medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (15. May) is the feast day of:
1) Simplicius "of Fausania" (d. before ca. 450; perh. 303). All we know for certain of this saint is the common fund of information given by the principal witnesses of the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology in its Italic recension: _In Sardinia Simplici_ ("In Sardinia, Simplicius/Simplicus"). Later witnesses unlikely to be drawing upon ancient testimony in this regard round out the notice by calling S. either priest or bishop.
A church dedicated to a saint Simplicius at Fausania, one of the predecessors of today's Olbia (OT) in the former judicate of Gallura, is first attested to in the eleventh century. Evidence for the antiquity of S.'s cult at Olbia and vicinity is said to be lacking. A somewhat later Passio making S. bishop of Fausania and assigning his martyrdom to the Diocletianic persecution confers antique distinction upon the diocese of Civita (as Olbia was called in the central and later Middle Ages). Despite its acceptance by the early modern editor of the Roman Martyrology, Cardinal Baronius, this account is fiction.
S.'s church at Olbia (its ex-cathedral, the diocese of Civita having been suppressed in 1503), on the other hand, is splendidly factual. Constructed chiefly of granite (much of it of the local pink variety), its colors are richer in some lights than in others. Particularly impressive is the band of really rosy brick (emblematic of a martyr?) on the rear wall above the apse and continuing for much of the way along the sides at the same height. Some images follow:
Exterior views, strong summer sunlight:
http://www.immaginidellasardegna.it/chiese/galleria9/index.html
Exterior in winter, colors better:
http://www.ilportalesardo.it/galleria/detail.asp?iType=2&iPic=44
Exterior (2 views), interior (1 view), excellent colors:
http://www.lamiasardegna.it/index.asp?page=101
(scroll down to "Basilica di San Simplicio"; click on views; enlargements will appear at upper right; click on these to enlarge)
Exterior details:
http://www.sansimplicio.org/chiesa/chiesa.htm
Exterior shots (front and rear), interior details:
http://www.ilportalesardo.it/monumenti/ssolbia.htm
Exterior and interior shots, good for interior height:
http://web.tiscali.it/Olbia2000/pages/sanSimplicio.htm
Exterior and interior shots, better for aisle structure:
http://www.quiolbia.it/sansimplicio.php
2) Hallvard (d. 1043, supposedly). Tradition makes H. the son of a prominent farmer of Huseby in Lier (Buskerud), Norway. He became a trader in the Baltic. One day, while his ship was in the Drammenfjord, he gave sanctuary on it to a women suspected of theft. In at least one account, she was pregnant. Her enemies shot him/them to death with arrows. Wishing to conceal H.'s fate, they tied a millstone to his body and threw it into the fjord. Miraculously, both the body and the millstone floated to the surface, H. was buried at Lier, then in the diocese of Oslo. In the twelfth century his relics were translated to Oslo's new cathedral dedicated to him (now a ruin). H., who has been shown on the city's seal since the fourteenth century, is Oslo's patron saint.
Some views of the remains of Oslo's Hallvardskatedralen:
http://tinyurl.com/2ec46m
http://www.miljostatus.no/upload/3989/Pil03_600.jpg
http://www.middelalder.no/graphics/Img0020_x400.jpg
The restored, originally early thirteenth-century church of St. Nicholas at Botne in Holmestrand (Vestfold) has a thirteenth-century wooden statue of H., shown in color in the last image on this page:
http://home.no.net/midkrkvf/botne.htm
and in black-and-white here:
http://www.lier.kommune.no/liers-historie/5-117.gif
An originally thirteenth-century church at Løvøy in Borre (Vestfold) is dedicated to H. (and to St. Martin of Tours). Here's an illustrated accountr of it in its present restored state:
http://home.no.net/midkrkvf/lovoya.htm
Whereas this page has some revealing, expandable views of the building prior to restoration:
http://tinyurl.com/yp4d5c
And here's a view of H.'s holy spring at Lier:
http://www.olavsrosa.no/images/251872.jpg
Lucky Oslo: it gets to celebrate its patron saint just before the national holiday (Syttende mai, commemorating the signing of independent Norway's constitution on 17. May 1814).
Best,
John Dillon
(Simplicius from last year's post, lightly revised)
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