medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Yesterday (2. October) was the feast day of Eleutherius of Nicomedia
(d. 303), of Leodegar of Autun and of his brother Gerin (d. 678 and
677, respectively), of Theophilus of Seleution (d. ca. 750), as well as
of the Guardian Angels, on whom see this from a well known saint of the
Regno:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/111304.htm.
It was also the feast day of Modestus, venerated at Benevento (and
elsewhere in the Beneventan cultural area; d. 303, supposedly).
Yesterday's less well known saint from the Regno has a brief but
fulsome Passio (BHL 5983d) by the eleventh-century rhetorician Alberic
of Montecassino that makes him a deacon of Sardinian birth, of noble
parentage and ancestry, possessed of many virtues, and martyred
(somewhere) under Diocletian. It is apparent that Alberic knew either
nothing or next to nothing about M.; assuming for the nonce that
tradition rather than Alberic made our saint a deacon, a Sardinian, and
a martyr, we have no means of verifying that tradition's age or accuracy.
M.'s Passio was written for the Beneventan monastery of S. Modesto,
founded under Arichis II between 758 and 774. Early modern
ecclesiastical historians purveyed an equally legendary translation
account whereby the future pope Gregory I persuaded Pelagius II to send
M.'s remains to a Beneventan monastery of S. Maria ad Olivolam where
subsequently an altar was erected to him; for the sources of this one,
see Franco Bartoloni, ed., _Le piu' antiche carte dell'abbazia di S.
Modesto in Benevento (secoli VIII - XIII)_ (Roma: Istituto storico
italiano per il Medio Evo, 1950; Regesta Chartarum Italiae, v. 33), pp.
vii-xii. The monastery of S. Modesto lasted in practice until 1820 (in
1926 the title of abbot was granted to the pastor of the successor
parish of the same name), had many holdings, and was otherwise
influential over a broad area. Consequently M.'s cult was disseminated
more widely and for a longer period than that of the similarly
questionable Severus of Orvieto of recent mention in these listings.
Remains said to be those of M. were discovered at Montevergine in 1480
along with those of Januarius and other Beneventan saints. Whereas
Januarius was subsequently translated back to Naples (where he had been
prior to his early ninth-century repatriation by prince Sico of Benevento),
Montevergine managed to hold onto M., who has an altar and a display
reliquary in the crypt of that abbey's "new" basilica (opened to the
public in 1961).
Alberic's _Passio sancti Modesti levitae et martyris_ is at _Analecta
Bollandiana_ 51 (1933), 369-74. The former abbey church of S. Modesto
at Benevento was destroyed in the aerial bombardment of that city in
1943; I have been unable to find a Web-based view of it.
Best,
John Dillon
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