medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Monday, August 28, 2006, at 3:57 am, John Briggs wrote:
> Memorial of St Hermes.
Hermes of Rome (ca. 304?). H. is a martyr of the Via Salaria, recorded
under this date in the Depositio Martyrum of 354 and in the
(pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology, both of which say that he was laid to
rest in the cemetery of Basilla. In 1932 and in 1940 fragments of the
original marble plaque of his epitaph by pope St. Damasus (Ferrua no.
48), previously known only from an incomplete copy in a manuscript
sylloge, were found in an underground chamber of this very cemetery.
This merely tells us that H. was a martyr who had come to Rome from
Greece and that he was long dead when the epitaph was written. Like
Basilla, he was probably a victim of the Great Persecution. In late
antiquity the legendary Passio of pope Alexander (BHL 266) made H. a
Roman city prefect converted by A. and martyred under Trajan (well
before the cemetery of Basilla came into use); for details see his
sample dossier from the University of Manchester's Roman Martyrs Project:
http://www.art.man.ac.uk/cla/samples.htm
In the late fourth century H.'s gravesite was already monumental. A
century later, pope Pelagius I (579-90) erected a subterranean basilica
here. That church is recorded in the pilgrim itineraries of the seventh
century and was restored in the eighth by pope Adrian I (772-95). In
the early fourteenth century it was no longer in use. Rediscovered in
the early seventeenth century, it forms part of what is now referred to
as the catacomb of Hermes. An above-ground monastery serving the site
is recorded at various times through 1188.
Both this catacomb church and H.'s listings in early medieval
sacramentaries and martyrologies contributed to the diffusion of his
cult throughout western Europe. Two places where he is especially
venerated are Ronse (Renaix) in Belgium's Oost-Vlaanderen province and
the city of Salzburg in Austria. Here are some views of Ronse's
collegiate church dedicated to H., whose claim to have relics of him is
documented from 1160 onward:
http://www.carillon.org.au/usyd/renaix/
http://enkiri.com/europe/belgium/vlaanderen/ronse941.html
http://www.cornelissen.de/name/cor_bel2.htm
And here he is (so to speak) in that church:
http://proculaine.ifrance.com/hermes2.jpg
Salzburg's Museum Carolino Augusteum houses this panel from an
altarpiece of 1449 by Conrad Laib showing H. in what is said to be a
Buergermeister's (mayor's) costume, appropriate in its way for a
supposed city prefect of ancient Rome:
http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.history.data.jpg/001474.jpg
Detail view:
http://www.salzburg-city.com/history/got1.jpg
Finally, the village church of Warbeyen (Kreis Kleve) in Germany's Land
Nordrhein-Westfalen is dedicated to the BVM and to H. but is usually
referred to simply as Sankt Hermes. Its choir and nave are from the
fourteenth and mid-sixteenth centuries respectively. Here's a distance
view:
http://www.warbeyen.de/Kirche.jpg
Exterior, front (tower is modern):
http://tinyurl.com/f7pxs
Exterior, nave:
http://www.helmut-verhuelsdonk.de/warb2.jpg
Exterior, choir:
http://www.helmut-verhuelsdonk.de/warb4.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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