correct any misimpression I may have
given previously (e.g., in my posting of 26 June 2003, Re: saints of the
day 27. June), Hofmeister's second edition of the anonymous sermon on the
Transit of St. Constantius (in MGH, Scriptores, vol. 30, pt. 2) is a
partial one only, excluding matter not thought to be of historical interest
(as this was then construed by the editors of the MGH), and so lacks the
aforementioned story of the young woman's vindication.
Best,
John Dillon
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