medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Yesterday (10. October) was also the feast day of:
Victor of Xanten (?). In light of the recent notices of Gereon and his
companions at Köln and of Cassius and Florentius at Bonn, it would be
remiss not to say something about their fellow supposed Theban
legionary from the Rheinland, the Victor venerated at Xanten. Xanten
is the medieval and modern descendant of the Roman Colonia Ulpia
Traiana, a town that grew up to service a really large legionary
encampment in Germania Inferior. So it had plenty of soldiers, though
whether the V. mentioned by Gregory of Tours in connection with other
relics here was ever a soldier is an open question. There seems little
doubt, though, that he belongs to a group of early Christian martyrs
venerated at the town's late Roman cemetery: the remains of memorial
structures have been found here, including one over a grave of someone
who had been beheaded. Just as at early medieval Köln, here too there
was an area of holy burials known as "ad sanctos" and from that
medieval Xanten took its name.
V.'s connection with the Theban legion seems to be of the same vintage
as those of Gereon and of Cassius and Felix, with early separate
mentions in the martyrologies followed by a thirteenth-century Passio
for all of them and by closely similar Offices for each saint or group
thereof. His Inventio is well over a century later than Gereon's (1284
as opposed to 1121). From the eighth century onward there was a canonry
dedicated to him at Xanten; St. Norbert, the twelfth-century founder of
the Premonstratensians, was famously unable to reform it (this is not
why N. is sometimes known as "Norbert of Xanten"; he was also born here
and here he began his ecclesiastical career).
Xanten's present cathedral was begun by the canons in 1190. Most of it
is "gothic" construction of the later thirteenth to early sixteenth
centuries. A couple of illustrated sites on it are here:
http://www.zum.de/Faecher/G/BW/Landeskunde/rhein/staedte/niederrhein/xan
ten/markt.htm
TinyURL for this: http://tinyurl.com/9b92v
and here:
http://www.premontre.org/subpages/loci/imagines/imxanten/galxanten.htm
A single exterior view:
http://www.xanten.de/img/bigimg/domstviktorkirmes.jpg
A different exterior view and five interior ones (all expandable):
http://oase.uci.kun.nl/~hvreenen/bio/20040102_dom_xanten/analoog/
This church has a spectacular main altar from 1525:
http://www.xanten.de/img/bigimg/hochaltar2.jpg
Its late-medieval altar of St. Martin is also noteworthy:
http://www.kirchensite.de/?myELEMENT=6328
And not to forget V.'s shrine:
http://www.bistumsjubilaeum2005.de/index.php?cat_id=9947
http://cms.kirchensite.de/image/Bistum/UnserBistum/schrein.jpg
Here he is as portrayed on the exterior of the cathedral in a statue
from 1468:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:StViktorXantenerDom.JPG
and, rather more recently, on his church at nearby Birten:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:BirtenKircheStatue.JPG
If Iskender Yediler is working on a head of V. to go with those of
Gereon and of Cassius and Florentius, I've read no report of it.
An English-language page on Roman-period Xanten is here:
http://www.livius.org/x/xanten/CUT.html
A good recent history of Xanten in the early and central Middle Ages is
Ingo Runge, _Xanten im frühen und hohen Mittelalter: Sagentradition,
Stiftsgeschichte, Stadtwerdung_ (Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2003;
Rheinisches Archiv, Bd. 147; Geschichte der Stadt Xanten, Bd. 2). This
devotes a fair amount of attention to V. and to his cult. A
description, with detailed table of contents, is here:
http://www.uni-duisburg.de/Institute/InKuR/Institut/pro-xanten.html
Best,
John Dillon
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