medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (4. February) is the feast day of:
1) Eutychius (??). E. is a Roman martyr of the Via Appia. According to his epitaph by pope St. Damasus I (whose rendering in stone is now displayed in San Sebastiano fuori le Mura), he was tortured by denial of sleep for twelve days, by starvation, and by being cast into a pit. Damasus, whose account of E. has been thought suspiciously reminiscent of the reported torture of St. Lucian of Antioch, claims to have been told in a vision where to find E.'s remains. Since 1577 relics identified as those of E. have reposed with those of Damasus under the high altar of San Lorenzo in Damaso.
A text of Damasus' epitaph for E. will be found in the second section here:
http://tinyurl.com/ytr9gu
NB: The dates given on that page for E. are those frequently assigned to pope St. Eutychian (with whom the apparently quite distinct E. has sometimes been identified).
2) Rabanus Maurus (d. 856). R (or H. if you prefer the spelling 'Hrabanus') was born in Mainz. Early in life he became a monk at Fulda, whence in 802 he was sent to Tours for further study under Alcuin. After a year he returned to Fulda, where he eventually became head of the monastic school and then, in 822, abbot. In the early 840s he resigned that office following an imperial regime change and left Fulda. In 847, having been reconciled to the rule of Louis the German, he was named archbishop of Mainz.
The learned R. is best known for his writings, especially the early collection of figure poems _De laudibus Sanctae Crucis_, commentaries on many books of the Bible, the encyclopedic _De rerum naturis_, and one form of the hymn _Veni creator spiritus_. Among his many other works is a martyrology.
Here's a page of expandable images from the Vatican Library's famous manuscript (BAV, Vat. lat. 124) of the _De laudibus Sanctae Crucis_:
http://www.almaleh.com/raban.htm
Other views are here:
http://tinyurl.com/bkt65
That manuscript's presentation portrait of R. (recipient is pope Gregory IV):
http://www.almaleh.com/images/rabanmaur.jpg
Another presentation portrait of R. (recipient is archbishop Otgar of Mainz), in Vienna, ÖNB, Codex Vindobonensis 652:
http://tinyurl.com/22fj9y
A Tree of Jesse from a much later manuscript of the _De laubdibus Sanctae Crucis_ (Douai, Bib. municipale, MS 340, f. 11):
http://tinyurl.com/2b9ewc
Some views of ornamental initials from a twelfth- or thirteenth-century manuscript of R.'s _Expositio libri Numerorum_
(University of Oregon Libraries, Burgess Collection, ms. 9):
http://libweb.uoregon.edu/ec/exhibits/burgess/ms9i.html
And a view of an ornamental initial in a decorated copy, at the University of Oklahoma Libraries, of a 1469 incunable of R.'s _De rerum naturis_ (a.k.a., sed perperam, _De universo_):
http://tinyurl.com/27kth5
One of the treasures of the cathedral museum in Mainz is this later thirteenth-century portrait bust of R. as archbishop:
http://images.bistummainz.de/1/15/2/11386991212430992.jpg
3) Jaanne of Valois (d. 1505). J. (also Jeanne de France) was a daughter of Louis XI of France and Charlotte of Savoy. Her father married her as a child to the duke of Orléans. When the latter succeeded to the throne of France in 1498 as Louis XII he got pope Alexander VI (of blessed memory??) to grant him an annulment, claiming that J. was afflicted with physical deformities that prevented them from consummating their union. Louis was then free to marry his predecessor's widow in order to retain Brittany (of which she was the heiress) in the kingdom and J. (now the duchess of Berry) was free to live a life of piety in her castle at Bourges. Here together with her confessor, Bl. Gilbert Nicholas OFM, she founded the Order of the Ten Virtues of the Virgin Mary ("Les Annonciades").
J.'s cult seems to have arisen shortly after her death. She was beatified in 1772 and canonized in 1950. An English-language version of her and Gilbert Nicholas' _Rule of the Ten Evangelical Virtues of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary_ is here:
http://www.padrimariani.org/en/resources/r_rule_virtues.html
There's a portrait of J. here (but no credits):
http://www.historiesajten.se/visainfo.asp?id=495
Best,
John Dillon
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