medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (2. June) is the feast day of:
1) Martyrs of Lyon and Vienne (d. 177). Eusebius (_H. E._, 5. 2) preserves a report, addressed to the churches of Asia, of these martyrs under Marcus Aurelius. Among them was the young slave Blandina. She is said to have been tortured, to have been exposed to wild beasts that did not molest her, and finally to have been burned alive in the amphitheater of Lyon. A view of the remains of that structure is here:
http://tinyurl.com/3avb74
The pillar near top left is a memorial to the martyrs.
2) Erasmus of Formiae (d. 303?). Today's somewhat well known saint of the Regno appears in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology (HM) as follows: _In Formiis in Campania Herasmi_ ("At Formiae in Campania, Erasmus"). In a letter of October 590 St. Gregory the Great notes that E.'s body reposes at Formiae (today's Formia in southern Lazio). In the sixth century there was a monastery named for him at Rome. His Latin _Passio_ (there's also a Greek version that has been thought the original but has recently been shown to be a translation from the Latin) exists in three late antique and early medieval recensions whose texts make him a bishop of Antioch on the Orontes tortured almost to death under Diocletian, guided by an angel to Formiae, and received thence into heaven very shortly thereafter.
E. thus has a form of the standard Campanian legend of a bishop (variant: holy virgin) coming from abroad, usually with angelic assistance, and often dying soon afterwards (variant: already dead en route). Recension B includes a sparkling prosimetric version now attributed to the tenth-century Neapolitan hagiographer Peter the Subdeacon; recension C is distinguished by the later eleventh-century work of the Cassinese prose stylist John of Gaeta, later
papal chancellor and ultimately pope (as Gelasius II). Texts that make E. bishop _of_ Formiae and combine this with the testimony of HM to make him actually martyred there are later and alien to this tradition. Later too, after E. had become a patron of sailors, comes the tale of the winding out his innards with a windlass.
Since the eleventh century E. has reposed at Gaeta, the south Italian port once the chief town of the early medieval duchy that included Formia. His cathedral at Gaeta, consecrated in 1106, has been much rebuilt. Herewith some views of its recently restored twelfth-/thirteenth-century belltower:
http://www.santuariodellacivita.it/s_erasmo_gaeta.htm
http://tinyurl.com/rp8d5
http://tinyurl.com/32rfqp
http://tinyurl.com/34odxm
Belltower entrance, with spolia:
http://tinyurl.com/2gpanm
Gaeta's cathedral has a wonderful late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century Paschal candlestick historiated with scenes in relief form E.'s Passio:
http://tinyurl.com/yrph2q
detail:
http://tinyurl.com/2fpgfp
more details here:
http://web.tiscali.it/serasmoformia/passioserasmi.html
E. is one of Formia's patron saints and the principal patron saint of Gaeta. In the early and central Middle Ages his cult spread across today's coastal Campania and southern Lazio and it was from the ports there that he became a seaman's saint, often under the name form 'Elmo' (a typically Campanian pronunciation of his hypocorism 'Ermo'). There are chapels and other churches dedicated to him around much of the western Mediterranean. From at least the thirteenth century E. was thought of as a healing saint and hospices were named for him. Herewith an illustrated, Italian-language page on the much rebuilt church of one of these, Sant'Erasmo at Legnano (MI), associated with the Milanese author Bonvesin de la Riva (ca. 1240-ca.1315):
http://www.legnano.org/reteciv/martinella/chiese/serasmo.htm
Finally, a few late medieval and early Renaissance depictions of E.:
Church of Saint Andrew, Hempstead (Norfolk), detail of rood screen, E. with windlass and entrails:
http://tinyurl.com/22prtd
Mariakyrkan, Båstad (Skåne län), fifteenth-century wall painting:
http://tinyurl.com/yp2w24
Bouts, Dieric/Thierry, _Triptyque du Martyre de saint Érasme_ (between 1457 and 1475; kept in Louvain's Église Saint-Pierre), center panel:
http://tinyurl.com/29r82z
Matthias Grünewald, _The Meeting of St. Erasmus and St. Maurice_ (ca. 1520-1524), now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich
http://latin.bestmoodle.net/media/grunewa4.jpg
3) Marcellinus and Peter (d. 304). M., a priest, and P., familiar to some from their presence in the canon of the Roman Mass, are Roman martyrs buried in that portion of the cemetery _ad duas lauros_ that was later named for them. They have an epitaph in verse by pope St. Damasus and a legendary Passio (BHL 5230, etc.; originally late sixth-century?). The emperor Constantine erected over/near their graves a basilica connected to his mausoleum that ultimately was used for St. Helena. This was a fixture in the seventh-century guidebooks for pilgrim to Rome. In 827 pope Gregory IV sent their relics to Charlemagne's biographer, Einhard, for his monastery at Seligenstadt. E.'s account of this translation and the saints' metrical Passio ascribed to him are BHL 5233 and 5232, respectively.
The first illustration on this page is of a fragment of Damasus' epitaph for M. and P. as erected at their resting place:
http://www.santiquattrocoronati.org/NN/4_3ai.htm
Rome's early modern church of Santi Marcellino and Pietro occupies a site in the vicinity of these martyrs' graves on which there had been a church since the fourth century. It only received relics of them in 1256.
Here's a fifteenth-century illumination of the martyrdom of M. and P. in an illustrated copy of Vincent de Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ (Paris, BN, Ms. Français 50):
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Marcellinus_Petrus.jpg
4) Guido (Wido) of Acqui (d. 1070). G. belonged to a wealthy noble family, became a cathedral canon of Acqui -- today's Acqui Terme (AL) in Piedmont --, and was elected its bishop in 1034. His Vita (BHL 8873), written around 1260 and ascribed to one Laurentius Calceatus (or Lorenzo Calciati), sounds the chimes on his various virtues, tells us that he had been a student at the university of Bologna (not founded until 1088), has some factual information about his family, and notes the one thing for which he's still remembered at Acqui: completing construction of the present cathedral. It goes on to add a few postmortem miracles underscoring G.'s sanctity. G.'s cult was confirmed in 1853. He is Acqui Terme's patron saint.
Acqui's cathedral, consecrated in 1067, has been rebuilt several times. Its transept and apses preserve their early, "romanesque" form. The belltower is originally of the thirteenth century. A few exterior views:
http://www.ilmonferrato.info/ov/acqui/duomo.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/nzpft
http://www.thais.it/architettura/romanica/schede/scm_00047.htm
The cathedral is dedicated to the Virgin of the Assumption. A sculpture from 1481 in the lunette over the main portal illustrates this subject:
http://tinyurl.com/pwzbo
Inside, fragments of a late eleventh- or early twelfth-century mosaic floor (very similar to the twelfth-century one in the cathedral of Novara) have been found in the presbytery. Views of four of these, including one naming Guido, are here (top two; the bottom two are parallels from Novara):
http://tinyurl.com/js6g9
and here:
http://tinyurl.com/zwmzk
There's a sculpted portrait of G. next to the cathedral's main portal:
http://santiebeati.it/immagini/Original/90996/90996A.JPG
There's another representation of him, from 1400, on the Bishop's Palace:
http://www.lancora.com/monografie/san_guido/san_guido_sismondi.jpg
Whereas today is both G.'s _dies natalis_ and his day in the RM, in the diocese of Acqui the practice is to celebrate him on the second Sunday of July.
5) Nicholas the Pilgrim (d. 1094). This less well known saint of the Regno was a teenaged monk from mainland Greece who undertook a pilgrimage to Rome. But he never proceeded beyond Apulia, where he spent a few years wandering around its central and southern ports (all of which had Greek-speaking residents), proclaiming the Lord in Greek, attracting followers, and dying young at Trani. Miracles were reported at his tomb. N. was canonized in 1098 during the Council of Bari. In the early twelfth century a dossier on him was put together for use at Trani, containing a translation from the Greek of an account of N.'s life before his arrival in Apulia, Adelfer of Trani's account of N.'s doings in Apulia, and Amandus of Trani's account of N.'s canonization and of his translation to Trani's cathedral (BHL 6223-6226).
Trani's mostly twelfth-/early thirteenth-century cathedral of San Nicola Pellegrino is always worth a look. A few images (all exterior) are here:
http://tinyurl.com/2gobyc
An illustrated, Italian-language page with a good selection of views is here:
http://www.mondimedievali.net/Edifici/Puglia/Trani.htm
For more, go here
http://www.trani.biz/cattedrale.html
and keep clicking on "successiva" (near the bottom)!
Best,
John Dillon
(Erasmus, Guido of Acqui, and Nick the Pilgrim revised from earlier posts)
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