medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (16. June) is also the feast day of:
Palerius of Telese (9th cent.?). Today's less well known saint from the
Regno is a supposed bishop of today's Telese (BV) in one part of Campania
venerated medievally only at today's San Martino Valle Caudina (AV) in
another part of that Italian region.
We have no attested names for any of Telese's bishops between 601 and
1068. Our very limited evidence for P.'s actual human existence comes from
one of two twelfth-century inscriptions discovered in 1712 in the ruins of
San Martino's earthquake-destroyed (and previously abandoned) church of San
Palerio. According to the inscriptions, this was the resting place of the
bodies of the holy Palerius bishop of Telese and of his colleague, the
deacon Equitius, revealed by Palerius (in a vision, presumably) in 1164 to
a notary named Marandus, who in turn built a rural church honoring them on
his property and later (in 1167) got the local bishop (of Avellino) to
consecrate it and to grant a forty days' indulgence to those who visited it
on the anniversary of this consecration. Human remains presumed from their
location to be of those the two saints were also discovered on the site and
were soon pronounced authentic by a synod of the diocese of Benevento
presided over by a cardinal who later became pope Benedict XIII. In 1795
their cult was confirmed for the dioceses of Benevento and of
Telese-Cerreto, with Palerius' feast fixed for today and Equitius' for 18.
June; in 1797 some of their relics (most of which were and are housed in
San Martino) were donated to Telese and cult statues of the two saints were
made for their use there.
Accounts of these saints, even such relatively objective ones as that by
Giovanni Mongelli in the _Bibliotheca Sanctorum_, vol. 10 (1968), cols.
53-54, never seem to remember that not far from San Martino there was in
the twelfth century a cult at Atripalda of Sabinus, bishop of Abellinum,
and of his colleague, the deacon Romulus (feasts: 9. February and 16.
September), based on two late antique sepulchral inscriptions preserved in
a grotto over which had been built Atripalda's church of Saint
Hippolystus. Whereas those inscriptions survive, there is not even a
mention of such early documentation at San Martino, leading one to wonder
about the circumstances under which the enterprising Marandus -- aided of
course by his vision -- created on his own property a parallel cult of a
bishop X and his colleague the deacon Y and then converted this proprietary
church into a local pilgrimage destination.
It may also be noted that, according to a thirteenth-century Avellinese
translation account, the same bishop who consecrated Marandus' church of
St. Palerius and granted the indulgence (Guglielmo, ca. 1166 - 1206 or 07)
also discovered and translated to Avellino to remains of Saint Modestinus
and his associates Sts. Florentinus and Flavianus, venerated on 14.
February and whose legendary Acta (BHL 5980-83), which make them a bishop,
priest, and deacon of Antioch incarcerated during the Diocletianic
persecution, consist largely of elements similar to those in other dubious
accounts of foreign saints miraculously guided or transported to
Campania. Probably not the sort of guy who would ask too many questions
(other, perhaps, than fiscal ones) about an _inventio sanctorum_ occurring
in his diocese.
P.'s possible ninth-century date is pure guesswork by local historians.
Best,
John Dillon
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