medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (6. September) is the feast day of:
Eleutherius of Spoleto and of Rome (d. ca. 590). What we know about E.
comes from the _Dialogues_ of Gregory the Great and especially from
_Dial._ 3. 33, in which G. recounts three of E.'s miracles. After
serving as abbot of St. Mark the Evangelist at Spoleto, E. entered G.'s
monastery of St. Andrew at Rome, where he lived for many years until
his death. By the power of his prayer E. miraculously obtained for G.
the cure of a persistent and severe ailment of the digestive tract.
This experience caused G. to give credence to reports of other miracles
operated by E. at which G. was not present. G. cites two of these:
bringing a dead person back to life and, with the prayerful aid of his
monastic brethren, permanently curing a demonically possessed boy whom
E. in his pride had incorrectly proclaimed already healed.
E.'s _dies natalis_ is unknown. His commemoration today in the RM
would seem to derive from a mistaken identification (in Baronio's time
or earlier?) with a bishop Eleutherius recorded for today in the
(pesudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology with a grave or memorial on the Via
Salaria. The archdiocese of Spoleto - Norcia celebrates him on 5.
October.
G. tells us that the E.'s monastery at Spoleto was sited _in ... urbis
pomoeriis_, i.e. adjacent to the city wall. Its deconsecrated and now
decayed church of San Marco in pomeriis (whose crypt is said to go back
to the sixth century) and the ruins of other abbatial buildings are
still to be seen in Spoleto's borgo di Monterone. In this view, a
little bit of it is visible on the left:
http://www.artstudio.it/spoleto/images/009_05.jpg
A brief look at some of Spoleto's many better preserved medieval
churches is here:
http://www.argoweb.it/spoleto/chiese.uk.html
Best,
John Dillon
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