medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Thursday, January 18, 2007, at 12:07 pm, Gordon Plumb wrote:
> The influence of Thomas Becket has been cited by several writers.
> Gervase of
> Canterbury tell us that Beckett ordained that the octave of Pentecost
> should
> be forever celebrated throughout his Province as the festival of the
> Holy
> Trinity. (He has been consecrated on that day and celebrated his
> first mass in the
> Prior Conrad's Trinity cHapel, burnt down four years later).
> Dedications to
> the Holy Trinity were relatively uncommon until the closing years of
> the 12th
> century. One source (Bond: Dedications of English Churches) says there
> were 297
> ancient dedications to the Holy Trinity.
Whereas in southern Italy dedications to the Trinity become noticeable in the eleventh century, first the abbey of La Cava (today's Cava de' Tirreni) near Salerno and later its associated houses at the Norman capitals of Venosa and Mileto. Further north, also from the eleventh century is Florence's originally Vallombrosan church of Santa Trinità, while a notable early twelfth-century dedication is SS. Trinità at Saccargia in northwestern Sardinia, consecrated in 1106 during a period of Pisan dominance. The Cavensian and Vallombrosan connections suggest an impetus from reformed Benedictine monasticism.
Again, England's being outside the Carolingian dominions may have caused it to miss a wave of imperially sponsored/promoted dedications to the Trinity, e.g. the early ninth-century church at Zadar in today's Croatia now known as Sv. Donat or the island abbey at Casauria in today's Abruzzo founded by Louis II in 873 (better known as San Clemente a Casauria). Also from the ninth century was the monastery of the Holy Trinity on Halki (Chalki) island near Istanbul, said to have been founded during the (interrupted) patriarchate of Photius I.
An earlier dedication to the Trinity is the church at Eleutheropolis in Palestine, where in the early seventh century the martyrs of Gaza were buried.
It would be interesting to see whether doctrinal conflicts of the fourth century led to Catholic dedications to the Trinity as a means of differentiation from Arians, semi-Arians, neo-Arians, and others whom Catholics decided to call "Arian".
Best,
John Dillon
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