medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (31. May) is the feast day of:
1) Petronilla (??). P. (also Petronella) is a Roman martyr of the cemetery of Domitilla on the Via Ardeatina. Not mentioned in the _Depositio martyrum_ of the Chronographer of 364, she had a burial place behind the apse of the the underground basilica erected by pope St. Siricius (384-99) in honor of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus. A wall painting in that part of the church, discovered by De Rossi in the early 1870s, shows P., identified as a martyr, holding the hand of St. Veneranda:
http://www.umilta.net/veneranda1.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/39u3g5
If the _Liber Pontificalis_ may be trusted on this point, by the time of pope Paul I (757-67), P.'s remains were kept in that church in a sarcophagus identifying her as Aur[elia] Petronilla, She may have been related to the Flavians, some of whom, having become Christian, founded the cemetery and some of whose males bore the cognomen Petro. The age of the cemetery (late first- or very early second-century) and the similarity of P.'s name to that of St. Peter gave rise to the belief that she had been his daughter. P., no longer a martyr, appears in this role in the originally late antique Passio of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus (BHL 6058, 6060, 6063, perhaps others), whence she entered the historical martyrologies and ultimately the RM.
The martyr P.'s resting place is in all the seventh-century itineraries for Rome pilgrims; one even refers to the church there as dedicated to her. In the eighth century at the behest of king Pepin Paul I removed her sarcophagus to the Vatican, where it was placed in the circular building near Old St Peter's that became known as the Chapel of St. Petronilla and that was especially significant to rulers of France. When the present St. Peter's was built, that chapel was demolished and a chapel dedicated to P. was established in the new building. A very different dedication to P. is her church at Whepstead (Suffolk), shown and discussed here:
http://www.crsbi.ac.uk/ed/sf/wheps/index.htm
P. had several aspects during the later Middle Ages. Here she is, healing the sick (or at least receiving supplications from them), in a fourteenth-century illumination at Paris, BN, Ms. Français 185, f. 218:
http://tinyurl.com/2aqv4p
and here, from the "Elsässische Legenda Aurea", is a representation of her Passio:
http://tinyurl.com/chgpz
2) Cantius, Cantianus, and Cantianilla (d. ca. 304). According to their legend, preserved in a sermon by St. Maximus of Turin and in several versions of their Acta (BHL 1543, etc.) C., C., and C. were two brothers and a sister of a Roman aristocratic family martyred along with their tutor St. Protus at a place called Aquae Gradatae_ near Aquileia. Known collectively as the Cantiani, they are in all the historical martyrologies. Their cult, attested to for Aquileia by Venantius Fortunatus, spread widely in today's northern Italy and Slovenia. Outative relics of them traveled much farther.
Remains of a fourth-century memorial structure belonging to this cult have been excavated at the reputed site of of these saints' suffering, today's San Canzian d'Isonzo (GO) in Friuli - Venezia Giulia. These included sarcophagi inscribed with the names of the Cantiani's two companions Protus and Chrysogonus. Human remains found under an altar there have been said to be those of two males and a female, all closely related.
Herewith an illustrated, English-language page on the church of St. Cantianus at Kranj in Slovenia:
http://www.ntz-nta.si/en/default.asp?id=5844
One of the thumbnail views on this page:
http://www.aquileia.net/basilica_3.htm
is of the fourteenth-century "sarcophagus" (thought to be probably an altar frontal) in the Patriarchal Basilica at Aquileia depicting the Cantiani and Protus.
Best,
John Dillon
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