medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (16. November) is the feast day of:
1. Augustine and Felicity of Capua (d. ca. 250?). These less well known saints of the Regno are martyrs listed for today and again for tomorrow in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology. By the end of the fourth century it was thought that they were victims of the Decian persecution. They were figured in the now lost mosaics of the late fifth-/early sixth-century church of St. Priscus at today's San Prisco (CE) in Campania, an extramural survivor of (Old) Capua. In eighth- and ninth-century calendars and sacramentaries from the region they are identified as a bishop of Capua and his mother. In the same period their remains were said to have been translated to Benevento.
2. Fidentius (d. ca. 305, supposedly). F. has an Inventio (BHL 2927; summarized by Pietro de Natalibus) that makes him a martyr of Armenian origin put to death at Altino under Maximian. He has been venerated from the ninth century onward at several locales in the Veneto, most notably in the diocese of Padua. An Inventio from that city (no BHL number but said to be similar in many respects to BHL 2927) makes him its third bishop, martyred under Marcus Aurelius (so ca. 168) at the village of Polverara, where his remains were said to have been miraculously found in the tenth century. According to this account, when the newly discovered saint was being translated to Padua for reburial in its cathedral he got no farther than just outside the church of St. Thomas the Apostle at Megliadino, where the bullocks that were transporting him halted and would not budge.
The parish church of today's Megliadino San Fidenzio (PD) has been dedicated to F. since at least the thirteenth century. The present church is modern. Here's a view of its predecessor, rebuilt between 1235 and 1245 and demolished between 1888 and 1906:
http://www.comune.megliadinosanfidenzio.pd.it/storia/antica2.htm
3. Simeon of La Cava (Blessed; d. 1140). Simeon was the fifth abbot and first Blessed of the great abbey of the Most Holy Trinity at today's Cava de' Tirreni (SA) in Campania; his four predecessors are all officially Saints. He served during a time of expansion of his wealthy institution's temporal holdings in southern Italy and of improvements to its physical plant at its main site in front of and in Monte Finestre (near Salerno). The east side of the abbey's cloister may date from his tenure:
Plan:
http://tinyurl.com/r3fbg
Views:
http://community.webshots.com/photo/87698289/1087699105036367367BEqzgg
http://community.webshots.com/photo/87698289/1087699228036367367DUGmCv
http://community.webshots.com/photo/87698289/1087699168036367367PWsYPj
http://community.webshots.com/photo/87698289/1087699330036367367jslREb
S. completed the monastery's recently established castle at what is now Castellabate (SA) and purchased from the count of Acerno the adjacent port of Lu Traversu, thus giving the abbey a port on the Tyrrhenian sea just below the Gulf of Salerno to go with its two more northerly ones at Vietri and Cetara. He is also credited with instituting land reforms that increased agricultural production in the interior and that turned Castellabate's formerly swampy coast into a prosperous fishing and trading zone.
Best,
John Dillon
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