medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Today (5. December) is also the feast day of:

Pelinus (d. 4th cent., supposedly).  Today's less well known saint from
the Regno is said in his probably 11th-century Vita (BHL 6620;
variously described as a Vita, as a Passio, and as a Vita et Passio) to
have been a Greek-speaking monk from Dyrrachium (today's Durazzo) who
together with his Syrian companions Gorgonius and Sebastius and his
disciple Cyprius, crossed the Adriatic in flight from Julianic
persecution and arrived at Brundisium (today's Brindisi).  Here he is
said to have been welcomed by bishop Aproculus, who made him archdeacon
of the cathedral, and whom he succeeded as bishop some years later, the
now elderly Aproculus having accompanied P. to Rome to insure his
consecration by pope Liberius.  P. then returned to Brundisium and took
up his office.  When ordered by civil authorities to sacrifice at the
temple of Jupiter he had only to set foot on the lintel and an
earthquake brought down the whole structure (not injuring P.,
apparently).  At Julian's command the evil tribune  Maximus had P. and
his companions arrested and brought to Rome where they were paraded
prior to being executed.  P. was handed over to the judge Cornicularius
who brought him to Corfinium, the city of the Paeligni, and there had
him killed on a 5. December variously estimated as being either in 361
or 362.  Gorgonius and Sebastius were executed on the following day but
Cyprius was spared on account of his youth.  Returning to Brundisium he
succeeded P. as its bishop.

Apart from Julian (reigned 361-63) and Liberius, none of these people
is otherwise attested, not even the saintly Aproculus.  Indeed,
although Pelinus and Cyprius now figure in Brindisi's _series
episcoporum_, their names are strikingly absent from the indices of the
_Codice diplomatico Brindisino_; other medieval evidence for P.'s
having had a cult there is apparently also lacking.  The archdiocesan
view in Brindisi-Ostuni is that these events really transpired in the
reign of Constans II (641-68) and that P.'s Vita, which survives in an
eleventh- or twelfth-century passionary/legendary (Vat. lat. 1197)
probably from the cathedral library of Sulmona, is based on a seventh-
century account by a contemporary of these events.

To twentieth-century Bollandists, on the other hand, as well as to the
great historian of the early dioceses of Italy, Francesco Lanzoni, the
story of Pelinus et al. is a fiction from beginning to end, created in
the diocese of Valva in the eleventh century in connection with P.'s
cult at Corfinium (medievally, Castrum de Pentoma, later [until 1928]
Pentima), where his cult is said to have been attested since the ninth
century.  A concatenation of suspicious elements, it is apparently
devoid of any verifiable early connection with Brindisi and may even
(depending on its real date) have been written in connection with abbot-
bishop Transmundus' erection, starting in 1075, of the cathedral
complex of St. Pelinus at today's Corfinio (AQ).  It certainly would
have been extraordinarily convenient had an actual bishop of Brundisium
borne this unusual name name so suggestive of that of the people
inhabiting the area of P.'s known cult, the P(a)eligni.

Consecrated in 1124 as one of the cathedrals of Valva (the other is San
Panfilo at Sulmona) and still a co-cathedral of the modern diocese of
Sulmona-Valva, San Panfilo with its adjacent mausoleum of Pope St.
Alexander is a major architectural monument in the Paelignian basin.
English-language accounts are here:
http://www.abruzzoitalico.it/Town.asp?ID=3&Paese=Corfinio
http://www.abruzzoheritage.com/magazine/2001_11/0111_a.htm
One in French is here (watch the wrap!; hereafter: wtw!):
http://www.mondes-
normands.caen.fr/france/Patrimoine_architectural/Italie/mezzogiorno/abru
zzo/02S.Pelino_Cattedrale_Valvense/scorri02.htm
And a more detailed one in Italian is here (wtw!; the thumbnails are
broken but the links to their larger versions work fine):
http://www.liceoscientificosulmona.it/ROMANICO-ABRUZZESE/Schede-
edifici/S_PELINO_A_CORFINIO/S_PELINO.htm

The carving around the front entrance is certainly noteworthy:
http://www.abruzzoheritage.com/magazine/2001_11/images/valva3.jpg
Here's a detail thereof (wtw!):
http://www.liceoscientificosulmona.it/ROMANICO-ABRUZZESE/Schede-
edifici/S_PELINO_A_CORFINIO/FOTO_S_PELINO/DETTAGLIO_PORTALE.jpg

A couple of exterior views (rear apses of the cathedral and, on the
left, the mausoleum):
http://www.ripalta.it/629CorfinioSanPelino.jpg
http://www.abruzzocitta.it/comuni/corfinio.html
And of the rear of the cathedral alone (the carving is said to be of
the thirteenth century):
http://www.liceoscientificosulmona.it/ROMANICO-ABRUZZESE/Schede-
edifici/S_PELINO_A_CORFINIO/FOTO_S_PELINO/PROSPETTO.jpg
and:
http://www.liceoscientificosulmona.it/ROMANICO-ABRUZZESE/Schede-
edifici/S_PELINO_A_CORFINIO/FOTO_S_PELINO/PROSPETTO.jpg
(again, wtw!)

Views and details from the Mondes-normands site (with expandable
images):
http://www.mondes-
normands.caen.fr/france/Patrimoine_architectural/Italie/mezzogiorno/abru
zzo/02S.Pelino_Cattedrale_Valvense/vignettes.htm
(again, wtw!)

This Madonna with Child graces a wall of the belltower (wtw!):
http://www.liceoscientificosulmona.it/ROMANICO-ABRUZZESE/Schede-
edifici/S_PELINO_A_CORFINIO/FOTO_S_PELINO/MADONNA.jpg

The interior of the cathedral sports a twelfth-century ambo (wtw!):
http://www.liceoscientificosulmona.it/ROMANICO-ABRUZZESE/Schede-
edifici/S_PELINO_A_CORFINIO/FOTO_S_PELINO/AMBONE.jpg

The "gothic" portal of Sulmona's cathedral (also a project of abbot-
bishop Transmundus) bears statuary niches housing images of Panfilo
(its dedicatee) and of Pelino (wtw!):
http://www.liceoscientificosulmona.it/ROMANICO-ABRUZZESE/Schede-
edifici/S_PANFILO-A-SULMONA/FOTO_S_PANFILO/PROSPETTO.jpg

For more architectural views and descriptions from the same region, see:
http://www.liceoscientificosulmona.it/ROMANICO-ABRUZZESE/indice.htm

Best,
John Dillon

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