medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (16. June) is also the feast day of:
1. Ceccardus of Luna (early medieval; perhaps d. ca. 860). There's an
account of how little we really know about this Tuscan saint in the
list's archives for June 2004, subject: Re: saints of the day 16.
June. The links to views of Luni's cathedral all still work.
2. 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 built in
their honor a rural church on his property and who 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 kept in
Benevento) were donated to Telese and cult statues of the two saints
were made for their use there. San Martino Valle Caudina also has
relics of these saints, housed in a new (2001) church dedicated to them.
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 recall that at nearby Atripalda there was in the
twelfth century a cult of Sabinus, bishop of Abellinum, and of his
colleague, the deacon Romulus (9. February and 16. September,
respectively), 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 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, 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 person 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
of Campania.
Best,
John Dillon
(The note on Palerius is a revision of last year's post.)
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