medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (8. February) is the feast day of:
1) Quinta of Alexandria (d. 249). Q., whose name in Greek is spelled as Kouinta (whence through a process of transliteration she was known in the medieval Latin west as Cointa or, with an added 'h', Cointha) was one of the martyrs of Alexandria in Egypt during its anti-Christian riots in the year preceding the Decian persecution. According to Eusebius (_H. E._ 6. 41), she was brought into a pagan temple and and ordered to perform an act of adoration. When she refused, her feet were bound together and she was dragged through the streets of the city, whose paving stones pulped her. Still alive, she was taken to a suburb and stoned to death.
Florus of Lyon composed a lengthy elogium for these martyrs of Alexandria, locating it in his martyrology at 20. February. Ado of Vienne chopped this into pieces, assigning individual martyrs to different days. In Ado's scheme (followed in this particular by Usuard), Q. (or C.) was assigned today's date.
For USAmericans, here's a view of La Quinta of Alexandria:
http://tinyurl.com/2mkb2f
2) Honoratus of Milan (d. ca. 570). Paul the Deacon tells us that H., bishop of Milan fled his city during the Lombard advance (568-569) and took refuge in Genoa, where he died (perhaps of the plague). Although Genoa remained the seat of the Catholic (as opposed to the Arian) archdiocese of Milan until some years after the Lombard conquest of coastal Liguria in 640, H.'s remains are said to have been returned to Milan for burial. At some point they were translated to that city's basilica of Sant'Eustorgio. In the early fifteenth century O. was being celebrated in Milan on 8. _January_.
An illustrated, English-language overview of Milan's Sant'Eustorgio is here:
http://www.discountmilano.com/tour/Secoli/SantEustorgio/
And a very nice panoramic tour is accessible here:
http://milano.arounder.com/
(click on the next-to-lowest orange dot).
Remains of the late antique church beneath the apse:
http://www.santeustorgio.it/museo/images/sottocoro.jpg
http://www.santeustorgio.it/foto/images/sottocoroNew.jpg
3) Ælfleda of Whitby (d. 714). Æ.'s (or E.'s, if you prefer 'Elfleda') father was Oswiu, king of Northumbria. In gratitude for his victory over the not-Christian king Penda of Mercia, O. dedicated her to God and placed her in the care of nuns at today's Hartlepool in County Durham. When abbess St. Hilda founded from Hartlepool the monastery that became Whitby Abbey in today's North Yorkshire, she brought Æ. with her. Æ. in turn became abbess herself, along with her widowed mother Eanflæd. She became known for resolving disputes, including, it is said, reconciling Sts. Wilfrid of York and Theodore of Canterbury after pope St. Agatho had affirmed T.'s division of W.'s see of Northumbria into four dioceses.
Bede's prose Vita of St. Cuthbert (BHL 2021) relates two miracles involving that saint and Æ. In the first of these she was ill and expressed a desire to have some article of his clothing, as that would cure her. Soon she received a girdle from him. She wore it and, lo, she was swiftly cured. In the second, C. was in her presence when he received a vision of a man being carried by angels to heaven.
A brief, English-language account of Whitby Abbey is here:
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/england/whitby-abbey.htm
Another, with a virtual tour of the ruins:
http://tinyurl.com/wy23
English Heritage's virtual tour:
http://tinyurl.com/2wa6pt
4) John of Matha (d. 1213). J. was born in Provence at today's Faucon (Basses-Alpes). He studied law and theology at Paris, where he then taught and was ordained priest. At the first mass he celebrated he received a vision of the Lord holding two prisoners, one black and one white, in chains. After a few more years of teaching he founded the Oder of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Redemption of Captives, approved by Innocent III in 1198 and commonly known as the Trinitarians.
At Rome, in 1209, the Trinitarians rebuilt the ancient church of San Tommaso in Formis, so called because it was sited next to an aquaduct. Next to this they built a hospital. From the street one can see remnants of the hospital's ornamental portal:
http://www.romeartlover.it/Vasi52f5.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/lpb3d
The restored early thirteenth-century mosaic above the entrance
http://tinyurl.com/ol5f8
, signed by Jacopo Cosmati the elder and by Cosma Cosmati, early members of the famed family of mosaicists and stoneworkers, depicts J.'s vision.
Best,
John Dillon
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