medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (5. April) is the feast day of:
1) Gerard (Gerald, etc.) of Sauve-Majeure (d. 1095). G. (also G. of Corbie) was a monk of Corbie who in time became his abbey's cellerarius. Although he was afflicted with chronic and severe head pains, which the medical art had been unable to cure, he joined his abbot on a trip to Rome in 1050 to defend at the papal court his abbey's interests. When they got to Rome they visited the tombs of the Apostles, where G. prayed in vain for healing. But the pope, St. Leo IX, was then in southern Italy for the first of what became a series of disappointing ventures in that region.
G. and his abbot also went south, where they were robbed of all the money G. was carrying for the abbey. They made their way with difficulty to Montecassino, where G.'s prayers to St. Benedict had no noticeable effect upon his medical condition, and then proceeded to the sanctuary of St. Michael on the Gargano. There they met up with Leo and conducted their business. The Archangel, alas, was ineffective at obtaining a cure for G. On their return to Corbie in 1051 they found that the abbey church had been damaged by a fire. Put in charge of its rebuilding, G. erected an altar to the abbey's own St. Adelard (canonized in 1024), asking for the relief he had elsewhere sought in vain. This time his wish was granted.
In 1073 G. undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He had not been back very long when he was elected abbot of St-Vincent at Laon in place of his recently deceased brother. After a few years, when his attempts at reforming that house had not been successful, he resigned and became a hermit. He attracted followers and in 1079, with noble assistance, they founded in Aquitaine the great Benedictine abbey of Sauve-Majeure between the Gironde and the Dordogne. In 1081 they were able to begin construction on the abbey church. As abbot, G. developed a very saintly reputation and a cult followed shortly after his death. He was canonized in 1197.
G.'s relics are at the parish church of St-Pierre at La Sauve (Gironde). Three thumbnail views of this church, said to have been begun by G. in 1083, are here:
http://www.ingema.net/photo/fr-sauve94.jpg
http://www.ingema.net/photo/fr-sauve91.jpg
http://www.lasauvemajeure.com/pic/158/EGLISE1.JPG
The abbey G. founded is now a ruin. Five pages of views of the remains of its "romanesque" church are here:
http://www.art-roman.net/sauvemajeure/sauvemajeure.htm
Included on this page are views (some expandable) of the abbey's "gothic" belltower:
http://vivre-notre-present.activebb.net/ftopic279.La-sauve-Majeure.htm
The remains of the abbey and the church of St-Pierre are UNESCO World Heritage sites.
2) Albert of Montecorvino (d. 1127). Today's less well known saint of the Regno was bishop of the now vanished castle town of Montecorvino in northern Apulia. His extreme ascetic lifestyle led to physical blindness. But A. received visions and also performed miracles. He has a very brief Vita (BHL 231) by the humanist Alessandro Geraldini (d. 1524), who in 1496 became bishop of Montecorvino and Vulturara. Part of G.'s Office for A., it proclaims itself as a rewriting of a twelfth-century Life and Miracles by A.'s immediate successor, Richard, bp. of Montecorvino.
3) Vincent Ferrer (d. 1419). This famous Dominican studied and taught at various places in the Crown of Aragon before being ordained at Barcelona in 1379 by the cardinal who would become the Avignonese antipope Benedict XIII. He then became prior of his order's convent in his native Valencia but resigned in order to teach theology at the local cathedral school, a position that allowed him to preach, to administer the sacraments, and to employ his pen on behalf of Clement VII, whose claim to the papacy V. supported over that of Urban VI. In 1394 he was called to Avignon by Benedict XIII, whom he served as apostolic penitentiary and as Master of the Sacred Place.
In 1399, when it was clear to most that Benedict's cause was hopeless, V. succumbed to a serious illness during which he experienced a vision bidding him to preach Christ to the world. In 1399 he left Avignon and spent the remainder of his life as a highly sought itinerant preacher urging repentance and atonement before the day of Judgment. Miracles are said to have accompanied his apostolate. He died at Vannes (Morbihan) in Brittany. Expandable views of the house in Vannes where V. died and of his bust reliquary in the cathedral are here:
http://glossolalia.free.fr/PVf.htm
Some illustrated pages on the cathedral of Vannes:
http://tinyurl.com/33o3g3
http://tinyurl.com/2uhsat
http://tinyurl.com/36r7zn
V. was canonized in 1455 by his countryman Calixtus III. The bull of canonization followed in 1458, in the pontificate of Pius II. V.'s canonization Vita (BHL 8658) is by the Dominican humanist Pietro Ranzano of Palermo, inquisitor general for insular Sicily (a dominion of the Crown of Aragon) and afterward bishop of Lucera (in autonomous but strongly Aragonese-influenced mostly mainland Sicily, _vulgo_ Kingdom of Naples).
Best,
John Dillon
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